By the time I am writing this article, 85,940 people across the country are in the grip of coronavirus and 2752 people have died. While on one side the country has been closed for the last one and a half months and millions of unemployed labourers are on the road, on the other hand, the government is directly showing that it will work only for the class that already have social and economic stability.

In this era of quarantine, self-isolation and disintegration, every day there is such news and footages in which we can see that the ruling party is ready to do anything against the working class. Not only has a large section of the country been forced to walk thousands of miles and sleep hungry and have also been beaten with sticks, and they have been abused, misbehaved, and their videos have been made to mentally harass them by the ones who have to work for the public.

From the very first day of the lockdown, we saw how the police are beating up the fruit and vegetable vendors who were selling the items with a trolley full of fruits and vegetables. We also saw that how policemen upturned their trolley in front of their eyes. A disease which is evidently came through the privileged people in this country, but it’s punishment are being faced by the people who do not even know the exact name and symptoms of this disease.

On the one hand, the state governments are making good arrangements to reach home to the migrant students of their state who come from already well-to-do families; while on the other hand, the displaced labourers of their states are coming and dying every day under the vehicles on roads and railway tracks.

The Prime Minister has announced a package of 20 lakh crore rupees, but the question is whether the labourers will get immediate relief from it or it will benefit the same class as before which has been reached till now.

Where are the representatives of the proletariat?

In such a situation, the question arises directly and it is bound to arise that where is the political faction that calls itself a representative of labourers and workers or is said to be a self-proclaimed leaders of farmers and labourer. What the party is doing in this cruel time, Like the government, its side is also clearly visible that this faction could not move forward through big debates on bourgeoisie, proletariat, capitalism, castes, religion, feudalism and patriarchy and running campaigns on social media.

It is quite clear that in this era, when elections are going to be held in a few days in that part of the country where poverty and illiteracy are at their peak, where the migration level is setting new records every day, where the financial policy has been broken. Where the population level is touching the sky and the standard of living has fallen to the grounds, then why is the Left hiding in the ground?

In a state where a region is often called Small Leningrad, why is the Marxist party lagging behind, is it a matter of exception?

Far from book strategy and revolutionary speeches, this fact is found far away when it comes to the ground reality. If we look at the record of the last 2 months of the Left parties of India, it is clearly visible that apart from sharing the posters and trending hashtags on social media, nothing special work has been done in the concern of the workers, which could be said that the Left parties not only talk about the working class but also stands for them.

Just a week ago, there has been news from Chile that the public has come down on the road against the government under Left leadership, being troubled by lockdown and financial backwardness and the surprising thing is that during the protest demonstration, not only with the government but the protesters are fighting against Corona as well. The public has received instructions from their representatives that they should come at protests by wearing gloves and masks to participate in the demonstration and adopt social distancing during the protests. The question arises that in this country, which is called the world’s largest democracy, how difficult is it to walk the path shown by the people of Chile?

This attitude of the Left is not historical. Whether we talk about the Tebhaga movement of 1946-47, or the attitude of the Left on the decision of the partition of 1947, or of the historic The Great Bombay Textile Strike of 1962. The Leftists are found to be weak on the ground fighting even after their penetration among the field of literature, art, and academic intellectuals. Ground truth in spite of the huge ups and downs of votes in the political elections, there is a small truth that the Left still holds and can organize a big and effective public form.

A direct example of this is the farmers’ movement in Maharashtra and Delhi in March and November of 2018 when 50000 farmers marched out with a red flag towards big cities. What is important? By quitting photos of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Periyar, Bhagat Singh, Che Guevara, and Thomas Sankara from profile pictures and by following their views and heading towards there radical ideology by filling the struggle and thoughts of ideological radicalism in the public mind the Indian Left can not only put their party but can also take the ideas of Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram, Periyar, Phule, Marx, Lenin, Castro, Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen, and Babu Jagdev Prasad forward, but the truth seems far away.

Author – Vikram R