Shikha Mukherjee writes in the Indian Express about the political readjustments taking place in the last bastion of the Left in India: West Bengal. Her conclusions seem to point towards a mellowed-down CPM as opposed to the perpetually shrieking party of the old times.

Critics could argue that in adapting to the system, the CPM has lost its ideological edge and moral authority

It is nice to trace the history of communism in India. It has, from the beginning, indulged in anti-India activities including its tacit and overt support in sabotaging the freedom movement. When Arun Shourie brought this to light not-so-recently, they took up the usual refrain: communalist, bigot, and the rest. Red Eminences made sure that his book never got the attention and study it deserved. For their ideology to succeed, their goal of realizing the “workers paradise,” there has necessarily to be a revolution: make that a bloody revolution where all traces of the past–good and bad–should be wiped out in toto. And these people are good in assuming the most moral of postures and airs of nobility. It is ironical that the state that produced intellectual giants and patriots who were proud of their heritage pawned its everything to a destructive ideology like Communism.

However, by foregrounding the campaign against secularism and economic policy (India Shining/Feel Good), Bhattacharjee and his colleagues have renegotiated the terms on which governance and politics is henceforward likely to proceed

All that the communists have done is wreck states where they were in power. They’re against everything–governance, development, progress, liberalization, what have you. It’s only their tenets that are final. The campagin against the economic policies reeks of double standards. On the one hand you have Buddhadeb condemning the NDA government of  “selling the country to MNCs,” while in the same vein, he is seen courting the same MNCs to set up shop in his state.

Shikha gets it right when she says,

The process of accommodation, however irksome, began a long time ago; by participating in the elections in 1952, the undivided communist movement set in train a process that has shaped its responses and ways of participating in national politics. By contesting in that first election, the communist movement signalled the end of its dreams about organising revolutions.

The Communist revolution has succeeded largely in several nations because conditions necessary for a new form of society did exist, chiefly in Russia and China. However, it hasn’t succeeded–and I doubt it ever will–here precisely because of several powerful, opposing factors: the almost-inflexible structure of the Indian society (yeah, I’m talking of the caste system) for one, and too many self-serving political people pulling in different directions, for another. The Communists have never understood that Caste Conflict is not synonymous with Class Conflict. Despite distortions in history books, which uphold this flawed premise, Communism has not attracted a large following. However, the damage that Red Theories have done is immense.

You can jump at me for saying this, but the Fifth Column should never be granted space in a democracy. Like all good things, bad things too start with a small seed, but they grow like parasites feeding on the same plant that nurture them. I guess the US understood this quite accurately and early, when it put to intense scrutiny, all sorts of Communist outfits/literature/people, in the 1960s. In contrast, India, especially West Bengal’s communists reaped rich monetary rewards in the form of untold millions of dollars that crept into the state from Russia¹ from the early 60′s to mid 70s.

Today, the Leftists both in India and abroad have lost all credibility and respect. Yet, they zealousy try to hold fort in their last bastion as I said earlier, by employing powerful agencies such as The Hindu and demented prolific writers such as The Resident Idiot.

1 The Hoover Institute has in its possessions documents that reveal details of the (illegal) fund transfer to the Communist Party of India.

Update! Niraj briefly echoes my thoughts on this subject but like me, is convinced that the recent efforts of the Communists trying to embrace capitalism (via attracting investment) is nothing but a sham.