 Summary of this article
- The Left in India has endured for a century because it is rooted in the struggles, dignity and aspirations of workers and peasants.
- Left ideas in India were not foreign imports but emerged organically from indigenous egalitarian traditions and early radical thought.
- Communists played a decisive role in the freedom movement through organised mass struggles, trade unions, peasant uprisings and cultural platforms.
A hundred years is long enough for political currents to appear and disappear. Parties have risen on slogans and vanished in silence. What has endured in India, despite repression, distortions and political headwinds, is the Left movement. It has endured because it has always belonged to the working people of this country; to their labour, their dignity, and their dreams of a society free from exploitation. From the earliest murmurings of radical thought during anti-colonial resistance to the mass struggles of peasants and workers, from the severe blows of state repression to the experience of forming governments that delivered transformative reforms, the Left has left an indelible mark on modern India. The history of the Left is not parallel to the history of the nation, but it is rather interwoven with it. |
