“Time to Bid Farewell to Communism in India: Why the Red Flag Must Be Lowered for Good”

Poonam Sharma 

India, the globe’s biggest democracy and bearer of one of the world’s oldest living civilizations, is accustomed to ideological confrontations. Yet few internal struggles have been as corrosively insidious as the ancient conflict between India’s communist movement and the spiritual-cultural heritage based on Hindu dharma. In textbooks and temples, street demonstrations and state policies, communist intervention in India has labored at undermining, criticizing, and weakening the cultural assertiveness of a Hindu nation.

 The Red Ideology and Dharmic Civilization

Communism at its very essence is materialist and atheistic. It perceives religion as “the opium of the masses” and attempts to destroy traditional hierarchies—including those written into religious institutions. On paper, this may look like a campaign for social justice. Practically speaking, though, Indian communists have disproportionately attacked Hinduism while excusing or colluding with other religious elements for strategic purposes.

In West Bengal, where the CPI(M) governed for 34 years (1977–2011), the erasure of Hindu ethos was policy-level. Textbooks were restructured to underemphasize ancient Hindu contributions to science, philosophy, and spirituality. The Vedas, Upanishads, and Ramayana were relegated to “Brahmanical hegemony,” while Marx, Engels, and Lenin were promoted to prophetic levels. Public religious displays—particularly during Durga Puja—were either bureaucratically smothered or culturally neutered. State-run establishments under Left governance avoided ties with temples while actively sponsoring “secular” artistic creations that playfully ridiculed Hindu rituals.

In Kerala, the CPI(M)-headed Left Democratic Front (LDF) still employs similar strategies. Hindu temples are tightly controlled by the government, and the state has been charged with favoring religious minorities in administration and policies of appeasement. Critics contend that whereas Christian and Muslim institutions have relative autonomy, Hindu institutions are frequently fettered, their revenues being siphoned into general state coffers rather than being reinvested to maintain temple infrastructures or community welfare.

 Selective Secularism, Consistent Hostility

The Left’s handling of religion is not monolithically secular—it’s selectively anti-Hindu. The irony is egregious: while communists openly mock religious belief, they have frequently partnered with radical Islamist and Christian missionary organizations to counter Hindu nationalist voices. The infamous “tukde tukde gang” slogan originated on campuses such as JNU—ideological bastions of the communist student wings—where events to commemorate Afzal Guru or against “Brahmanical patriarchy” found official patronage, while shouts of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” were denigrated as majoritarian.

The Sabarimala controversy in Kerala is the case study. The Supreme Court’s ruling that brought women of all ages inside the temple, ending centuries of tradition, was zealously enforced by the CPI(M) government—even if it involved deploying police against thousands of peaceful Hindu pilgrims. The same state government has otherwise refused to intervene in comparable religious practices of other groups on the grounds of cultural sensitivity. This hypocrisy was not lost to the public.

Intellectual Capture: The Communist Hold on the Academies

From NCERT textbooks to university classrooms, Leftist intellectuals have had a stranglehold on Indian academia long enough. Their grip on cultural discourse is complete—ancient Indian history is painted as “Aryan imposition,” Hindu monarchs like Prithviraj Chauhan are minimized, and Islamic conquerors become “secular rulers.” According to a report by the India Policy Foundation, over 70% of humanities faculty members in premier institutions like JNU, DU, and TISS are ideologically congruent with Left-wing ideology.

The cost is high: generations of students are raised learning to think of Hinduism as anything but a pluralistic, heterogeneous, and philosophical tradition, but rather as a backward social order founded solely on caste and patriarchy. This ideological colonization has disowned young people from their own heritage and made campuses into war zones of cultural identity.

Data Points of Decline

 During the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the Left Front had 59 MPs. In 2019, they had merely 5.

 Going from governing states such as West Bengal, Tripura, and Kerala, they are now restricted to sections of Kerala only.

Communist student unions, which had long held sway over college politics, are being challenged more and more by centrist or right-of-center options such as ABVP.

The electoral fall is not merely one of votes—it is a demonstration of a deeper repudiation of their anti-civilizational politics by a revived, self-assured Hindu society.

 A Civilizational Reckoning

India is not a theocracy; it’s a civilizational state. Hinduism, unlike Abrahamic religions, is non-dogmatic and inclusive in nature. It has existed with other religions for centuries. The communists’ attack isn’t on religion in itself, but on the continuity of India’s spiritual heritage.

Communism in India has, time and again, been a surrogate for cultural deracination. Its soldiers, who pretend to struggle for the downtrodden, have taken sides with those who try to dismember India—ideologically, culturally, and even territorially at times.

India’s Communist Crisis Is Cultural, Not Just Political

With their dwindling voter base and petrified ideology, Indian communist parties are already on life support. But the more destructive damage they’ve caused isn’t in Parliament—it’s in minds and institutions, where they’ve attempted to cut off the civilizational roots of Bharat.

For India to progress, it has to confront this ideological sabotage. Not by prohibiting communism, but by intellectually laying it bare—reveling in its hypocrisy, its selective secularism, and its protracted war against the soul of this old nation.