First, the Left carries the intellectual baggage of Marxist internationalism. This has been discarded almost everywhere. But what Raul Castro doesn’t want to talk about and China’s ultra-nationalist communists hold in contempt still excites Left politicians in India. The second reason why the Left seldom sounds convincing in its periodic articulation of the idea of India is also thanks to theory. The “thinkers” in Delhi continue to be deeply suspicious of what they see as the nationalist project of “privileged classes”. This theory comes up against two realities. Contrary to Marxist profundities, material conditions never wholly explain the alchemy of nationalism. Also, prosperity is increasing in India. Millions of people have been added to what is described roughly as the middle class, and in rural India the insufficient presence and therefore the hunger for, not indifference to, modernity set the social and political context. Class matters (so do, sadly, caste and religion), but what matters most is the demand for a ticket to modern India.

The third problem with leftist attempts to speak authoritatively for India comes from praxis. The Left’s electoral geography in India disincentivises a pan-national political view. Bengal and Kerala, mercifully, haven’t been terrorist targets and so until recently the Left’s responses to terror lacked energy. Indeed, the Left has been more energetic on sub-nationalism — the Bengal CPM has in many ways articulated “Bengali” grievances against “centres of power”. The silly interventions for Sourav Ganguly by Bengal CPM leaders speak of a deeper, quasi-chauvinistic impulse. The neglect in taking on extremist groups operating from Kerala is a more worrisome manifestation. It is in India’s interest of course that the Left find a better nationalist voice. But it is even more in the Left’s interest.