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Monday, April 2

GK: Understanding History of Left Politics in India - Part 1 (HISTORY)


Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. It typically involves a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished (by advocating for social justice). The term left-wing can also refer to "the radicalreforming, or socialist section of a political party or system"

It was the tenth anniversary of the historic revolution in Russia that shook the world by establishing that the real power lay in the hands of common people who could rise up to overthrow their exploiters. The future prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru paid his first ever visit to the land of socialism that he had been studying minutely since the earliest days of the revolution. In Russia, Nehru strove to find a solution to the struggles of a colonised India. He studied the works of Marx and Lenin and admitted that he was greatly influenced by their ideologies of development. “We began a new phase in our struggle for freedom in India at about the same time as the October Revolution led by the great Lenin. We admired Lenin whose example influenced us greatly,” he wrote later.

By the second decade of the twentieth century, Indians were slowly but steadily acquainting themselves with the Gandhian philosophy of peaceful confrontation as a means to overpower their colonial rulers. The Russian revolution, however, set in a new course in the trajectory of nationalist struggle. The Marxist ideology of the working class, overthrowing the propertied exploiter, by sheer force, struck a chord deep within the hearts of the agitators of nationalism. The appeal was almost uniform among all those looking for an alternative to the Gandhian mode of peaceful demonstration, and in fact, inspired even a staunch Gandhian like Nehru. The aggressive revolutionary, Bhagat Singh, is noted to have studied in detail the life of Lenin and the Communist Manifesto during his time in jail. So deep was his attachment to the Russian philosophy, that his last wish was to complete reading the life of Lenin. Down South, on the other hand, the social activist Periyar, who started the ‘self-respect movement’ and also the Dravida Kazhagham, is known to have drawn inspiration from the Russian Communist method of bringing social justice, which he thought was best applicable to the plight of the lower castes in India. But, of course, it was M N Roy, the founder of the Communist Party of India(CPI), who was personally mentored by Lenin in Russia to prepare Indian soil for revolution against the foreign colonisers.



The history of Left politics in India runs deep into the very heart of the freedom struggle. It can hardly be denied that both the freedom struggle and the political landscape of free India was for the longest period of time hued in various shades of red. “It is very difficult to conceptualise Leftism in terms of one country of India as a whole. You need to think of the cultural specificity of the context in which you are talking about ideology. For instance, Periyar drew on empowerment of underprivileged. Now this is leftist ideology, but this is also the ideology of Jyotirao Phule, of Hinduism, of Jainism,” explains political scientist Bidyut Chakrabarty speaking about the unique way in which Leftism in India developed in close ties with the culture in which it was rooted.

A party is born

Despite the broad appeal of Left ideology though, it was MN Roy’s CPI and its later offshoots that went on to become the face of Left politics in India. During its initial days, the CPI focused on mobilising peasants and workers towards a revolutionary cause, while at the same time influencing the Congress in developing a sturdy Left leaning ideology.

However, having its roots in the international Communist movement meant that the CPI struggled hard to keep its feet rooted in the nationalist movement. Trouble arose when in the 1940s Gandhi launched the Quit India movement against the British almost at the same time when the Soviet Union urged the CPI to back the British war efforts in the fight against Fascism. In their efforts to please the Russians, they alienated themselves from the nationalist struggle.

Part 2: Post independence history of Left Politics in India (HISTORY)

Credit: Indian Express Research

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