THE story of Indian science generally focuses on Nehru and the scientific institutions that were built to help India industrialise.

IT is not coincidental that the communist movement in our country and also the organised trade union movement are both commemorating the centenary of their formation. Both these events are inspired by the establishment of the first workers’ State in Russia, after the Great October Socialist Revolution in 1917. Guided by Marxism-Leninism and its theory of emancipation of the society under the leadership of the working class, communist pioneers like Muzaffar Ahmed, Singaravelu Chettiar, SA Dange, Ghulam Hussain, plunged into the task of organising working class from initial days.

THE year-long observation of the formation of the Communist Party of India in Tashkent on October 17, 1920 will come to close. But, the objective of the CPI since its inception, in shaping the future of India as a democratic, secular, people’s Republic where citizens will enjoy equality and freedom irrespective of caste, creed, religion and economic status remains unaccomplished. It has also come to suffer severe setbacks, particularly, in the recent years where these very foundational principles of the constitution have come to be contested.

INDIA, at the time of independence in 1947, was a deeply backward country, economically and socially – a condition that was deepened by 200 years of colonial rule. For the Communist Party, the key question was completing the tasks of the democratic revolution which remained unfulfilled at the time of independence. The democratic transformation of society had political, economic and social dimensions.For Communists, unlike bourgeois parties, democracy was not just electoral democracy with the right to vote based on adult franchise. That alone was not sufficient for democracy.