Who are India's Communists?

India's Communists had not completely abandoned the gun for the ballot box when the country won its independence from British rule after the Second World War.
But they soon came under pressure from the Soviet Union to make peace with the ruling Congress Party, then one of Moscow's most valued allies.

Like other communist parties around the world they was plagued by splits and in the late 1950s and early 1960s was pulled in different directions by the tensions between the former USSR and Mao's People's Republic of China.

In general elections, it didn't manage to win over the masses: its ranks of MPs remained in the 20s, but it managed a breakthrough in 1977, under the leadership of the late Jyoti Basu.

Basu, who died last year, masterminded a stunning victory in the West Bengal state elections, was revered in India as a 'gentleman and a communist' who broadened the party's appeal and transformed it into a national force.

He was widely respected beyond his party as a veteran of the independence movement, but as chief minister of India's first Communist-led government he introduced a series of land reforms and gave poor small farmers a greater say in local government. His popularity was such that he was picked as the United Front's choice to become prime minister, but the move was vetoed by his party's Politburo. He believed it made an 'historic blunder' which may have stopped the party becoming a dominant force in Indian politics.

The party's poll showings improved in the 2004 election and in 2009 it emerged as the country's third largest party with 59 seats, but its fortunes were already in decline. Basu's 'democratic socialism' in Calcutta gave way to a series of alliances between party bureaucrats and local property dealers who colluded with gangsters to force poor farmers to make way for inward investors.

Many felt they had been forced to give up land cheaply for capitalist corporates who would later make fortunes from it.

The party had moved away from the people, and last night the people put the party in its place.