The Crisis of the Left in South Asia, 1940–79

This paper will examine the rise of nationalism within the South Asian Left in the context of the defeat of internationalism through the anti-imperialist struggles of the 1940s. It was in this moment that the communist-left in India unwittingly bound itself to a politics that was narrowly focused on nationalist demands, signaling a shift that became much more pronounced in the subsequent years, such that, by the late 1960s, it was difficult to differentiate the demands of nationalists from those of the left. Consequently, the defeat of the 60s Left expressed itself in the rise of militant Islam.