Left no more in centre stage as communism turns 100 in India

A hundred years ago, in 1925, two Communist parties were born in Asia – one in India, then a British colony, and the other in Korea, then a colony of Imperial Japan.

Four years before, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has ruled China since 1949, was born in 1921. The Vietnamese Communist Party, which since 1975 has ruled United Vietnam (after the merger of the North and South following the US withdrawal), was born in 1930.

The Korean Communist Party, crippled by massive Japanese repression, later merged into the Korean Workers Party that now rules North Korea as a one-party state but is banned in South Korea, which has a Western parliamentary system. Korea, like India, is also a partitioned entity – one people, two countries, two systems.

Nascent origins in India

The Indian Communist Party came into being in 1925 at the first conference of the party in Kanpur, with SV Ghate as the first general secretary. The poorly-organised party operated through several front groups with limited coordination, as the British colonial government banned all communist activities. The leaders of the nascent party faced three conspiracy trials in the first half of the 1920s – the Peshawar and Meerut conspiracy cases followed by the Kanpur conspiracy case that implicated the founders – SA Dange, MN Roy, Muzaffar Ahmad, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani, Malayapuram Singaravelu, Ghulam Hussain, and RC Sharma.

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After India became independent in 1947 following the Partition, a splinter group formed the short-lived Pakistan Communist Party, interestingly in Calcutta. Later, in 1968, the Communist Party of East Pakistan was born, which became the Communist Party of Bangladesh after the birth of the new nation in 1971.

Splits, regroupings

In India, the Communist Party underwent two major splits since independence, and several minor ones followed by regroupings.

The first split in 1964, in the shadow of the Sino-Soviet rivalry that tore apart Communist movements across the world, led to the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which has now evolved into the largest communist party in India. It now rules Kerala and has run state governments for long years in West Bengal (1978-2011) and Tripura (1978-88/ 1993-2018).

The parent Communist Party of India (CPI) drew close to India's ruling Congress party in the 1960s-70s, even supporting the imposition of Emergency in 1975, but it is now part of the Left Front stewarded by the CPI(M). Talks of unity between the CPI and CPI(M) have failed to lead to a re-merger even though both parties now seem committed to the parliamentary path and not one of armed revolution – like the Communist and Maoist parties of neighbouring Nepal and the Marxist-Leninist Janata Vimukti Perumuna (JVP) that once espoused armed revolution but now participate in elections and run governments in a parliamentary system.

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Extremist wings

In 1967-69, another split tore the CPI(M) apart, with radical sections wedded to a Maoist-style armed revolution forming the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969.

In 1973, the original Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) again split, and a year later, the Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist (Liberation) was formed. In 2004, based on the merger of two radical groups, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) was formed.

The Maoist Party formed a People’s Guerilla Liberation Army (PGLA) and has led a fierce armed movement in a wide stretch from West Bengal's Jhargram to Maharastra's Gadchiroli, being particularly strong in tribal areas of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh.

Maoists on the back foot

In the last 14 months though, the Maoists are clearly on the back foot, having lost dozens of leaders and activists to a fierce government crackdown with many also surrendering. Reports indicate that the Maoist leaders are even considering opening negotiations, which they have ruled out so far. Home Minister Amit Shah says the Maoist movement will be neutralised completely by 2026.

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Like the Maoists, the parliamentary Communist parties in India are also on the downslide. Their strength in Parliament peaked in 2004, when the CPI(M) returned with 43 MPs, the CPI nine, and other left parties with nine more MPs. That was primarily due to the Left Front's stellar show in West Bengal, where it won 35 of the 42 seats. Twenty years later, the Left Front failed to win a single seat in West Bengal during the 2024 parliament elections.

'Historical blunder'

Though the Communist influence has been minimal beyond the states of West Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura, they missed out on a great chance to be in national power in 1996. With neither the Congress nor the BJP-backed alliances returning a clear majority in the parliamentary elections, a clutch of regional, socialist, and low-caste driven parties cobbled together a United Front government in Delhi. The leaders of these parties were unanimous in offering the post of Prime Minister to Jyoti Basu, who had been the West Bengal chief minister since 1978.

But the CPI(M) central committee decided against joining the coalition government and instead offered outside support. Basu, whose personal stature at the national level far exceeded that of his party, accepted the party's decision but lambasted it as a 'historical blunder'. That was the closest India had come to having a Communist prime minister. The CPI joined the coalition government and Indrajit Gupta became the first Communist home minister of India, marking his short tenure by starting a dialogue with the Naga rebel group, NSCN (I-M).

Many refuse to buy the CPI(M)'s logic of refusing to join the United Front government because the party lacked enough strength to push through its own policies and programmes. In any case, the party justifies joining state governments to provide 'temporary relief' to the people.

Missed the bus

Analysts say the leadership of both Communist parties are risk-averse and have missed the bus, failing to make the most of opportunities coming their way. They say the party leaders have a flawed understanding of the national reality, especially the situation in the populous northern and western states, which has prevented their growth in these areas.

Ranabir Samaddar, who has written extensively on the Indian Left, says the communists have 'become a sect' delinked from society.

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"Yet, the communist movement has survived. In time, it transformed into the Left movement, gave birth to various Left mass formations, or inspired them, and at times the movement became bigger than the party," Samaddar wrote in a recent article. "The notion of Left gave communists respectability and security."

Survival for a hundred years may just be the only satisfaction for the Indian Communists, both of the parliamentary and revolutionary type. Much stronger Communist parties, like those in Myanmar, Malaysia, and Indonesia, have withered away – not to speak of the Communist Party of Soviet Union. But the Indian Communists are no longer a force to reckon with, even in their one-time strongholds like West Bengal.