India's communists once ruled millions. What happened to them?

A significant story is unfolding on the international scene. India's communists once ruled millions. What happened to them? 6 hours ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleSoutik BiswasIndia correspondentAFP via Getty ImagesThe communists have been reduced to a single seat in the 294-member assembly in West BengalFor the first time since 1957, India no longer has a single communist-led state government.

The defeat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala this month, after a decade in power, marked the end - at least for now - of one of the world's most enduring experiments in democratic communism. At their peak, India's communist parties ruled states stretching from West Bengal to Kerala and Tripura. They impacted the lives of more than 100 million people through trade unions, peasant organisations, student wings and disciplined cadre networks.

The Details

In West Bengal, the Left Front governed continuously from 1977 to 2011 - one of the world's longest-running elected communist administrations. In Tripura, the Left ruled for 35 years in all, including an uninterrupted 25-year stretch before its defeat by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2018. Kerala followed a different trajectory.

Since 1957 - when the state voted for one of the world's first elected communist governments under EMS Namboodiripad - power has alternated between the Left and the Congress, making the communists a durable force but never a permanently dominant one. In 1996, Jyoti Basu, a founding member of CPI (M) and then West Bengal's chief minister, came within touching distance of becoming India's prime minister as head of a coalition government. But his party rejected the offer - a decision Basu would later famously describe as a "historic blunder".

The communists shaped coalition politics in Delhi so deeply that in 2008 they withdrew support from former prime minister Manmohan Singh's government over the landmark civil nuclear deal with the US. At the time, the Left parties held 62 seats in the lower house of parliament, enough to push Singh into a confidence vote before he finally secured the agreement. NurPhoto via Getty ImagesKerala elected one of the world's first communist governments in 1957Their reach extended far beyond parliament.

What Experts Say

Despite economic stagnation in West Bengal and concerns over declining educational standards under Left rule, the communists continued to wield outsized influence over economic thinking and intellectual and cultural life well beyond their electoral strongholds. Many believe that most of that influence has now faded. The Left today survives unevenly.

In Kerala, despite its latest setback, the Left remains politically consequential. In Tamil Nadu, it survives largely through alliances. In Bihar, the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) has emerged as an energetic grassroots force in some pockets.

Left-backed student groups continue to fare well in leading universities.

The story has become one of the most prominent items on the global agenda.