Overview
- The CPI marks its centenary on December 26, tracing its origins to a 1925 founding in Kanpur.
- India’s communist parties have fallen from 53 Lok Sabha seats and about 8% vote share in 2004 to eight seats and roughly 3% in 2024, according to the editorial.
- The piece argues that opposition to Gandhi and Quit India, a brief flirtation with the Muslim League’s Pakistan demand, and the Ranadive-era insurrection undercut mass-worker and peasant appeal.
- The editorial contends the Left has leaned on dogma rather than engaging issues such as the climate crisis, migration policy, and rising social conservatism.
- It situates the decline within a global retreat of communism since the late 1980s and notes scattered reinventions, citing Sri Lanka’s JVP and Zohran Mamdani in New York.