The pulling down of Vladimir Lenin’s statue in Tripura (Northeast India) is not just an attack on left ideology; it is an assault on the plurality of ideas and diversity of thoughts that have been the characteristic of Indian civilisation. Lenin was a Russian communist, a revolutionary, a politician and a political theorist and was considered as one of the tallest leaders of the world. Such acts of vandalism reflect the extreme levels of intolerance and are contrary to the argumentative tradition embedded in the Indian civilisational values.
Indian revolutionaries like Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad believed in the teachings of Lenin. Dr Deol, the biographer of Bhagat,
refers to the great Indian revolutionary studying the life of Lenin. Gopal Tagore, another biographer, retells that a few days before his death, when asked what his last wish was, Bhagat Singh replied that he was studying the life of Vladimir Lenin and wanted to finish it before his death.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
