The Grand Somersault of Indian Communism
History,
said Hegel, repeats itself—first as tragedy, then as farce. Yet in the
labyrinth of ideologies, sometimes both arrive together, entwined in a
grotesque embrace. The story of Indian Communism under the stewardship of men
like Prakash Karat is such a tale: a theatre where tragedy and farce parade
upon the same stage.
The First Betrayal: Religion and Marx
Marx, the titan of dialectical materialism, declared with thunder: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world… It is the opium of the people.” To him, faith was no harmless solace but the fiercest rival to revolutionary consciousness. He knew that two tyrannies could not coexist: either the Church or the Party must fall. Hence his ceaseless denunciations, his call for the destruction of ecclesiastical power, his demand that illusions yield to reality.
Yet, in the twenty-first century, from the corridors of Alimuddin Street, a softer proclamation emerges: “We are not against religion.” With this single utterance, Karat commits a U-turn so vast that the ghost of Marx must be rattling its chains in Highgate Cemetery.
Secularism and Fundamentalism: Two Western Imports
What the Indian Marxist forgot is what Marx himself foresaw: secularism was a French Revolution import, a modernist arrogance that sought to erase tradition, identity, and belief of the marginal. Likewise, religious fundamentalism, though clothed in sanctity, is but another Western offspring—politics in priestly robes, intoxicated with power rather than spirit. Both doctrines despise the periphery, both are captive to authority, both collapse when struck by the iron of reality.
Thus, when Karat announces neutrality toward religion, it is not a return to tradition, but a betrayal of Marxist orthodoxy and a hollow bow before electoral winds.
The Second Betrayal: Capital and Industry
Only yesterday, the communist cadres thundered: “Tata’s hand, Birla’s hand—break them, burn them!” The echoes still ring. Yet soon came the hoardings: “Agriculture is our past, industrialisation is our future.” With this sleight of hand, the peasant became history, capitalism became destiny.
Neither the BJP, the stalwart of the right, nor the Congress, the centrist of the middle, dared articulate such naked worship of capital. But the communists, in their somersault, did so—making Marx’s Das Kapital into a catechism repeated without comprehension, awaiting interpretation by the almighty Politburo.
Meanwhile, Karat and his consort enjoyed holidays not in proletarian Havana but in the gilded salons of London. Thus capitalism became not an enemy, but a vintage tea, sipped without irony.
Nandigram: The Third Betrayal
If hypocrisy needed a monument, it was built at Nandigram. Here, under the banner of “industrial development,” land was seized from peasants not for the proletariat, but for the infamous Salim Group of Indonesia—a conglomerate stained with corruption. Police fired upon farmers, cadres unleashed violence, blood mingled with soil. This was not revolution; it was enclosure redux—the medieval seizure of commons in Bengal’s own century.
So the proletariat was betrayed, not once but thrice:
in religion, denied its ideological clarity;
in industry, abandoned for capitalist partnerships;
in land, dispossessed for foreign profiteers.
Opportunism as Creed
The CPI(M) has, in its lust for power, embraced every hand: BJP one season, Muslim League another, Congress the next. Opportunism became not an accident but a method; hypocrisy not a lapse but a doctrine. Thus the party of proletarian dictatorship became the theatre of political acrobatics, somersaulting without notice, without shame.
Toward Ghosthood
But history is merciless. It unmasks hypocrisy, it buries masquerades. Communism in Eastern Europe fell into rubble; the Soviet parades became museum reels; Maoist China now builds capitalist malls beneath Lenin’s portrait. So too in India, Communism edges toward ghosthood, remembered not for its utopia but for its betrayals.
We, the people, speak differently:
Yes, to industry.
Yes, to Tata.
Yes, even to Salim—if they honour the soil.
But no—to theft of peasants’ fields.
No—to massacres in the name of progress.
No—to the masquerade of ideology.
Conclusion: Karat and the Choice of Oblivion
Mr. Karat, history will demand your place. Either renounce the mask of duplicity, or accept your oblivion. Better to vanish into silence than to be remembered as the gravedigger of your own creed. For India has no appetite left for high-level communist somersaults.
What it seeks is truth, unmasked, unyielding, eternal.
The First Betrayal: Religion and Marx
Marx, the titan of dialectical materialism, declared with thunder: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world… It is the opium of the people.” To him, faith was no harmless solace but the fiercest rival to revolutionary consciousness. He knew that two tyrannies could not coexist: either the Church or the Party must fall. Hence his ceaseless denunciations, his call for the destruction of ecclesiastical power, his demand that illusions yield to reality.
Yet, in the twenty-first century, from the corridors of Alimuddin Street, a softer proclamation emerges: “We are not against religion.” With this single utterance, Karat commits a U-turn so vast that the ghost of Marx must be rattling its chains in Highgate Cemetery.
Secularism and Fundamentalism: Two Western Imports
What the Indian Marxist forgot is what Marx himself foresaw: secularism was a French Revolution import, a modernist arrogance that sought to erase tradition, identity, and belief of the marginal. Likewise, religious fundamentalism, though clothed in sanctity, is but another Western offspring—politics in priestly robes, intoxicated with power rather than spirit. Both doctrines despise the periphery, both are captive to authority, both collapse when struck by the iron of reality.
Thus, when Karat announces neutrality toward religion, it is not a return to tradition, but a betrayal of Marxist orthodoxy and a hollow bow before electoral winds.
The Second Betrayal: Capital and Industry
Only yesterday, the communist cadres thundered: “Tata’s hand, Birla’s hand—break them, burn them!” The echoes still ring. Yet soon came the hoardings: “Agriculture is our past, industrialisation is our future.” With this sleight of hand, the peasant became history, capitalism became destiny.
Neither the BJP, the stalwart of the right, nor the Congress, the centrist of the middle, dared articulate such naked worship of capital. But the communists, in their somersault, did so—making Marx’s Das Kapital into a catechism repeated without comprehension, awaiting interpretation by the almighty Politburo.
Meanwhile, Karat and his consort enjoyed holidays not in proletarian Havana but in the gilded salons of London. Thus capitalism became not an enemy, but a vintage tea, sipped without irony.
Nandigram: The Third Betrayal
If hypocrisy needed a monument, it was built at Nandigram. Here, under the banner of “industrial development,” land was seized from peasants not for the proletariat, but for the infamous Salim Group of Indonesia—a conglomerate stained with corruption. Police fired upon farmers, cadres unleashed violence, blood mingled with soil. This was not revolution; it was enclosure redux—the medieval seizure of commons in Bengal’s own century.
So the proletariat was betrayed, not once but thrice:
in religion, denied its ideological clarity;
in industry, abandoned for capitalist partnerships;
in land, dispossessed for foreign profiteers.
Opportunism as Creed
The CPI(M) has, in its lust for power, embraced every hand: BJP one season, Muslim League another, Congress the next. Opportunism became not an accident but a method; hypocrisy not a lapse but a doctrine. Thus the party of proletarian dictatorship became the theatre of political acrobatics, somersaulting without notice, without shame.
Toward Ghosthood
But history is merciless. It unmasks hypocrisy, it buries masquerades. Communism in Eastern Europe fell into rubble; the Soviet parades became museum reels; Maoist China now builds capitalist malls beneath Lenin’s portrait. So too in India, Communism edges toward ghosthood, remembered not for its utopia but for its betrayals.
We, the people, speak differently:
Yes, to industry.
Yes, to Tata.
Yes, even to Salim—if they honour the soil.
But no—to theft of peasants’ fields.
No—to massacres in the name of progress.
No—to the masquerade of ideology.
Conclusion: Karat and the Choice of Oblivion
Mr. Karat, history will demand your place. Either renounce the mask of duplicity, or accept your oblivion. Better to vanish into silence than to be remembered as the gravedigger of your own creed. For India has no appetite left for high-level communist somersaults.
What it seeks is truth, unmasked, unyielding, eternal.
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