Bengal's communist communes mirror the political wilderness of India's Left

Stacks of valuable books gathering dust, a divan-sized kempt bed that no one seems to have slept on for days, or maybe years, a thick layer of dirt settled on another adjacent wooden cot and an untidy desk with piles of paper.

The setting in the about 12X18-feet room is a sad commentary on the ideology and dream held close to the heart by those who once occupied it.

Portraits of its past inmates donning the wall of an adjacent room hark back to the good days that the sprawling ground-floor tenement of four rooms and a kitchen in the heart of Kolkata was witness to.

It’s an impressive line-up, a veritable who’s who of Communist Party of India (Marxist). One of the founding members of communist movement in India Muzzafar Ahmad was sharing the space on the wall with other prominent communists such as Hashi Dutta, Kamal Sarkar, Robin Sen, Samar Mukherjee, Abdullah Rasool, Nirod Chakraborty and Mahadeb Saha.

An unused medical bed piled with books in one corner of the house was said to be used by iconic Communist leader Jyoti Basu.

“After Jyoti Babu’s demise [in 2010], this [bed] was sent here by the party for the use of an ailing Samar-da (former MP and CPI(M) politburo member late Samar Mukherjee),” recalls Aprajita Pahari, wife of CPI(M) whole-timer Keshab Pahari, who now lives in the house with his family.

Telltale signs of such asceticism that are now part of communist folklore are palpable all around in this emblematic address — Suresh Kutir, 9 Dilkusha Street, Kolkata 700017 — for the posterity to document a unique tradition of communal living.

The tradition spawned from a unique concoction of idealism and necessity. The British government outlawed the Communist Party of India in 1934. The ban was lifted in 1942, but by 1948 the then Congress government under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru launched a massive crackdown against the communists. The Communist Party of India was banned in many states and its prominent leaders, including SA Dange, Muzzafar Ahmad, Jyoti Basu among others, were put behind bars. By 1949, the number of communists under detention was about 2,500 across India.

When they were released from jail ahead of the country’s first general elections in 1951-52, the party rented residences to house some of the bachelor leaders like Muzzafar Ahmad.

Those were the days when many youths were shunning everything personal, including their family, for an alternative lifestyle and a world order propagated by the communists.

They found place in these tenements under the wings of communist stalwarts. Soon, communist communes dotted the towns and cities of Bengal and elsewhere. In the 1960s, many communes even sprouted in the United States amid the civil rights movement, anti-war protests and sexual revolution.

By the time the CPM-led Left Front came to power in West Bengal in 1977, communes became thriving centres of communist intellectual discourse and idealism, with every Left outfit running such places in almost every important town and city of Bengal.

“The commune tradition is based on the Marxist philosophy and basic socialist ideology of collective life,” says Amitava Chatterjee, a politburo member of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist).

“The leaders living in the communes through their own lifestyle are expected to set an example before the young comrades so that they can grow up to become builders of a higher social, ethical society,” Chatterjee adds.

His views are endorsed by CPM whole-timer Keshab Pahari, who has been staying in the party’s Dilkusha commune since 1995. He was in his early 20s at that time.

“When I went to stay in the commune at Dilkhusa, only Samar-da (Mukherjee) and Hashi da (Dutta) were there. Comrade Dr Mahadev Saha used to stay here whenever he came from Delhi. It was a great learning experience for young comrades like me listening to their discussions and seeing their life credo of simple living and high thinking,” says Pahari.

“All the inmates of the commune from leaders to those being led needed to maintain almost a similar lifestyle provided out of their common minimum contribution.”

Every penny, Pahari adds, spent from the common fund was accounted for.

“The best part was to listen to them discussing contemporary politics at the dining table. The system was that all the inmates should eat together.”

Pahari goes on to recall how most of the inhabitants used to share their lunch with drivers, servants and visitors to save party funds.

“Where will you find such dedications among the new generation of comrades who have acquired trappings of earthly pleasures?” asks CPI leader Manju Kumar Majumdar.

However, the Dilkusha commune, set up in 1967, was a shadow of its past self even in the mid-1990s with just two ageing communist leaders trying to keep alive the tradition seen as a quaint idea by the new generation of comrades.

Ideological bankruptcy had already set in among most comrades, who had been ruling the states for about two decades by then.

The Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) still runs a few communes in Kolkata, where senior leaders share their life with junior comrades.

The tradition, however, is almost dying in bigger communist parties as new generation comrades and apparatchiks are not drawn to such self-abnegating living.

This dying tradition today perhaps sums up the crisis in the Indian Left, which is struggling for relevance in Bengal as well as across the country. The results of the Assembly elections last year bear testimony to it. In a state where the Left Front, a coalition of communist parties, was in power for more than three decades and was almost invincible, drew a blank in the polls and has virtually been obliterated.

“The dedication, sincerity and commitment to the party’s ideology are missing today,” admits a senior CPI(M) leader who wishes to remain anonymous. In today’s politics, he adds, truthfulness is seen as betrayal.