Realisation of origin point, your current standing and the strengths-weakness vis-a-vis the rival side helps to prepare for future course of action for a long-drawn battle of narratives. The fight between left wing and Indic/conservative/right wing has been ongoing for centuries now. So, it becomes important to trace the roots of the left wing, its source of power and the resurgence of the right.
Origin story of the Left-Right nomenclature in Politics
Experts claim that the origin story begins in France, in the year of 1789. The French Revolution was gaining steam. An angry mob had stormed the Bastille palace in Paris, France. At that time, the Bastille palace used to represent royal authority in the centre of Paris.
The Estates-General had convened to tackle the problems posed by the angry mob. However, they were held back by red-tapism and concerns of the second estate which was represented by the nobility. Although the nobility was scarce in number, comprising just 2% of the country’s population, they used to influence every important decision.
On 17th of June 1789, the third Estate, composed mostly of commoners, appointed itself as the National Assembly. Initially, the king tried to oppose it but under massive pressure, he was forced to accept the changed reality. He renamed the assembly as the National Constituent Assembly on 9th of July.
Now, the newly constituted body had its task cut out for it. It had to create a new constitution for France. However, very soon, rifts started coming to the fore within the newly constituted assembly.
Also Read: Freedom of Expression: The convenient ownership of the idea by the dogmatic Indian Left
On the issue of whether the king should be bestowed veto power, there was a clear-cut division. Those who were in favour of the King having absolute veto power sat on the right of the President of the assembly. While those averse to the move were seated on the left. At that time, snatching the king’s veto power was a more radical view.
Thus, the sitting arrangement and the views they represented quickly got intertwined and the nomenclature of left-right started. People who wanted to remain rooted to tradition were seen as conservative, sat on the right side were dubbed as Right wing, while those who wanted radical change were dubbed as left.
Slowly, the French jargon gradually started to make its way around the world. The Bolsheviks in Russia viewed it as a necessary step in the historical process that would eventually lead to communism. However, for them, the meaning of left and right was a little different.
During the Stalin era, defectors from the Communist party were called left wing. Tilting toward the left meant embracing the radical international workers revolution. While leaning towards the right meant adopting national sentiment. Similarly, the definitions of the left-right have been fluid and have been getting different connotations in different nations.
How left wing made inroads in India?
During the second half of the twentieth century, Indian freedom fighters were mostly following the Gandhian principle of non-violence and peaceful agitation to overthrow the Colonisers from India. But the Russian revolution gave a new trajectory to the Indian freedom struggle. For those who saw flaws in the Gandhian philosophy, they got a new hope in the Marxist ideology of overpowering the coloniser with the use of power.
By then, the historic Russian revolution had demonstrated that the “real power” lies in the hands of commoners, who could rise up to dethrone the elites enjoying power. This struck a chord among the freedom fighters across the ideological divide.
Revolutionaries like Bhagath Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, and Chandrashekhar Azad among others were deeply influenced by the Russian revolution. Even a staunch Gandhian like JL Nehru was influenced by the communist Russian revolution. Notably, to mark the tenth anniversary of the historic Russian revolution, Congress senior leader and Freedom Fighter JL Nehru made his first visit to ‘socialist’ Russia.
Also Read: Decoding the DNA of the ‘Indian Left’
In Russia, he tried to find a solution to the struggles of a colonised India. He studied the works of Marx and Lenin and admitted that he was greatly influenced by their ideologies of development.
Later, after his visit, he had written, “We began a new phase in our struggle for freedom in India at about the same time as the October Revolution led by the great Lenin. We admired Lenin whose example influenced us greatly.”
Similarly, M N Roy, the founder of the Communist Party of India (CPI), started preparing Indian soil to launch a revolt against the foreign oppressors. The noteworthy thing is that he was personally mentored by Lenin in Russia. In this way, a significant part of our freedom struggle was coloured in various shades of red (communism/left).
Post-Independence, left materialised their control over Institutions
After throwing out the British from India, our polity was mostly dominated by the left-of-centre party, Congress, which governed for a good part of six decades. By collaborating with Congress, the leftist parties, its ideological supporters and sympathisers started penetrating deep in mass influencing institutions like academics, media, cinema and even in bureaucracy and Judiciary.
Slowly they built a systematic control over the education system and other key institutions. It became successful in moulding generation after generation in a leftist mindset.
This leftist intelligentsia and media became an integral part of the ecosystem that was formed around Congress and its first family. They controlled all the key institutions and wiped out all the narratives which didn’t suit their agenda.
Unlike the Britishers, the leftist had an advantage that they had more methods, institutions and legitimacy to spread the message. Education institutions peddled their agenda. National awards helped in institutionalising their twisted way of thinking. The media sang their tunes. In this way it slowly materialised an invincible power over academic institutions, media, bureaucracy and other spheres which it continues to enjoy till date.
Read More: Exposing the Left Wing Cartel – Chapter 1 | Introduction to their methods
To crush all the genuine concerns of the general public, the left cropped a facade of liberalism and fighting for Human rights. It projected itself as the champion of Human Rights that stood against the oppressive “caste structure” and smashed the privileges of the so-called elitist upper caste and class in the society.
The left kept targeting and needlessly punching the rights of the Hindu community in the garb of fighting for the rights of oppressed and left out communities. It is a great irony that their fortune kept swelling while the communities for whom they “raised” their voice were pushed to economic and social perils.
For around seven decades, the leftist cabal continued its blatant hypocrisy. They consolidated power, money and prestige all in the name of liberalism and fighting for underprivileged and commoners. Contrary to the projections this group was nothing but a hypocrite group of elites who did theatrics of pondering for the deprived weaker sections of society. All the while sitting in their air-conditioned chambers while enjoying their lavishes.
While these leftists corroded the academia, intelligentsia and art forms, the ugliest form of left was witnessed in the form of Naxal violence.
Post 2014 scenario
However, for the leftist cabal, electoral defeats were always a minor setback. They have an understanding on how deeply they have corrupted these institutions with their line of thinking. They kept imagining that power will eventually come back crawling to them. But nothing of that sort happened after 2014.
Just like any empire, by then leftist had reached their zenith from where they were pulled down by the resurgent right who had realised the facade, hypocrisy and filth behind the garb of liberalism.
Social media played the role of a catalyst in this fight. Initially, it was the leftists who dominated these social media portals. The right was vary of its power, misuse and had a slew of concerns about its usage for putting its narrative. But when it did understand its power and started disseminating facts and put forth a logical counter to the leftist crap, the left was for the first time really caught off guard. It realised that things have started to shift out of their control.
In 2014, a majority right wing government having gained the same power which it once commanded started making them jittery. It realised that it had no response to the logical counter of the resurgent right and moral comprehension for wiping out the real facts and history of Indian civilisation.
Even after being out of power for around nine years now, it still has its ideolog in the “ecosystem”. But their grip over power is fast slipping. It will take some more time to completely undo the damage they have done to the academia, arts, polity and thinking of society. But the path we have trodden so far is indeed laudable.
As they say, understanding the problem correctly is the first step towards reaching a solution. But we have traded a long past and hence the fight against the falsehoods of left will continue but the journey should be kept in mind to not miss out the journey so far while going ahead.
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