Communist Politics in India: Struggle for Survival

As part of this study, Dr. Vidyasagar had mainly examined three dimensions of the Communist poltics and how it has affected the progress of Communism in India. These include the agitational activities, electoral politics and governmental performance of the two major Communist parties i.e., the CPI and CPM in the country. Whereas, the third stream of Indian Communists, popularly described as ‘Naxalites’, or otherwise known as the CPI-ML have either split into several groups or were decimated by the State. Thus, their study became a bit difficult on account of limited access to reliable data. Obviously, the author had not analyzed their activities to the extent they deserve. In this book, an attempt has been made to delineate the changing positions of the two main ‘electoral’ communist parties, with regard to their ‘tactics’, and not ‘strategies’, during the period after the Emergency. Further, this study deals with the nature and effects of those agitations, that had direct bearing on the electoral and governmental prospects of the Communist parties in some states. Some of the findings are very interesting and fully deserve the attention of students and practioners of the Left politics in India. This study analyses some of the weaknesses of the Communist parties, especially their stagnation and decline in the Hindi-speaking regions and their improper alliance policy and obsession with electoral politics, among others. Some of the suggestions made for their improvement, and success of the Communist parties are worth pondering. Finally, the author argues that even the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union could not discourage the emergence of the Communist Movement in India.