The Long Struggle of India

The struggle for independence from British colonialism is one that is ongoing

Article written by Paul Virdee

The Legacy of the British Colonial “Vampires” in the Indian Subcontinent Hindustan has been oppressed and exploited by the British and their native collaborators from the moment British thieves arrived in the subcontinent. They left behind native elites, “vampires”, to continue draining the lifeblood of the Hindustani people in the British-created successor states of Pakistan, India, and later Bangladesh.

Today, these Frankenstein states continue on a destructive path, causing immense suffering to the workers, peasants, and tribal peoples of the subcontinent. The external imperialism of the British, with its mentality and methods, is mirrored in the internal imperialism of these fragmented states. Geographically, the subcontinent has been shaped over vast periods. It was once separate from Asia, drifting toward it until it collided to form the Himalayas. The Ganga basin was originally a vast arm of water reaching near present-day Delhi, gradually filled with sediments from the Himalayas until it became dry land with soil nearly a mile deep, explaining its extreme fertility. The southern Deccan plateau experienced vast lava flows, producing rich soil and mineral wealth. The Deccan was historically a major source of diamonds until South Africa’s diamond fields were discovered. Before human exploitation, the subcontinent was extremely rich in flora and fauna. Early humans encountered grass so tall it could hide elephants. This abundance of life is reflected in the vibrant colours and dense ornamentation of Hindustani art and design today. The geography of the subcontinent acts as a funnel, cordoned by high mountains from the north and west, while waves of peoples entered both via the sea and through these mountain passes.

The first inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, now represented by tribal peoples, disparagingly referred to as Junglees or Adivasis. They are among the most oppressed groups in the subcontinent, facing state terror including dispossession, deportation, violence, and forced migration to urban slums. During British rule, many were also indentured to tea plantations. Today, ethnic differences are exploited by the ruling class, particularly in areas like Assam, to keep the masses weak and divided. Insurgencies have erupted across eastern and south-eastern India, where desperate tribal peoples have taken up arms since the 1960s, beginning with the uprising in Naxalbari. The Indian state has repeatedly assaulted these peoples, including campaigns such as the 2025 operation involving 600,000 armed personnel, sometimes targeting insurgencies composed solely of women. The brutality of the Indian state parallels that of Israel in occupied Palestine, with Israeli hardware and advisors reportedly used to facilitate these operations.

The subcontinents original peoples were followed by early agriculturalists from the Iranian Plateau who settled in the Indus Valley (modern-day Pakistan) and developed the Indus Valley Civilisation, parallel to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. These people were likely a mixture of incoming agriculturalists and indigenous hunter-gatherers. The civilisation featured large cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, with advanced urban planning, irrigation, solid brick structures, running water, and even flushing toilets. Cultural continuity from this period persists in rural areas today. In the far south, in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, civilisations developed independently, building complex pottery and structures, reflecting a parallel advancement to that in the north-western subcontinent. Later, the focus shifted from the Indus Valley to the Ganga basin, possibly due to climatic and water-level changes.

The Vedic civilisation arose, developing the caste system, a system designed to create a permanent underclass for exploitation. According to Brahmin ideology, one’s social position reflected one’s actions in a previous life. Those in lower castes were to accept oppression as their fate, reinforcing social hierarchies. While movements like Buddhism and Sikhism resisted caste oppression, these were often violently suppressed. Even after independence, caste hierarchies persist in rural areas. Islam arrived through trade and conquest, initially in the north, leading to Muslim rule under the Delhi Sultanate and later the Mughal Empire. While rulers varied, the caste-based feudal system largely remained intact. By the arrival of the British, Hindustan produced 25% of the world’s goods; by the end of British rule, it produced only 3%. Native rulers had traditionally stolen from their peoples but kept the wealth within the country; the British extracted it to finance global domination, amounting to roughly $145 trillion before handing over fragmented Hindustan to local elites.

The struggle for independence began with revolts against the East India Company, the first multinational corporation draining Hindustan’s wealth. By the first Indian War of Independence in 1857, the Sikh Kingdom of Punjab had been subdued, and many native princely states sided with the British. The revolt failed due to lack of unity and organisation. British direct rule followed, replicating methods learned in Ireland: empowering minority elites like Muslim landlords and Brahmins, fragmenting the country, and restructuring the economy for British benefit. Caste and religion were systematically exploited to weaken society, planting seeds of communal conflict that persist today. Partition created the bourgeois states of India and Pakistan, which inherited the neo-colonial structures of British rule.

The masses remain under the heel of this “British Raj Mark II.” Recent events in Ladakh, where peaceful protests were met with repression, exemplify the ongoing neo-colonial mindset of rulers in Delhi. Similarly, in south-eastern India, tribal peoples resisting exploitation face state genocide, particularly by forces acting against the Communist Party of India (Maoist).The Communist movement in India has a complex history, but it has often failed to seize revolutionary opportunity. Early leaders of the CPI (Maoist) studied conditions in the USSR and China. Stalin opposed their plans, while Mao advised caution, noting that India’s material conditions differed from China’s pre-revolutionary situation. Nevertheless, the CPI (Maoist) pursued armed struggle in rural areas, aiming to surround cities from the countryside. Meanwhile, the CPI-M and CPI have mostly operated as legal, reformist parties, organising trade unions and peasant groups. Major general strikes, such as those in 2020 and 2025, mobilised millions of workers and farmers against privatisation and neoliberal policies, yet achieved no substantial gains.

The Communists often fail to understand the bourgeois nature of the state or the alliance of native elites with Western imperialism. Unlike Socialist China, which advanced the material conditions of its people, India’s masses remain impoverished and oppressed under both capitalist and semi-reformist Communist leadership. The working class and peasants of Hindustan groan under the dual oppression of native elites and Western imperialism. The country lacks a clear, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist vanguard party capable of uniting the masses and freeing them from the combined exploitation of native capitalism and foreign domination. Inqlab Zindabad!