Challenges before the Indian Left in the political present are many as the country is witnessing rapid changes in society, economy, technology, and development, writes Chanthu S. The changes may appear too fast-paced to predict apart from the unjust and unequal distribution of resources.

Kerala can be marked on the map of left political movements by organized groups and individual activists since the early 20th century. These movements were driven by new ideas aimed at social change. Key figures like Philip Spratt and Benjamin F. Bradley from the British Communist Party supported young nationalists at India House in London as they worked to form the Communist Party of India. Important leaders in this effort included M.N. Roy, M.P.T. Acharya, and C.R. Pillai. At the same time, early communist leaders like Putchapally Sundarayya and EMS Namboodiripad were inspired by the Bolshevik revolutionaries while in jail. In the chaotic 1940s, Communist Party of India (CPI) built its base across Kerala through peasant and working-class movements. From the primarily radical and confrontational approach it adopted in the 1940s, both with the colonial state and the nascent nation-state of India, CPI shifted to parliamentary democracy in the early-1950s. In 1957, Kerala became home to one of the world’s first democratically elected communist governments, with EMS Namboodiripad as its chief minister. Through the periodic Left ministries in Kerala since 1957, the Communist Parties championed several measures, including land reform which had played a crucial role in shaping the development experience of the state. This story is well-trodden ground. Interpreting these histories critically is more important to understanding the current political landscape.

Dilip Menon explores the nature of Marxism in India, highlighting two key phases that shaped the Communist Party of India (CPI) in the 1940s. The first phase featured 'millenarian' tendencies, marked by an emotional and ethical approach rather than a deep engagement with traditional Marxist ideas. In this view, the Soviet Union was seen as the ideal society, where class conflict disappeared and many small farmers owned land.

Over time, this emotional understanding shifted towards a strict, self-contained version of Stalinist Marxism. In this new perspective, Marxism was viewed as the "science of the history of society." Menon points out two main features of this interpretation in Kerala: first, the idea that productive forces develop and that the relationships of production must change accordingly; and second, the concept of five stages of production—primitive communism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism, and socialism—where each stage replaces the previous one. This belief in a linear progression of society emphasized Marxism as a scientific approach to understanding social development.

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Praful Bidwai noted that many Indian communists were not familiar with various leftist theories or critical left-wing literature about the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Sticking closely to a Stalinist version of dialectical and historical materialism, they largely ignored the broader Western Marxist tradition, including the works of Marx and Lenin. This rigid mindset limited their willingness to consider non-Marxist perspectives on Indian society. As a result, they struggled to fully grasp Marxist theory and apply its methods creatively and independently in the Indian context. This lack of understanding made it difficult for them to recognize the realities of the country and develop effective strategies.

The Marxist intellectual frameworks of linearity, such as evolutionism and progressivism, had allowed a ‘neutering’ of the history of caste and denied its tangibility and continuity in the present.[4] History of the peasant movement in Kerala shows how the category of the ‘Universal Human’ lead to the inclusion of jenmis as peasants while excluding the most labouring of classes outside the definition of the peasant. It is important to problematise the idea of ‘universalism’ that might help us to understand the failures of the left land reform programme with respect to marginalised communities and the emergence of struggles around land waged by Dalits and Adivasis in contemporary Kerala.[5] Universalism represents a distinct path of modernity, where the Universal Man is represented by the abstract citizen, devoid of any specific identity. This project was meant to be achieved by erasing and repressing particular identities.[6] The figure of the worker has been that of a male and that is the foundation on which the left establishment (at least in Kerala) stands. This is precisely why some leaders from the dominant left parties refuse to acknowledge artists as workers, particularly in the light of recent developments in Malayalam cinema. Citing the past glory of the left is the greatest stumbling block towards the realisation of the rights of many groups. What is needed is a new grammar for claiming rights for women and sexual minorities, subjugated castes, minority communities and ecological refugees.

Challenges before the Indian Left in the political present are many. India is undergoing rapid changes in society, the economy, technology and development. It may appear to both experts and the public that the changes are too fast-paced to predict and keep up with, due to the unjust and unequal distribution of resources. Hunger and poverty have driven the people living in rural, semi-urban, as well as urban spaces to living their lives on credit. The constituent elements holding our political system together are in danger, with divisive forces actively undermining our institutions. Despite the growth of new educational institutions and private universities, access to education is still limited. The rising unemployment among educated youth is becoming a serious issue. While welfare programs aim to support people’s livelihoods, their effectiveness remains in question. The corporates have built strong relationships with the state by funding lawmakers and influencing institutions, leading to concerns about corporate control over every level of the system.

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Although living conditions may seem to be struggling, the appeal of modern technologies is leading more people to focus on the digital world, causing a growing distraction from the realities. Despite the digital world offering many ways to communicate effectively, India has yet to seriously address the issue of net neutrality.

In the past, intellectuals like EMS Namboodiripad imagined the abolition of the monopoly over the means of production (landlordism) and redistribution of resources (land redistribution) through class struggle as the means to achieve social justice. Here, the key agent of this revolutionary transition is the class-conscious labourer (peasant and proletariat). Despite the differences in the intellectual frameworks, the category of an abstract labouring human self, untouched by the identities of caste, community or religion, ties both approaches together.

The idea of development in present-day India is not similar to the challenges, visions and aspirations of the socialism of Jawaharlal Nehru and EMS Namboodiripad. Today, development is administered mainly through a neoliberal framework. If at all the big business lobby is committed to addressing social justice with development, it most likely may not translate to the essence of the ideas on social justice on the ground. After all, social justice is beyond incremental interventions like corporate social responsibility initiatives. Social justice will realise its full meaning only when it is represented through the people or inclusive governments that the people choose. In places like, West Bengal and Kerala, which are/ were ruled by communist parties, there were/are attempts to adopt a neoliberal development model. China shows us this well. Ideally, the experiment may be intended to maximise production and redistribute profit. However, we see class politics getting compromised before the demands and requirements of neoliberalism, as evidenced by the examples of Singur and Nandigram. Kerala must draw its lessons from Singur as it embarks on its aspiration of rapid industrialisation while opening up its market and setting the required conditions for the ‘ease of doing business’. Although we don’t have the most fertile land, basic resources like water, the environment, and space will be challenges, especially as we face a major demographic shift. In 2008, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said, "The world is changing, and we are changing too." In light of this, leftist parties should not just manage the changes carefully, but instead re-evaluate the political direction to adapt effectively while staying true to its core beliefs. If development and social justice must go hand in hand, the process must go through rigorous democratisation and decentralisation of our governance mechanisms. Only then different marginalities (caste, gender, spatial, religious and those resulting from environmental degradation) would be accommodated and accounted for in the development process.

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As Dhritam Chakraborty points out, if the Left wants to reshape its strategies and stay connected to various forms of discrimination, it must first clarify its priorities and define its potential ‘vanguard’ role in addressing a range of social issues, which can sometimes be contradictory. The Left needs an ideological course correction and a strong stance against neoliberalism and postcolonial capitalism in India. And most importantly, it needs to reconnect with social and cultural issues to rebuild its ties with the complex social hierarchies that have become disconnected.

Vivek Chibber in his analysis of the decline of class analysis in the south asian studies critiques how Subaltern Studies fails to deliver a framework for understanding the nature of modernity in the East and how it fails as a platform for radical critique. Chibber points out that the Subalternist scholars understanding of capitalism is narrowly defined and the scholars come to easy conclusions that ‘what we have in the east is not capitalism at all’. Chibber shows how universal drive of capitalism finds its place in the universal interests of laboring groups to resist, both in the West and in the East.

What we should attempt here is not to define particularism in opposition to universalism or to make essentialist claims about the nature of difference and universalism. Instead, we should move away from the debates between universalism and particularism and engage in conversations about ideas of emancipation across different thinking traditions.

The Indian Left urgently needs to broaden its political judgements and reinvent the idea of ‘people’ beyond parliamentary politics and across organisational spectrums. Its political judgements should reflect the social realities of the Global South, build a strong public presence, and actively engage with its basic classes. It is essential for the Indian Left in its analysis of Indian society address the question of caste and class as not necessarily mutually excluding categories. It should self-critically look at the ‘all-encompassing’ universal framework and qualitatively engage with the alternate thinking traditions of South Asia.

References

Bidwai, Praful. The Phoenix Moment: Challenges Confronting the Indian Left. 1st ed. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers, 2015.

Chakraborty, Dhritiman. “What Is Left for the Left in West Bengal? The New Left and the World of the Third.” In Secular Sectarianism Limits of Subaltern Politics, First. New Delhi: SAGE Publications India Private Limited, 2020.

Chibber, Vivek. Post Colonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. Verso, 2013.

Menon, Dilip M. “Being a Brahmin the Marxist Way: E. M. S. Namboodiripad and the Pasts of Kerala.” In The Blindness of Insight: Essays on Caste in Modern India, 1st ed., 32–72. New Delhi: Navayana Publishing, 2011.

Nigam, Aditya. “Secularism, Modernity, Nation: Epistemology of the Dalit Critique.” Economic and Political Weekly 35, no. 48 (December 2000): 4256–68.

Scaria, Suma. “Changes in Land Relations: The Political Economy of Land Reforms in a Kerala Village.” Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 26/27 (2010): 191–98.