Gandhi, Nehru and Indian Communism

An interview with Deval Pillay

[SITHARAM YECHURY, a member of the secretariat of the central committee of the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M), attended the SACP's national congress last December. DEVAN PILLAY spoke to him about the rise of communism in India, and why his party believes that socialism is only possible through the expansion of capitalism

While communist parties are on the retreat in most of the world, interest in socialist ideas and South Africa's communist party has increased. Little, however, is known about the communist or leftwing parties in India, which as the Left Front coalition, retains power in the eastern state of West Bengal, and at the last election lost power in the southern state of Kerala by 1% of the vote. The Left Front is composed of the Communist Party of India (CPI), the CPI-M, which split from it in 1964, the All- India Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP). In part two of this interview (see WIP 81), Yechury will talk about the relative strength of the different leftwing parties, what the Left in power means in India, and why there is so much poverty in the cities, amongst other things.

What makes the south and east of India the strongest areas of communist support?

The most important are the socio-historical factors. Bengal has always been in the forefront of the anti-imperialist movement, since the beginning of the century. The first stirrings against the British began in Bengal in 1905.

Secondly, unlike other parts of India, Bengal also had a strong social reform movement, which fought essentially against the caste system, the rigid divisions of Hindu society.

Calcutta was also the capital of the British Raj from 1757 to 1857, before it shifted to Delhi. It was British India which....................