Communists in India Fight to Hold on to Mission
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CALCUTTA -- Lenin's statue still rises near the center of the city, and portraits of Stalin and Marx still hang inside the biggest union hall. Anyone doubting the local political dominance -- and cold war humor -- of India's Communists need only visit the street in front of the United States Consulate: It was long ago renamed for Ho Chi Minh.
In the past 33 years, India's Communists have built a political dynasty here in the state of West Bengal, staging one of the most remarkable runs in any democracy by winning seven consecutive statewide elections. This would seem to be a ripe moment to expand their influence: India is a nation of deep inequities, with millions of destitute farmers and laborers disconnected from an increasingly capitalistic economy.
Instead, the country's Communists are struggling to remain relevant. For years, they have largely failed to capture the imagination and the support of the masses beyond their regional strongholds of West Bengal and the state of Kerala. And now even their three-decade hold over West Bengal is disintegrating as critics accuse them of betraying the rural peasantry and presiding over the decline of a state once regarded as an intellectual and economic center of India.
"I never thought I would write against them," said Mahasweta Devi, one of West Bengal's most famous intellectuals and a social reformer who is now deeply critical of the governing Left Front coalition, which is led by the Communists. "Leftist politicians are losing the battle because they have not cared enough to deliver the goods to the people."
Only six years ago, the Communists were kingmakers whose support enabled the Congress Party to form a rickety coalition national government. But that influence has steadily diminished; the Communists were trounced in the 2009 parliamentary elections and are facing the strong possibility of losing control of West Bengal in statewide elections next year.
First Published October 22, 2010 2:00 am
