The people of India are disillusioned. The present phase of neo-liberal capitalism, and the changes that it spells, do not take into account the vertically and horizontally disintegrated working class and the structurally remodelled castes-communities. The Jawaharlal Nehru University debate around the constitutional right to speak only re-emphasises the fact that if we wish to stall the rise of fascism, the past needs to be reconstructed as a paradigm for the future.
While the Communist Party of India and the CPI (Marxist) follow a strategy based solely on the category of a "war of position", the CPI (Maoist) is trying to implement a strategy based entirely on a "war of manoeuvre". The interconnectedness of these two categories and their dialectical relation with the state are missed in each party's strategising of the revolutionary movement.
Taking off from Sumanta Banerjee's book review in the EPW ("The Left and Political Islam", 30 March 2013) on the left's understanding of political Islam, a comment on the ideology, politics, and the internal dynamic of the Islamic community.
This response to Sumanta Banerjee's "Revolutionary Movements in a Post-Marxian Era" (EPW, 5 May 2012) entifi es the democracy deficit as the main internal obstacle to a new revolutionary practice informed by Marxism.
Why should the CPI(M) not be considered a ruling class party? The answer to this question and that of the transformation of the official Indian Left requires one to delve into the history of Stalinism, the Comintern, and the communist movement in India.
