The Left-Liberal Mirage in India.

Why liberals have no voice of their own in India.

Have you ever wondered how Communists, who believe in the dictatorship of the proletariat, ran a goonda raj using party militias in West Bengal for 30 years, expropriated private property of middle classes, masquerade as liberals?  In fact the very Communists, who supported the Farmers’ Movement in Delhi, were murdering them in West Bengal in the 70s, to take their lands for distribution to party cadres.

Take a look at the propaganda of the RW fascists, the BJP/RSS.  When they want to beat up the liberals, they have no valid argument.  A liberal would support a market based economy, democracy, and fundamental rights, that the fascists also pay lip service to.  They have no valid ground to beat up liberals really.  So what do they do?

They hyphenate Left-Liberal, call you Librandu, and go hammer and tongs conflating you with communists.  They will criticize your economics based on communist ideology, they will question your record over property rights, law and order, use of private militias, violence in politics etc., using the communist record in office.  In short, they place their gun on Communist shoulders, and shoot liberals, because they in theory can’t fault the liberal agenda.

The Communists have brainwashed the Indian liberal to use them as useful idiots for their agenda.  When the communists are out of power, they embrace the liberal agenda wholeheartedly, going to the extent of even teaching liberals liberalism.

Wooly headed liberals embrace freebies for the poor, price controls over infrastructure, subsidized food, and many other welfare schemes, which may or not be bad in themselves, as something the Communists believe in.  But for the Communists, this is only a tactical ploy for the final revolution.

So there is this strange hybrid creature in India, a schizophrenic, torn between the left, and the liberal, with no brain or brawn of its own.  How does this happen?  How does the smoke and mirrors work?

Most of India’s political vocabulary comes from the West, mainly the US.  However, the content of this vocabulary doesn’t quite match with what the words convey.

To understand this, let us plot some political groups using the two axis:  Illiberal-Liberal on the Vertical, and Left and Right Economics on the Horizontal.

In such a schema, the Communists would fall in the Left lower quadrant, while a liberal-free market polity would fall in the Right-Top quadrant.  The diagram is rendered below.

The US polity is plotted in the diagram in blue, and Indian in pink, but on the same Illiberal-Liberal vs Left & Right Economic axis.

As you can see, the US Left is almost wholly to the right side of the diagram, because both the Left and Right in the US share a belief in the efficacy of free markets and free enterprise.  Note also, that left most extreme of the US, in economic matters, is to the right of the Indian Right winger!

Where the Left differs from the Right in US politics is on distribution of wealth, once it has been created, with left being more equality conscious, while the Right favors that the State keep out of distribution, except on some allowances for unemployment.  The Right in the US is socially Conservative, while the Left is liberal, the split being nearly 50:50.

The main point to note here is that, in the US, it makes sense to conflate Left-Liberal as one group.  This Left-Liberal hyphenation has been imported by the fascists, via the Indian diaspora, into Indian Politics, without any examination!  Of its own such a concatenation of ideologies would be impossible in India, as we shall see.

Reverting to the diagram, in India’s case, almost everybody is a Lefty, including the fascists, communists, and liberals, except for a minuscule Right-wing economic liberals, among whom I count myself.  PVNR, Dr Singh, are some of those who you may include in this group.  Even Modi would not qualify as Rightist in economic matters, because he believes in Crony Capitalism, [an illiberal dogma], not a free market based economy.

So almost everybody is Lefty in India in economic matters.  They differ only in degree of social and political liberalism.  Here the fascists are darkly conservative and illiberal, while the liberals are - well liberals.  Where do the Communists fit in?

Communists are the most illiberal of political beings.  They have a dogma, given by their God Marx, from which they cannot stray.  Like the fascists, they will mouth any slogan that sells but revert to dogma at earliest opportunity.  They are more doctrinaire than fascists.

They gain their liberal coat from their concern for equality.  They are equal opportunity advocates, want a flatter distribution of wealth, support subsidies for the poor etc.  These policies, is what enables them to pass themselves off as “liberal,” despite being political illiberals.  Do Communists believe in democracy?  No. They are happy using private party militias to retain power like the fascists if they have to.

Where are the liberals?

In India, liberals are sheep. They can be led by the nose by fascists one day, using religion, and the communists the next, using freebies.  They are zombies with no minds of their own.  Most of their time is spent debating inanities among themselves to score points, while either the commies or the fascists run the state.

What is good about liberals in India?  Their hearts are in the right place.  They have an intuitive feel for what is right.  But they need to get their ideology clear.  That is their biggest challenge.  And that will never happen as long as Communists have an intellectual hegemony over them, and continue to define liberalism to suit their own agenda.