Politics for last century or so has been about left, right and center. Wherever the Left destroyed right, a communistic dictatorship replaced popular figures and where ever the Right won, it masquaraded as the popular figure.
Yet the demise of Left in India has been nothing like that. It has been dying a slow painful death for long. It lacked a purpose and an intent. The violent movements like MCC and Naxals did try to fill in the vaccum, but they too lacked the political will and have been swiftly put aside by might of Indian state.
These days the popular believe is that Indian left parties represent a regressive thinking, either dead with Soviet Union or buried as in People’s Republic of China. The answer is neither. No one can question the heatlh and education services of the left ruled states in India. The fact that the social indicators of maternal health and overall wellness have always been higher has to give them their due. But its also a fact that better public services never translated into higher private wealth under the red governments.
This is one balance that CPI, CPI(M) constantly fail in. Managing growth of individuals with that of society and nation. For some reason, Indian communists have always viewed one as in opposition to other. They refuse to see the continuation of their rule in Kerala, where lack of government sponsored growth is supplemented with foreign earnings from its populance toiling in middle east. In this age of savvy election marketing an inward looking communist movement is no match well oiled electoral machinery of its rivals.
The demise of left with defeat of Manik Sarkar in Tripura seems to be complete, but for sure it is not final. Given that 22% of India still lives below government admitted poverty line – which is in fact a starvation line (since the calculations do not account for spends on health, education etc) there is a lot of space for a true red socialist movement.
