The Nandigram catastrophe is symptomatic of this ailment. Bhattacharjee had to invoke the magic mantra of cadre raj to rid Nandigram of non-CPM elements. The rest of the country suddenly witnessed two faces of Buddhadeb — the sincere, create-a-new-Bengal face and the intolerant CPM-first face. This dichotomy between new private capital and decadent party structures has troubled even the Chinese authoritarian set-up. Bhattacharjee will have to realise that glasnost and perestroika do not come without dismantling party structures. He will find out that investment doesn’t travel to war-ravaged destinations. The CPM party structure had included the lumpen elements after lessons learnt during the Emergency. In the 21st century, that weapon needed to be junked. In a post-Gorbachev world, Communism without a human face is a dead doctrine.

The Nandigram savagery and the Deve Gowda brand of arm-twisting on the nuclear deal have highlighted the Left’s political brinkmanship. Elsewhere, you turn Left to refer back to a conscientious standpoint. In India, the dogmatic Left no longer has a conscience.

The writer is national affairs editor, CNN-IBN