From anti-colonial struggles to Partition positions to sectarian politics, a look at how the Left lost ground as rival forces learnt to occupy the public sphere
The coincidence of the founding of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and its ideological polar opposite, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), exactly one hundred years ago, in 1925, has naturally invited intellectual and political curiosity — and a modicum of journalistic attention.
Comparison has inevitably followed since the RSS holds the reins of state power today while the communists languish on the margins.
Bright beginnings
However, this wasn’t always the case. In the relatively short period between 1925 and 1947, the CPI gained considerable national prominence by conducting fierce people’s struggles in different parts of the country against colonial rule as well as the nascent capitalist class and the feudal order in the country.
This raised the CPI’s prestige while earning it the ire of the colonial government, which banned it for an extended period not long after its founding. This ban was lifted when the party declared its support for the government effort in the course of the Second World War, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the world’s first and then only communist nation.
Even so, the colonial government kept a strict watch on communist activity.
Historical fumbles
The Congress party, which formed the backbone of the national movement, was also decidedly anti-fascist but its leadership made its support for the War effort conditional, on assurance of Independence when the war ended. The British refused and put the party’s top leadership in jail.
Indian communists believed that class solidarity of the “working people” — the toiling classes and smaller peasant proprietors — would overcome other identity-related divides. This has since been shown to be a short-sighted view.
In this period, the communists found themselves cut off from the national political mainstream. They then proceeded to make another blunder by supporting the idea of Pakistan and the Partition, based on their absurd thesis on the nationalities question, in which India’s Muslim community was deemed a separate “nationality”.
In spite of the misreading of key historical moments, communists continued to be held in esteem within the country.
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Their standing with the working class or the proletariat in the industrial centres, their long-remembered valorous struggle against the Nizam’s pro-feudal and communal supporters, called the Razakars, in Telangana in 1948, and the display of communist energy in the sharecropper’s Tebhaga movement of 1946 became legendary milestones.
CPI cadres were also prominent, along with socialist cadres, in the revolt of the naval ratings in Bombay (now Mumbai) which rattled the colonial rulers on the eve of Independence as the revolt spread to Karachi and Calcutta (now Kolkata).
Self-destruction path
In the post-Independence period, the CPI essentially went on a path of self-destruction. It declared that Indian Independence was hollow and false, and cut itself off from engaging with other political formations, while continuing its struggles under democratic conditions after the departure of the British.
Its relationship with the Congress was, for the most part, hostile. In fact, the stance to adopt vis-a-vis the Congress — the principal party of freedom then in power and not being above adopting coercive measures in dealing with communist agitations — has remained a conundrum, and was indeed among the key questions in the CPI’s split in 1964.
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Nevertheless, the communists did succeed in entrenching themselves in the politics and society of Kerala, West Bengal, later Tripura, and in certain other enclaves, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, the eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab, by taking up the cause of suffering farmers and farm workers — who are, in the widest sense, the Indian proletariat.
Revolutionary energy
In its first 25 years, the party’s top leadership came from young people in their 20s and 30s — brave, but lacking in political experience while dealing with entirely new ideas and political actions consequent upon them. This led to revolutionary energy and fervour with a narrow focus, based almost wholly on the idea of class, as defined in Marxist texts, and related concepts.
This proved to be inadequate in capturing India’s multi-layered reality made up of many diverse strands, above all caste, religion and custom.
In some senses, the story of the Indian communist movement has been a story of splits, rather than consolidation gained through practical experience in the field.
Indian communists gave short shrift to these, believing that class solidarity of the “working people” — the toiling classes and smaller peasant proprietors — would overcome other identity-related divides. This has since been shown to be a short-sighted view.
Key calling card
Nevertheless, the dedication and sacrifices made by communist cadres in different parts of the country, and their “pro-poor” image, became their most important calling card. The great revolutionary Bhagat Singh, who was hanged in a Lahore jail for “terrorism” by colonial rulers, also wrote from prison about being deeply attracted to Lenin’s ideas. This boosted the image of India’s communists.
Seminal moments in the recent history of Russia at the time, like the the formation of a revolutionary party there under the leadership of the brilliant and charismatic VI Lenin, held international attention in those days, from among the inimical capitalist and imperialist forces as well as people in the colonised and poorer parts of the world.
In India’s communist movement, the first in a newly independent country, this was especially the case. Generally, the CPI became engrossed in the Soviet (Russian) model, unable to theorise for and act with independent analyses in Indian conditions, which vary in different parts of the country.
The success of the Chinese revolution in 1949 under Mao Zedong's leadership caused a turbulence in the international communist movement, with the reverberations strongly felt in India. Here was a case of a successful reordering of class relations and a shift of political power in an agrarian society although one that totally lacked India’s diversity framework.
The great party split
A section within the CPI split away in 1964 to form the CPI(M), under pressure of ideas emerging from the Chinese revolutionary experience and on the question of the nature of their relationship with the ruling Congress, wholly considered a “bourgeoisie” party but with a corner of sympathy for the poor since the days of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, and not a red-neck hard-core right-wing outfit.
The question of the legitimacy of the revolutionary spirit also got enmeshed with the idea of violence. The Russian Revolution had not been violent as such, but this was not the case with the Chinese experience.
In certain quarters among the communists, violence came to be seen as a revolutionary good in itself and those not signing up on this would recklessly be derided as reformist or revisionist.
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Not long after the formation of the CPI(M), sections of that party split away to become so-called Maoist entities or “naxalites”, named after the Naxalbari area in West Bengal, where Charu Mazumdar — once a leader of the Tebhaga movement — organised his insurrectionary base.
These entities generally took on the appellation Marxist-Leninist, though they appeared to be neither in practice as they abandoned any pretence to a theoretical grasp and mistook violence against a landowner as the epitome of a revolutionary consummation.
Dwindling power
In some senses, the story of the Indian communist movement has been a story of splits, rather than consolidation gained through practical experience in the field.
A wholly sectarian outlook on politics has been a logical corollary. An individual, group or party that did not indicate full agreement was to be hounded, attacked and treated as an enemy even in the field of electoral politics.
Communists, socialists and the Congress, for the most part, conducted their politics by being disdainful of each other, even inimical to one another. This opened up vast spaces for those who had bided their time.
Differences were fundamentally centred on the characterisation of the Indian state. From this arose differences on the understanding of potential allies among political classes and parties.
In the first Parliament (1952-57), with Nehru reigning supreme, it was the communist bloc that was the largest in the opposition. Ravi Narayan Reddy, a stalwart communist leader, polled more votes in Nalgonda than Nehru did from Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Dips and rises
There have been ups and downs since then, but in the past two decades, that is, for most of the 21st century, the communist and Left presence overall has shrunk in the Lok Sabha and is now down to a pitiable few.
The communists and the Left (led by the CPI-M) have long lost power in West Bengal and Tripura, and appear to be on a weaker wicket than before in the long-held fortress of Kerala as well.
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Interestingly, it is not the communists alone that have visibly slid but also the non-Marxian or anti-Marxian socialists, as well as the once almighty Congress, considered the principal vehicle of India’s freedom from colonial rule. There appears to be a wider phenomenon before us that needs to be understood in its many complex aspects.
On the decline
What we are witnessing in the 15 or so years is the slow eclipse of political parties, which, at the base level, are inheritors of the ideas of rationality and humanism in the public sphere, alongside the concomitant rise of political forces that have rooted themselves in legends and prejudices and superstitions which use religion as a springboard, taking a clear communal slant arising from religion, to advance political goals.
The reasons for this are many and diverse, but fundamentally this historical turn owes to representatives of these trends withdrawing in practice — from mass movements that foreground public anxieties and the aspirations of different classes of people of the country. There is a close link between mass agitations and a credible organisation.
Moreover, the communists, socialists and the Congress, for the most part, conducted their politics by being disdainful of each other, even inimical to one another. This opened up vast spaces for those who had bided their time.
