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The May Day parade of Left Communists only drew a few hundred people,
despite all the party's efforts
after suffering a crushing defeat in local elections.
Communists don't play as important a role in India as we'd expect,
because they're divided,
they hesitate between reform and revolution,
and their ideology is antithetical to traditional Indian thought.
Many of them, formed in the ranks of the English Communist Party
following strictly Marxist ideology,
seem to be waiting for the complete industrialization of the country to act.
What they lack is a Mao Tse-tung,
someone to adapt Marxism and Leninism
to the specific conditions in India.
Days earlier we'd filmed these same musicians and dancers
at a Congress Party demonstration,
where the parade was over a mile long.
The Congress Party is very powerful in Bombay.
The Congress Party, despite recent defeats, still dominates politics.
It may be its own worst enemy.
It's currently caught in a violent power struggle between factions
that began after Nehru's death.
Nehru supported a democratic socialist regime,
a happy medium between planned economy and private property.
His daughter, Indira Gandhi, currently prime minister,
has trouble following this political agenda.
Many of her party's leaders declare themselves right-wing
and represent the interests of the new classes of rich peasants,
retailers and manufacturers.