The Struggle for Space: Revisiting the Emergence of Left politics in India

Since the mid19th century, India had been subordinated to British monopoly capital through a network of modern transport, communication and centralized administration. Nationalism in India was both a challenge and response to this semi-capitalist colonial situation, and anti-feudal, anti-caste and anti-imperialist struggles were notable facets of the overall national movement. Nationalism as an idea appealed to the imagination of the informed masses, and nationalists were expecting major political gains after the World War I; they were willing to fight back if their expectations were thwarted. The worst economic situations in the post war years had resulted in wholesale unemployment; all sections of Indian society were suffering from economic hardships, compounded by drought, high prices and epidemics. Thus, the international situation was favorable for the resurgence of nationalism in India. The World War I gave a tremendous impetus to nationalism all over Asia and Africa. In order to win popular support for their war effort, the allied nations - Britain, U.S, France, etc., promised a new era of democracy and national self-determination to all people of the world. But after their victory, they showed little willingness to end the colonial system. In the Paris Peace Conference, the wartime promises were forgotten, the defeated powers Germany, Turkey etc. began to nurture a sense of military nationalism. The forces of capitalism and imperialism had created severe problems in the midst of economic crisis and war (1913 to 1929), but the two successive events, i.e., the success of Russian Revolution and the formation of the Third International (1919) directly boosted the currents of socialism as a serious counterpoise to the world’s capitalist network; in that particular period the colonizing and colonized countries had ardently sought a viable alternative. The nationalist movement in India was also affected by the fact that the rest of Afro-Asian world was convulsed by nationalist agitations after the war.