Arjun Prasad Singh on Revolutionary Democracy

Arjun Prasad Singh on Revolutionary Democracy:  Indian Communists Rejecting Peoples’ Revolution, a Strategy Suitable to Indian Conditions!

Harsh Thakor*

Arjun Prasad Singh, now convenor of Democratic People’s Front of India, played a very formative role in the crystallising of revolutionary peasant resistance in Bihar in the late 1980’s to mid-1990. He has stressed a departure from the mechanical understanding of the Chinese path of practice to promote a broad-based character in people’s movements.

I first met Arjun ji in Mumbai in 1990 when he was convenor of Lok Sangram Morcha, and the second time during the convention of All India Peoples Resistance Forum on 50 years of Independence in Mumbai. In 2001, I met him when I made my first visit to Bihar, in Patna and then again in the Mumbai Resistance at Mumbai in 2004. Since 2013, we have frequently met in Delhi, where he has patiently discussed his political views with me on past history and current scenarios.

Arjun Prasad Singh has undertaken painstaking work on the urban front amongst organised and unorganised workers and written some of the most coherent and lucid articles diagnosing the nature of Indian Brahmanical fascism. Arjun’s writings have illustratively explored the anti-people dynamics of neo-liberal economic policies. Today, he dips his ink in the journal ‘Morcha’ where he has written extensively on diverse aspects. including a 6-part series on aspects of the mass line of the erstwhile CPI(ML) Party Unity Group and Naxalite movement of Bihar, and the switch towards left adventurist deviation, later.

Below is an interview I conducted with Arjun Prasad Singh, who is now convenor of the Democratic Front of India, and was formally secretary of the Progressive Democratic Front of India and joint secretary of the All-India Peoples Resistance Forum. It is a more detailed interview than one conducted recently, addressing subjects of Russia, Maoism and the Maoist Movement in more detail, Caste Question and Fascism more intensively.

Q1 Can you summarise your long political journey?

A1 I started my political journey in 1972, while in the final year of my MA at Patna University. Firstly, I joined the Bihar Students Association, the first open Revolutionary organisation of students, supporting the Naxalbari Peasants Upsurge. Later on, we formed CPI (ML)Unity Committee in 1974. I came in touch with Arvind Sinha, who drew me towards a Marxist political orientation. During students’ elections I campaigned with Baldev Jha., A protest was organised against the arrival of Lalo Prasad Yadav.

I played an active role in a roadblock protest in 1974. Many students were arrested, but I evaded arrest. Still, I went to see them in Bankipur prison. That year, I was appointed area secretary of CPI (ML) Unity Committee of Patna area, which adjoined with Bhojpur, Muzzafarnagar, and Rohtas. I set up a youth organisation unit in my area.

In 1977 I was attracted towards the politics of CPI(ML) PCC group during elections, reposing faith in their stand to participate in the elections. I actively campaigned for PCC candidates who went on to join PCC and were assigned tasks of working amongst Koyla workers in Paliganj region for 2 years, and later building Bihar Kisan Samiti in Sasaram region, with Paltu Master.

In 1983, I was sent by the secretary of the PCC, Ashok Chaterjee, to work in Bhojpur-Rohtas, where I worked in a Dalit Basti.

In 1984, I operated as the chief election agent of the election candidate of Pharsani Ram to contest against Jagjivan Ram. I confronted Jagjivan Ram when he wished to wipe away the name of Pharsani Ram.

In 1984, in the central conference of the PCC in Bengal, I came head-on in confrontation with leaders like Satyanarayana Singh and Devnathan, who boycotted the conference. I was now appointed leader of Bihar Kisan Samiti with BN Sharma. Soon, I parted ways with BN Sharma in 1985.

In 1986, I joined the CPI(ML) Party Unity Group and played role of an organiser of the later-banned Mazdoor Sangram Samiti, an organisation of peasants and landless workers. 1990’s, steering land movements in regions like Jehanabad, Daltangaunj, Aurangabad and Khagaria. The Mazdoor Kisan Sangrami Samiti, later resurrected as Mazdoor Sangrami Parishad, played a pivotal role in infusing mass character to the peasant movement led by the Mazdoor Kisan Sangrami Parishad and not letting it be dictated by armed squads. 

From 1988,, I became the convenor of Lok Sangram Morcha, a mass front comprising 7 mass organisations. It marshalled democratic forces through the Lok Sangram Morcha, built in 1988 in Delhi, and steered a wave of revolutionary democratic protests against state repression.  

I chaired various conventions and protests of the All-India Peoples Resistance Forum formed in 1994, which waged struggles on a wide spectrum from peasants, workers and tribals to that of nationalities. Being appointed joint secretary of the All India Peoples Residence Forum, I presided over its 2^nd national conference in Sangrur.  I was also a regular columnist in journals like Mukti Marg, People's Resistance and Jan Pratirodh. Illustratively, summarising developments in peasant struggles, particularly in Jehanabad. He has stressed a departure from the mechanical understanding of the Chinese path of practice to promote a broad-based character in people’s movements.

Q1. Briefly outline your organisational work.

I have been actively involved in several national-level initiatives. I served on the Steering Committee of the All-India Seminar on Nationalities held in Delhi (1996) and a seminar in Mumbai marking 50 years of Indian independence. I helped steer Jan Abhiyan, which organised an All-India Convention in 1992, and later the Forum Against Imperialist Globalisation, which held a major convention in Kolkata in 2004. I was also appointed convenor of AICADP, a front formed to oppose the death sentences awarded to Dalit labourers in Bara, where we petitioned the government for clemency. Additionally, I convened an anti-WTO front under AIPRF, which brought together 55 organisations, though it later became defunct.

Q2. Have major economic changes occurred in India since the 1990s?

Yes, significant structural changes have taken place since liberalisation. Employment has increasingly shifted from secure, permanent jobs to contractual and informal work, often with lower wages and minimal protections. At the same time, agrarian distress has forced large sections of the peasantry to leave agriculture and migrate to urban centres in search of livelihood, fundamentally altering India’s socio-economic landscape.

Q3. Do you support the 1970 CPI(ML) programme?

I do not support the 1970 CPI(ML) programme. Its characterisation of India as semi-feudal and semi-colonial is no longer valid. India has evolved into a dependent capitalist country, where capitalism has developed in close linkage with foreign capital and imperialist technology. In this context, the principal contradiction is not feudalism versus the masses, but between the comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the broad masses.

Q4. What is the current state of the revolutionary communist movement in India?

The movement remains highly fragmented, divided into numerous groups with differing ideological positions, programmes, and strategies. While unity is urgently needed, it remains difficult due to these differences. Many groups have fallen into revisionism, with some adopting parliamentary paths, while others pursue sectarian or purely militaristic approaches. A practical step forward would be to build an all-India coordination platform to resist authoritarian tendencies and state repression, even while ideological debates continue.

Q5. Was CPI(ML) Party Unity different from CPI (Maoist)?

Yes, CPI(ML) Party Unity had a distinct approach, especially until the mid-1990s. It largely adhered to the mass line, emphasising mobilisation of the people and conducting limited, defensive armed actions without undermining mass character. Its work, particularly in regions like Jehanabad, reflected genuine mass resistance. However, after the mid-1990s, especially during unity efforts with the People’s War Group, there was a shift toward militarisation, which diluted its earlier mass-based orientation.

Q6. What is the role of the Democratic People’s Front?

The Democratic People’s Front is a broad-based democratic platform formed around five years ago. It brings together individuals and organisations across several states. The Front works on a common political programme addressing issues such as capitalist-imperialist exploitation, state repression, unemployment, price rise, corruption, and oppression of minorities and Dalits. It also collaborates with other democratic and progressive forces in joint struggles.

Q7. What are your views on Maoism and CPI (Maoist)?

I fundamentally disagree with Maoism as an ideological framework and with the strategy of CPI (Maoist). Maoism, as later theorised, represents a sectarian deviation from Marxism-Leninism-Mao Thought. The CPI (Maoist)’s reliance on protracted armed struggle, guerrilla zones, and election boycotts has weakened mass movements and led to heavy organisational losses. In my view, revolutionary politics must prioritise mass mobilisation rather than militarism. I uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought, which differs significantly from later interpretations of Maoism.

Q8. What is your view on the caste question?

Caste remains a deeply embedded feature of Indian society, operating at both economic (base) and social (superstructure) levels. It cannot be resolved solely through class struggle, as caste and class are interlinked. Addressing caste oppression requires targeted measures, especially the economic empowerment of Dalits. Land redistribution and access to resources are essential steps toward transforming their social position.

Q9. What is your opinion on Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM)?

The SKM has played a central role in mobilising farmers, particularly around demands such as legal guarantees for MSP, loan waivers, and opposition to policies like the Electricity Bill. However, the broader farmers’ movement remains fragmented, with multiple organisations operating separately. A key limitation of the SKM is its focus on economic demands without developing a wider political perspective or forging deeper unity with agricultural labourers and other working classes. A broader, united front is necessary for long-term impact.

Q10. What is your view on Russia?

Following Stalin’s period, the Soviet Union gradually transitioned into a capitalist system, culminating in its disintegration in 1991 into multiple republics. Contemporary Russia functions as an imperialist power and is engaged in conflict with Ukraine. At the same time, global developments, including formations like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, indicate a shift toward a multipolar world order.

Q11. What is your view on fascism in India?

Fascism can be understood, following Georgi Dimitrov, as the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary elements of finance capital. In India, it manifests differently from classical European forms but retains core features such as authoritarianism, aggressive nationalism, and suppression of dissent. The current political climate reflects these tendencies, with increasing centralisation of power and targeting of minority communities. 

Let the Hundred Flowers Doom - Sitaram Yechuri

A Tribute to Sitaram Yechury – Let the Hundred Flowers Doom!

A Critical Reflection on the Legacy of Sitaram Yechury and the CPM

The rise of Sitaram Yechury within the Communist Party of India (Marxist) represents both the internal contradictions and the gradual decline of the Indian Left. Coming from a relatively petty-bourgeois background with no significant engagement in revolutionary struggles before his student days, Yechury entered national politics through the portals of JNU, eventually becoming JNUSU President under the SFI banner. Guided by the influence of Prakash Karat and later Harkishan Singh Surjit, he climbed the party hierarchy with calculated precision—becoming a Central Committee member and, finally, General Secretary. Yet, unlike many of his predecessors who endured imprisonment, police brutality, and grassroots struggles, Yechury’s political journey was remarkably insulated from the physical sacrifices that once defined Left leadership.

Following the decision of the Allahabad High Court declaring Mrs IdiraGandhi's from Rae Bareli illegal in 1975, before the declaration of the State of Emergency in June 1975, Sitaram Yechuri asked Mrs Gandhi to resign as Prime Minister of India.  Then she was also the Visitor of the JNU.  She refused to do. later she declared the Emergency on 26 June 1975. Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties were suppressed, and thousands of people were arrested. A vast Majority of them from West Bangal where the Left movement was very strong. There is no recod Sitaram Yechuir ever arrested, let alone spent a day in a prison cell.           

This shift in leadership style stands in stark contrast to earlier stalwarts of the movement, such as Major Jaipal Singh, a freedom fighter who, along with Harkishan Singh Surjit, served on the Central Committee during the party’s formative years. Leaders of that generation combined theoretical clarity with a lifetime of sacrifice and direct confrontation with the state. Their politics were forged in struggle and revolutionary discipline, not merely in parliamentary manoeuvring or tactical alliances.

The CPM’s fateful decision to support the Congress-led UPA government in 2004 marked a turning point. Despite Congress’s unabashed commitment to neoliberal economic policies, its deepening military exercises with the United States, and closer ties with Israel, the CPM chose to lend its support under the justification of keeping the BJP at bay. The results were catastrophic. From 42 parliamentary seats in 2004, the CPM fell to 16 in 2009 and just 9 in 2014. Far from strengthening the Left, this alliance eroded its ideological distinctiveness, alienated its grassroots cadres, and associated it with the very neoliberal policies it claimed to oppose.

Yechury’s political line further reflected a retreat from Marxist-Leninist fundamentals. Critical analysis—a method first elaborated by Immanuel Kant and later adopted by thinkers like Han Suyin, the Chinese doctor and writer who defended the Cultural Revolution—demands a concrete study of concrete conditions while remaining rooted in fundamental principles. Yet, Yechury’s leadership increasingly embraced liberal rhetoric—secularism, anti-fascism, and democratic rights—without grounding it in class struggle or revolutionary praxis. His speeches rarely invoked terms like “class struggle” or referenced historic campaigns such as “Operation Burga,” instead sounding more like those of a liberal opposition leader than a Marxist revolutionary.

It is worth recalling that 14 March 1883 marked one of the saddest days for the international working-class movement: Karl Marx passed away. In reflecting on Marx’s death, Frederick Engels dismissed bourgeois democracy as an “incurable mental condition with which some people are born,” a caustic observation that underscores the chasm between revolutionary politics and the liberal democratic illusions that increasingly colour the CPM’s discourse today.

Perhaps most striking was Yechury’s decision to pay tribute to Deng Xiaoping—the architect of China’s market-oriented reforms—while failing to even mention Chairman Mao Zedong, the great revolutionary who led the Chinese people to power through Marxist-Leninist struggle. His praise for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a figure emblematic of bourgeois liberalism, further underlined a departure from the core tenets of Marxist analysis.

Mao’s own contribution to dialectical materialism stands in stark opposition to such opportunism. Mao emphasised the supremacy of the masses over the Party, insisting that if the Communist Party—understood as the conscious vanguard of the working class—deviates from Marxist-Leninist principles, it is the duty of the masses, both party members and non-members, to organise and overthrow the errant leadership. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution embodied this principle. Far from being a Trotskyist notion of “permanent revolution,” Mao’s Cultural Revolution was a practical application of the transition of revolution, a mass mobilisation designed to purge revisionist elements like Liu Shaoqi and to reaffirm the primacy of the people in the socialist project. By calling on the masses to “bombard the headquarters,” Mao demonstrated that the revolution’s survival depends on continuous class struggle—even within the party itself.

In this light, Yechury’s silence on Mao and his open admiration for Deng and Roosevelt are not mere omissions; they are symptomatic of a worldview increasingly shaped by compromise and accommodation rather than revolutionary vigilance.

In the end, history may remember Sitaram Yechury not as a builder of movements, but as an outlier in the lineage of Indian Marxism—a leader who sought relevance through alliances and liberal posturing, but presided over the erosion of the Left’s mass base in West Bengal, Tripura, and beyond. The CPM’s entanglement in the web of neoliberal economics and its inability to develop a concrete revolutionary strategy while remaining faithful to Marx-Lenin-Stalin-Mao principles stands as a cautionary tale. Without theoretical rigour, grassroots mobilisation, and class clarity, even the most historic parties risk being absorbed into the very bourgeois order they were created to overthrow.

Notes

S. Deman, “To Be Marxist or to Be Communist, That Is the Question,” Times of India, April 26, 2015, Letter to the Editor.

S. Deman, “CPM Party Line of Yechury—Concrete Analysis of the Concrete?,” NewsView–RaceClass (blog), December 26, 2015.

Ibid.

Election Commission of India, Statistical Reports on General Elections (New Delhi: Election Commission, 2004–2014).

S. Deman, “CPM Party Line of Yechury.”

Han Suyin, Asia Today (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967).

S. Deman, “To Be Marxist or to Be Communist.”

Karl Marx died on March 14, 1883, not 1888. See Friedrich Engels, “Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx,” in Marx/Engels Collected Works, vol. 24 (New York: International Publishers, 1989), 473–474.

Friedrich Engels, quoted in S. Deman, “CPM Party Line of Yechury—Concrete Analysis of the Concrete?”

S. Deman, “To Be Marxist or to Be Communist.”

Ambrose Yeo-chi King, “A Voluntarist Model of Organization: The Maoist Version and Its Critique,” British Journal of Sociology 28, no. 3 (September 1977): 363–374.

Mahaparta Mohanty, “Mao’s Portrait of Stalin,” Economic and Political Weekly, July–August 1975.

S. Deman, “CPM Party Line of Yechury.”

Han Suyin, Asia Today.

A little Love Story - Trump-Modi Tariff Game

India’s Strategic Autonomy under Trump’s Tariff Regime: Multipolar Equilibria and Indo–Russian Continuities

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Abstract

This article evaluates the reported Modi–Trump tariff understanding within the deeper historical and structural architecture of India’s foreign policy. It argues that tariff diplomacy cannot be interpreted in isolation from India’s long-standing strategic autonomy doctrine, its foundational security relationship with Russia, and the multipolar constraints imposed by the United States–China rivalry. Drawing on game-theoretic frameworks—particularly the repeated prisoner’s dilemma and Nash equilibrium reasoning—the article demonstrates that India’s multi-alignment is not indecision but equilibrium behaviour under conditions of coercive economic statecraft. The persistence of Indo–Russian ties is further anchored in energy security imperatives, sanctions resistance, and Russia’s historical diplomatic insurance on Kashmir. The Modi–Trump tariff episode is thus best understood as a tactical bargaining round rather than a decisive geopolitical pivot.

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Introduction

Recent claims surrounding a tariff adjustment between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump have generated considerable speculation regarding India’s strategic orientation. Trump’s assertion that India would curtail Russian oil purchases in exchange for tariff reductions suggests an attempt to convert trade diplomacy into an alignment mechanism. Yet India’s foreign policy history reveals that sovereignty preservation, energy realism, and strategic autonomy cannot be overridden by marginal transactional concessions.

This article situates the Modi–Trump tariff episode within India’s deeper geopolitical posture, demonstrating that multi-alignment remains India’s dominant equilibrium strategy in an increasingly fragmented multipolar order. The argument proceeds by locating tariff diplomacy within India’s historical memory of Indo–Russian security guarantees, its contemporary energy constraints, and the systemic pressures produced by great-power rivalry in Eurasia.

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Tariff diplomacy and coercive alignment

The announcement of tariff reductions between Modi and Trump must be understood not merely as a commercial adjustment, but as a significant moment in the evolving geopolitical contest over India’s autonomy. Any suggestion that India might exchange decades of strategic partnership with Russia for a seven-percentage-point tariff concession requires contextualisation within the deeper historical structure of Indo–Russian relations.

India’s relationship with Moscow is not reducible to energy imports. The Soviet Union repeatedly vetoed Western-backed UN resolutions on Kashmir, shielding India from the internationalisation of its most existential sovereignty dispute. Such diplomatic insurance cannot be purchased through short-term tariff relief.

The legacy of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War further reinforces India’s caution toward American coercion. The deployment of the US Seventh Fleet toward the Bay of Bengal was perceived as intimidation, while Soviet signalling served as India’s strategic counterweight. These historical episodes are not merely archival; they remain embedded within Indian strategic culture as reminders of the conditional nature of American partnership.

The tariff episode thus reflects a broader pattern: Washington seeks alignment through conditional market access, while India seeks tactical economic gains without surrendering strategic autonomy. The broader diplomatic context also reveals the limits of spectacle-driven partnership, as symbolic events such as the “Howdy Modi” rally and Ahmedabad summit optics failed to prevent repeated US tariff defection, underscoring the transactional rather than reciprocal nature of Trump-era engagement.

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Strategic autonomy and repeated-game bargaining

The Modi–Trump tariff episode can be formalised through the framework of repeated strategic interaction, most usefully modelled as a variant of the repeated prisoner’s dilemma under asymmetric leverage. In such settings, economic rewards and coercive threats operate not as isolated events but as iterative bargaining moves within a longer geopolitical game.

A more rigorous representation of this interaction is provided by the 2×2 payoff structure of the US–India tariff game, in which both actors may either cooperate (maintaining open trade with low tariffs) or defect (escalating tariffs or retaliating). Under mutual cooperation, the outcome is one of shared gains. By contrast, persistent US defection while India continues cooperation produces an asymmetric payoff in which India suffers economic loss while Washington accrues leverage.

Table 1. U.S.–India Tariff Interaction Payoff Structure (adapted from Deman 2026)

	India Cooperate	India Defects
US Cooperate	(4,  4)	(1, 5)
US Defects	(5, 1)	(2, 2)

The United States has repeatedly used tariffs as punishment mechanisms designed to induce compliance. For India, however, cooperation must remain conditional, since abandoning Russia or refusing retaliation represents an irreversible weakening of its long-term strategic insurance position.

India therefore pursues calibrated accommodation: signalling limited cooperation to extract short-term trade benefit while retaining autonomy to resist escalation. Russia’s presence as an alternative partner alters the payoff structure, preventing Washington from enforcing monopolistic discipline.

As the Folk Theorem suggests, sustained cooperation in repeated games is only stable when credible punishment strategies exist. India’s relative passivity in the 2017–2020 tariff cycle weakened its bargaining leverage by allowing repeated US defection without proportional countermeasures. In such a structure, strategic autonomy requires not only rhetorical non-alignment but enforceable bargaining credibility.

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Multi-alignment as equilibrium under multipolarity

India’s foreign policy posture is increasingly best conceptualised as equilibrium behaviour within an emerging multipolar system. Full alignment with the United States would intensify Chinese hostility and weaken Russian counterweight insurance; full alignment with Russia would constrain access to Western technology and capital.

India thus occupies a mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium: selective cooperation distributed across competing poles to prevent domination by any single actor. This equilibrium reflects the strategic logic of autonomy maximisation under multipolar constraints.

Participation in BRICS and rupee-denominated trade mechanisms reflects institutional diversification aimed at reducing vulnerability to dollar-based sanction architectures. The Modi–Trump tariff episode represents one bargaining round within this broader equilibrium process rather than a decisive pivot.

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Energy security and sanctions resistance

Indo–Russian continuity is increasingly anchored in energy realism. India is one of the world’s largest oil importers, and energy security is inseparable from national security. Energy dependence imposes structural constraints that cannot be displaced through short-term trade concessions.

Western sanction regimes seek to weaponise interdependence by transforming access to financial and settlement systems into coercive tools. India’s refusal to subordinate its energy needs to Western priorities reflects the limits of such coercion when applied to major emerging powers.

Russian crude offers price competitiveness, reliability, and transactional flexibility—including partial rupee-based settlement arrangements. Tariff concessions cannot compensate for the structural imperatives of energy survival. Oil therefore functions as structural ballast stabilising Indo–Russian relations against episodic US economic pressure.

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Kashmir, sovereignty, and Russian diplomatic insurance

The Kashmir dispute remains central to India’s sovereignty consciousness. Soviet vetoes at the UN Security Council prevented Western-backed internationalisation efforts, preserving India’s preferred bilateral framing. Sovereignty preservation has therefore remained an existential organising principle of Indian diplomacy.

By contrast, America’s historic alignment with Pakistan produced enduring Indian scepticism regarding US neutrality on sovereignty questions. Kashmir thus serves as a reminder that Indo–Russian ties rest on institutional reassurance, not ideology.

India cannot rationally exchange such diplomatic insurance for marginal tariff relief. Sovereignty preservation ensures that Indo–Russian continuity remains a durable component of India’s equilibrium strategy.

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BRICS expansion and the decline of Western economic discipline

The endurance of India’s multi-alignment strategy must also be situated within the broader systemic transformation represented by BRICS expansion and the gradual erosion of Western economic monopoly. As emerging powers develop alternative financial architectures, the capacity of the United States to enforce compliance through tariffs, sanctions, or dollar-centric coercion becomes increasingly constrained.

India’s participation in BRICS is not merely symbolic but reflects an institutional hedge against Western disciplinary mechanisms. De-dollarisation initiatives, alternative development banks, and energy settlement diversification all contribute to an emerging multipolar economic order.

Thus, the Modi–Trump tariff episode should be read as one tactical episode within a much larger historical transition: the declining capacity of Western economic statecraft to determine the strategic choices of major civilisational powers.

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Conclusion: India’s autonomy in the multipolar order

The Modi–Trump tariff episode does not represent a decisive pivot away from Russia. Rather, it illustrates the limits of transactional economic statecraft when confronted with historical memory, structural energy dependence, and sovereignty imperatives.

India’s dominant strategy remains multi-alignment: cooperation where beneficial, resistance where necessary, and diversification across power centres to maximise autonomy. In an emerging multipolar order defined by competitive interdependence, India’s foreign policy is best understood not as ideological non-alignment but as rational equilibrium behaviour.

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Policy implications: strategic autonomy under tariff coercion

For India, the central lesson of the Trump tariff episode is that strategic autonomy requires more than balancing rhetoric: it requires credible bargaining enforcement. In repeated games of economic coercion, cooperation is only stable when punishment strategies exist.

First, India must develop credible retaliatory trade instruments—whether through WTO-compatible countermeasures or regional trade diversification—to prevent asymmetric tariff exploitation.

Second, India should institutionalise energy sovereignty by expanding settlement diversification, including rupee-based mechanisms, to reduce vulnerability to sanctions coercion.

Third, New Delhi must avoid over-investing in spectacle diplomacy. Symbolic summits cannot substitute for enforceable reciprocity in trade relations.

Finally, BRICS and other multipolar forums should be leveraged not as ideological blocs but as strategic hedges that widen India’s autonomy space under conditions of systemic Western decline.

India’s long-term equilibrium lies not in exclusive alignment with Washington or Moscow, but in sustained multi-vector autonomy as the defining strategy of a post-hegemonic international order.

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Selected bibliography (Chicago style)

Acharya, Amitav. India’s Foreign Policy: Theoretical Approaches and Contemporary Debates. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Allison, Graham. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.

Cohen, Stephen P. India: Emerging Power. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001.

Deman, Suresh. “A Strategic Sabotage: The Tariff Offensive and India’s Mismanaged Diplomatic Script.” Unpublished manuscript, Centre for Economics & Finance, London, 2026.

Ganguly, Sumit. Conflict Unending: India–Pakistan Tensions since 1947. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

Jervis, Robert. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.

Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.

Pant, Harsh V. India’s Foreign Policy and the Middle East. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Raghavan, Srinath. 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Walt, Stephen M. The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Waltz, Kenneth N. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979.

 

A Tribute to Sitaram Yechury – Hundred Flowers Doomed!

A Critical Reflection on the Legacy of Sitaram Yechury and the CPM

Yechuri competes with BJP & Cong! 

The rise of Sitaram Yechury within the Communist Party of India (Marxist) represents both the internal contradictions and the gradual decline of the Indian Left. Coming from a relatively petty-bourgeois background with no significant engagement in revolutionary struggles before his student days, Yechury entered national politics through the portals of JNU, eventually becoming JNUSU President under the SFI banner (Deman 2015a). Guided by the influence of Prakash Karat and later Harkishan Singh Surjit, he climbed the party hierarchy with calculated precision—becoming a Central Committee member and, finally, General Secretary. Yet, unlike many of his predecessors who endured imprisonment, police brutality, and grassroots struggles, Yechury’s political journey was remarkably insulated from the physical sacrifices that once defined Left leadership (Deman 2015b).

This shift in leadership style stands in stark contrast to earlier stalwarts of the movement such as Major Jaipal Singh, a freedom fighter who, along with Harkishan Singh Surjit, served on the Central Committee during the party’s formative years. Leaders of that generation combined theoretical clarity with a lifetime of sacrifice and direct confrontation with the state (Deman 2015b).

The CPM’s fateful decision to support the Congress-led UPA government in 2004 marked a turning point. Despite Congress’ unabashed commitment to neoliberal economic policies, its deepening military exercises with the United States, and closer ties with Israel, the CPM chose to lend its support under the justification of keeping the BJP at bay calls in question CPM;s tactical line. In fact, Yechuri’s flirtation with the Sonia-Rahul Gandhi leadership degenerated to the extent in acting as a messenger of EX-PM, Dr MM Singh to lend unsolicited advice the Nepalese, Maoist leader better known as Pranchanda, a JNU Aluminous to embrace bourgeois democracy, not only advise the Indian Maoists to shun violence, but to neutralise them in cahoot with the Congress Home Minster, Chidambaram in “Operation Green-Hunt.” He appeared to left cadre and its constituents as collaborator rather than a champion of their cause. The results were catastrophic. From 42 parliamentary seats in 2004, the CPM fell to 16 in 2009 and just 9 in 2014 (Election Commission of India 2004–2014). Far from strengthening the Left, this alliance eroded its ideological distinctiveness, alienated its grassroots cadres, and associated it with the very neoliberal policies it claimed to oppose (Deman 2015b).

Yechury’s political line further reflected a retreat from Marxist-Leninist fundamentals. Critical analysis—a method first elaborated by Immanuel Kant and later adopted by thinkers like Han Suyin, the Chinese doctor and writer who defended the Cultural Revolution—demands a concrete study of concrete conditions while remaining rooted in fundamental principles (Suyin 1967). Yet, Yechury’s leadership increasingly embraced liberal rhetoric—secularism, anti-fascism, and democratic rights—without grounding it in class struggle or revolutionary praxis. His speeches rarely invoked terms like “class struggle” or referenced historic campaigns such as “Operation Burga,” instead sounding more like those of a liberal opposition leader than a Marxist revolutionary (Deman 2015a).

It is worth recalling that 14 March 1883 marked one of the saddest days for the international working-class movement: Karl Marx passed away (Engels 1989). In reflecting on Marx’s death, Frederick Engels dismissed bourgeois democracy as an “incurable mental condition with which some people are born,” a caustic observation that underscores the chasm between revolutionary politics and the liberal democratic illusions that increasingly color the CPM’s discourse today (Deman 2015b).

Perhaps most striking was Yechury’s decision to pay tribute to Deng Xiaoping—the architect of China’s market-oriented reforms—while failing to even mention Chairman Mao Zedong, the great revolutionary who led the Chinese people to power through Marxist-Leninist struggle. His praise for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a figure emblematic of bourgeois liberalism, further underlined a departure from the core tenets of Marxist analysis (Deman 2015a).

Mao’s own contribution to dialectical materialism stands in stark opposition to such opportunism. Mao emphasized the supremacy of the masses over the Party, insisting that if the Communist Party—understood as the conscious vanguard of the working class—deviates from Marxist-Leninist principles, it is the duty of the masses, both party members and non-members, to organize and overthrow the errant leadership. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution embodied this principle (King 1977). Far from being a Trotskyist notion of “permanent revolution,” Mao’s Cultural Revolution was a practical application of the transition of revolution, a mass mobilization designed to purge revisionist elements like Liu Shaoqi and to reaffirm the primacy of the people in the socialist project (Mohanty 1975).

In this light, Yechury’s silence on Mao and his open admiration for Deng and Roosevelt are not mere omissions; they are symptomatic of a worldview increasingly shaped by compromise and accommodation rather than revolutionary vigilance (Deman 2015b).

In the end, history may remember Sitaram Yechury not as a builder of movements, but as an outlier in the lineage of Indian Marxism—a leader who sought relevance through alliances and liberal posturing, but presided over the erosion of the Left’s mass base in West Bengal, Tripura, and beyond. The CPM’s entanglement in the web of neoliberal economics, and its inability to develop a concrete revolutionary strategy while remaining faithful to Marx-Lenin-Stalin-Mao principles, stands as a cautionary tale. Without theoretical rigor, grassroots mobilization, and class clarity, even the most historic parties risk being absorbed into the very bourgeois order they were created to overthrow (Suyin 1967).

References

Deman, S. 2015a. “To Be Marxist or to Be Communist, That Is the Question.” Times of India, April 26. Letter to the Editor.

Deman, S. 2015b. “CPM Party Line of Yechury—Concrete Analysis of the Concrete?” NewsView–RaceClass (blog), December 26.

Election Commission of India. 2004–2014. Statistical Reports on General Elections. New Delhi: Election Commission of India.

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SHAKSPEAR RESSURCTED - TRUMP'S TARIFF TEMPEST!!!

    The Tariff Tempest: Navigating the Trumpian Storm

Satish Jha

A storm brews on the global horizon, its gales whipped up by a man who sees the world as a ledger to be balanced, a market to be muscled.

Donald Trump, with tariffs as his thunderbolts, has rattled the pillars of global trade in just seven months of his second term.

Over ninety nations quiver or bend, their economies bruised by the weight of his “Liberation Day” levies—10% to 50% tariffs, flung like edicts from a self-styled emperor.

China, ever the pragmatist, negotiates exemptions; Japan bows to the pressure, aligning with the Trumpian diktat. India and Brazil, defiant or perhaps unwise, raise their voices, only to find their cards dwindling in a game where the U.S. holds the deck.

This is no mere trade policy—it’s a tempest, reshaping alliances, economies, and the very rules that govern our world. How do we weather it? And what will remain when the storm passes by 2029?

Trump’s tariffs are not just economic tools; they are weapons of a small businessman’s instinct, wielding the might of the world’s largest market to arm-twist nations into submission.

He sees trade deficits as personal affronts, believing “smart” deal-making can bend the globe to his will. History, with its lessons of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act’s role in deepening the Great Depression, seems lost on him.

Economics, too, is a mystery he sidesteps, convinced that tariffs will spark an American renaissance while generating billions—$150 billion already collected, with projections soaring to $4 trillion over a decade.

Yet, the cost is steep: U.S. consumers face a $2,400 hit per household in 2025, supply chains choke, and global GDP falters, with the U.S. itself losing 0.36% of its economic output. The storm spares no one, not even its architect.

The world, caught in this gale, must choose its response. Some nations, like the EU and Japan, seek shelter in trade deals, trading sovereignty for stability. Others, like India, risk isolation by speaking out, potentially losing leverage in the great game of containing China.

Trump’s threats—nuclear submarines near Russia, secondary tariffs on India for buying Russian oil—reveal a transactional foreign policy where trade and defense are cudgels to enforce compliance. The BRICS bloc, battered by tariffs as high as 50% on Brazil and 125% on China, may find new resolve.

Trump’s pressure could forge BRICS into a tighter economic alliance, accelerating their push for alternative trade routes and a de-dollarized world. The Gulf states, already pivoting to Asia and the Global South, exemplify this shift, eyeing yuan-denominated energy trades to dodge the storm.

The Quad—India, Japan, Australia, and the U.S.—faces a reckoning. Trump’s unilateralism undermines its cohesion, as Japan and Australia, wary of economic fallout, align closer to U.S. demands. India’s defiance, coupled with its BRICS ties, may strain the alliance, potentially forcing a reorganization or even dissolution if the U.S. prioritizes bilateral deals over collective security.

International laws, once the bedrock of global order, now seem pliable, applied only to the weak. The World Trade Organization, already strained, struggles to counter Trump’s tariff onslaught, its relevance questioned as bilateralism trumps multilateralism.

At home, the Republican Party, once a bastion of free trade and fiscal restraint, has morphed into a herd following Trump’s lead. Why? Fear of his base, loyalty to his charisma, or perhaps a cynical bet on his economic gamble.

The U.S. Supreme Court, with its recent blessings, shields him from legal accountability, granting near-imperial powers. Four years of Democratic presidency failed to rein him in, not for lack of trying but because the system—polarized, sclerotic—could not muster the will or consensus to hold a man who thrives on chaos.

His family, weaving deals through backchannels, may indeed emerge as untouchable titans, their wealth insulated by a judiciary that bends to their patron.

So, how do we discern truth amid this tempest? Facts are buried under rhetoric, with Trump’s Truth Social posts proclaiming tariffs as America’s salvation while economists warn of recession.

The truth lies in the numbers—$486.7 billion in reduced U.S. imports, $451.1 billion in lost exports, and a global economy teetering on a rocky road. To navigate, the world must lean on pragmatism: diversify trade, as Canada and the Gulf states do; strengthen regional blocs like ASEAN and BRICS; and push for WTO reforms to restore order. Dialogue, not defiance, may blunt Trump’s ire, as China’s negotiations show.

By 2029, when Trump’s term ends, the fallout could be profound. A fragmented trade system, with new blocs like BRICS+ gaining clout, may challenge Western dominance.

The U.S. economy, battered by its own tariffs, risks stagflation or recession, with consumers and businesses bearing the brunt. Globally, supply chains may localize, and alliances may shift, with Europe and Asia forging ties to weather future storms. Trump, the great disruptor, may leave a world less tethered to American hegemony, richer in regional autonomy but poorer in cohesion.

To weather this storm, the world must be nimble—diversifying, negotiating, and building resilience. Trump’s tariffs are a gale, not an eternal tempest.

By 2029, the skies may clear, but the landscape will be irrevocably altered. For now, nations must batten down, seek shelter in new alliances, and wait for the winds to shift. The storm is here, but storms, however fierce, do pass.