AHC/WI - Communist India

Subhas Chandra Bose was never a communist, but was only nationalist. The communists in India had always ridiculed him calling him a bootlicker of Japanese fascists. All Bose's dreams of future India was purely nationalist in nature and the maximum that he could be called was a socialist, but so was Nehru, Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia etc. It must not be forgotten that the socialists in India generally disliked the communists and later had alliances with them only as a part of opposition against the domination of the Congress. The Socialist Party of India had no hesitation to embrace Bharatiya Jan Sangh, former form of BJP, to form Janata Party to fight Indira Gandhi. Then the Communist Party of India was an ally of the Congress! What I mean is that Bose leading the Communists was less likely than Nehru leading the Communists.
 
Here's another idea: Not Nehru, but Vallabhbhai Patel emerges as the dominating figure in the Congress Party after 1947. Before his death, he establishes India as a solid ally of the USA. The foreign policy doctrine is influenced by pro-Western writers like A. D. Gorwala, arguing that india should be firmly in the NATO/SEATO camp. This leads to many confrontations with China. Economic policy is influenced by the ideas of B.R. Shenoy, who opts for a radical free-market, laissez faire approach (instead of Nehru's planned economy of industrialisation). The Communists become the main opposition party, favouring a neutralist stance in the Cold War, and attracting the poors left behind by the free market economics of Shenoy. Narayan eventually joins the Communist Party and becomes their foremost agitator. While the free-market approach leads to the rise of an urban business elite, the masses turn more and more to the Communists as the radical alternative. After a war with China and Indian support for the USA in Vietnam, public sentiment turns against the ruling Congress, enabling an election victory for the Communist Party.
 
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