CPI(M)

India, in the early 1970s, was a bleak, hopeless place to grow up. The country was still very poor, reeling from the scars of colonial exploitation and Partition. The curse of caste division, religious bigotry and feudalism was still deeply visible. Most people—particularly those who were poor, lower-caste, or at the bottom of society—were treated like subhumans. They had no dignity, no honour, no hope.
Children growing up then had little hope. Opportunities were few, access to education was limited, and jobs were almost nonexistent. It was a bleak situation. My dad had a job. It did not make us rich, but at least we had enough to eat. I had hope, so I continued.
Into that situation came an ideology we could identify with: Marxism, Communism. Why? Because it gave poor people some measure of dignity. It told us that our worth came not from our birth or our parents’ wealth, but from what we did with our lives. That gave us hope, enthusiasm, and direction: if we worked hard and did well, we could become somebody and escape poverty.
The Communist government also provided completely free school education. We did not have to pay a single rupee for our Class Ten exam, the SSC. On top of that, it provided a mid-day meal.
If you search the web, you will see that the mid-day meal began in 2003. That is not correct. In the seventies, there was already a mid-day meal program, at least in our city, Bankura. They gave us one loaf of bread—not much, but a huge deal for hungry children. We had no food, nothing. That loaf of bread sustained us.
I also received a scholarship. When I went to school, I got some financial support, and later I received almost free education through higher school. We studied in a college, and the education was decent.
Then I was admitted to one of the best colleges in India: Jadavpur University, where I studied computer science. Again, the tuition was incredibly cheap. We paid twenty rupees a month. Over forty-eight months, we paid less than a thousand rupees for a world-class undergraduate engineering education.
That was not all. We also received hostel accommodation. The rent was nine rupees a month, and the electricity charge was five rupees. That was it. For fourteen rupees, we had a decent place to stay in the heart of Calcutta.
Of course, we had to pay for food. Even then, I received a National Scholarship, which I think amounted to about two hundred rupees a month, perhaps a little more. When I graduated, I used the final scholarship payment to settle my mess bill, which had accumulated because neither my dad nor I had any money. The only things my dad had to pay for were my books, clothes, and transportation.
Without that support, without the government’s help, I could not have become educated. I could not have become a human being. I do not consider someone fully human unless he is educated.
Most importantly, that support transformed my sense of myself. It gave me confidence and dignity.
The Left Front government gave me all of this. Was it the best government in the world? Of course not. It had many flaws and too many problems. But at its core, I felt it was good and wholesome. It was necessary. It was what we needed at the time, and it made all of us children growing up in the seventies and eighties proper human beings.
So no matter what happens, I can never speak ill of that ideology or that government.