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The Kerala Consensus.

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Title: The Kerala Consensus.
Authors: Choudhury, Kushanava
Source: Dissent (0012-3846). Winter2026, Vol. 73 Issue 1, p59-63. 5p.
Subject Terms: Hindutva, Land reform, Public health
Geographic Terms: Kerala (India), West Bengal (India)
Company/Entity: Left Front (Political party : India) , Communist Party of India (Marxist) , Bharatiya Janata Party
Abstract: The Left Front, a coalition of parties led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was elected in my home state of West Bengal in 1977 and stayed in power for thirty-four years. When I was growing up, its permanence seemed no less solid than the stars and the moon. As late as 2004 Communist parties held fifty-three of 545 seats in the Indian parliament. Twenty years later, in the 2024 election, the three Communist parties together won eight seats. As their vote share shrank, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose, and the center-left Congress became largely indistinguishable from the BJP on economic questions. Both parties worked to privatize state assets, remove licensing restrictions on domestic businesses, and woo multinational capital in a global race to attract foreign corporations. In Bengal, the Left Front's economic policies in the 2000s followed a similar path, and it used eminent domain laws to seize agricultural land from sharecroppers to give to domestic and international firms. Violent confrontations over land rights in Singur and Nandigram led millions of the Left Front's traditional voters—from street vendors and auto-rickshaw drivers to small farmers and sharecroppers—to abandon the coalition, culminating in its defeat in 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Dissent (0012-3846) is the property of University of Pennsylvania Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: The Left Front, a coalition of parties led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was elected in my home state of West Bengal in 1977 and stayed in power for thirty-four years. When I was growing up, its permanence seemed no less solid than the stars and the moon. As late as 2004 Communist parties held fifty-three of 545 seats in the Indian parliament. Twenty years later, in the 2024 election, the three Communist parties together won eight seats. As their vote share shrank, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose, and the center-left Congress became largely indistinguishable from the BJP on economic questions. Both parties worked to privatize state assets, remove licensing restrictions on domestic businesses, and woo multinational capital in a global race to attract foreign corporations. In Bengal, the Left Front's economic policies in the 2000s followed a similar path, and it used eminent domain laws to seize agricultural land from sharecroppers to give to domestic and international firms. Violent confrontations over land rights in Singur and Nandigram led millions of the Left Front's traditional voters—from street vendors and auto-rickshaw drivers to small farmers and sharecroppers—to abandon the coalition, culminating in its defeat in 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Dissent (0012-3846) is the property of University of Pennsylvania Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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        Value: 10.1353/dss.2026.a980257
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        Text: English
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      – SubjectFull: Hindutva
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Land reform
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      – SubjectFull: Public health
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      – SubjectFull: Kerala (India)
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      – SubjectFull: West Bengal (India)
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      – SubjectFull: Left Front (Political party : India)
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      – SubjectFull: Communist Party of India (Marxist)
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              Text: Winter2026
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