On March 14, Institute for Economics & Peace released its Global Terrorism Index 2023. In its report, the organization listed the twenty most deadly terrorist organizations globally. India’s Communist Party of India (CPI) made it to the list in 12th place.
As per the report, in 61 attacks initiated by CPI, 39 people lost their lives, and 30 were injured.
🆕Global Terrorism Index 2023: Terrorist attacks more deadly, despite decline in the West.
— IEP Global Peace Index (@GlobPeaceIndex) March 14, 2023
Download the full report. https://t.co/P69P9ZXLm9 pic.twitter.com/ZVPMGPJuqj
Notably, the Communist Party of India is a political party, and it is possible that IEP got confused with the banned communist parties. As per the Ministry of Home Affairs website, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) all its formations and front organizations and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), People’s War, All formations and front organizations were banned in India.
34 parties in India, functional and defunct, have the “Communist Party of India” in their name. These parties are:
- Communist Party of India
- Communist Party of India (Marxist)
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Class Struggle
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Star
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) New Democracy
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Somnath
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Shantipal
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Praja Pantha
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Jan Samvad
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Nai Pahal
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) New Proletarian
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Maharashtra
- Communist Party of India (Maoist)
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti – Koora Rajanna
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti – Ranadheer
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti – Chandra Pulla Reddy
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Mahadev Mukherjee
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Bhaijee
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Prajashakti
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Prathighatana
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Praja Pratighatana
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Second Central Committee
- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Central Team
The list of defunct parties:
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist)
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Bolshevik
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Central Team
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) New Initiative
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Unity Initiative
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Naxalbari
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People’s War
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Red Flag
- Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People’s War
A brief introduction to the Communist Party of India
The Communist Party of India, or CPI, is the oldest communist party in India. It was founded on December 26, 1925, by MN Roy, Abani Mukherji, MPT Acharya and Evelyn Trent. It is a recognized political party by the Election Commission of India as a National Party. In 2019, the ECI questioned the party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections and warned that its national party status would be revoked if a similar performance is repeated. They were also warned in 2014, but ECI amended rules in 2019 allowing CPI and two other parties to retain national party status until after the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. That means if the party fails to perform in Lok Sabha 2024 elections, it may no longer be deemed a national party.
Notably, in the 2019 elections, CPI contested 49 seats and won only two. K Subbarayan from Tiruppur (Tamil Nadu) and Muniyan Selvaraj Nagapatthinam (Tamil Nadu) are the sitting members of the 17th Lok Sabha.
In 2019, a US govt report on global terrorism ranked the Communist Party of India (Maoist) as the 6th ost dangerous terror organisation in the world. In 2018, the US state department, based on 2017 data, declared the Maoists as the world’s fourth-largest terror organisation.
