Why didn't India become a communist country

India could have become a communist nation, but for a complex historical confluence of some factors. I present a detailed analysis of the same below.

To begin, let us understand what "Communism" in simple terms means.

• Simply put, when the resources of the economy and all means of production & distribution are held by the community, and private property is disallowed, you have created a communist society.
• At its peak, a communist society would be "classless, caste-less, government-less and even State-less". Quite a shocker!
• It is obvious that this ideal state is not only difficult to achieve, it is even slightly incomprehensible to the normal mind. Communism, as the extreme radical version of Socialism, aims at bringing extreme change immediately.
• That, obviously, is not possible without great upheavals mostly achieved through bloody and violent means. Example - Mao Tse-tung getting his communists to shoot to death nearly 20 lac (2 million) rural landlords immediately (i.e. by 1952) after establishing the P.R.C. in 1949!
  
  
  

  
  
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• Lastly, communism is not just about the economy. It is about the society and individuals adhering to one standard formula of existence.

In brief, what are the alternatives to this "Communist" state of being?
1. Capitalist, and 2. Mixed

In the Capitalist model, the State takes a back-seat, and allows mostly private entities to run the economy, while it busies itself with taxation, regulation and governance. It follows a laissez-faire policy of minimal interference. This creates space for billionaire businesses and individuals to flourish.

In the Mixed model, you select some of the desirable elements of Capitalism, some of Socialism, and create a khichdi, and hope it works well for everyone. This assumes that the public sector companies will predominate, and the private sector will fill in the gaps where required.

What happened with India, really? Why are we what we are?

1. India during the British Raj (1780/90 - 1947) - When the Britishers exploited India for nearly 150 years, we were the resource-suppliers to them. They controlled - directly and indirectly - all means of production/distribution, and could call for use any amount and type of resource as per their greed. India /Indians were neither capitalist, nor communist, nor mixed. We were guinea-pigs, living at the whims of the white landlords. And the landlords were smart-  when it suited them, they allowed some Indians to get real rich. Otherwise not.
2. Multiple visions during the Independence Struggle (1885-1947) - Now we had a whole bunch of patriotic leaders, mostly under the Congress umbrella, who had multiple economic/social visions for what India should become after independence.
   - What were these visions?
   
   • First, Nehru was clear he would pursue a Fabian socialist model. The PSUs would dominate. Private sector would coexist.
   • Bose, it is said, wanted India to follow an authoritarian rule for 10/20 years post independence wherein the power of the State would be used to bring discipline and right momentum for growth.
   • Gandhiji wanted India to move towards an autonomous Gram-Swarajya model that would have villages at its focus, making the lacs of villages economically independent and India prosperous as a result. He was totally against a mighty State (which we have now become!)
   • Ambedkar was fiercely against the village-at-the-focus model proposed by Gandhiji for fear of Dalit-oppression at the hands of upper-caste Hindus (he openly said so in the Constituent Assembly). He wanted power to be centred in big urban centres, which would ultimately destroy caste and associated evils. In his words - 'Indian villages are the cesspools of oppression along casteist lines'.
   • There was no significant Congress leader who aggressively favoured a pure Communist rule for independent India.
3. Absence of any mainstream armed Communist Party in India - Throughout the freedom struggle, no major Communist Party could emerge with a pan-India appeal, with armed resources at its disposal. Although several communist-minded leaders did exist, and there was a Communist Party of India, the sheer scale needed was missing. The way Mao Tse-tung organised (alongwith many others) an armed resistance to the KMT's rule in mainland China, there was no parallel in India. USSR had started supporting international communist groups / parties through the Comintern, but it did not work in India at all.
4. British Raj's wariness against Communists - In 1917, the Bolshevik's led by Vladimir Lenin had violently seized power in Russia, and then killed all members of the ruling Romanov family. By 1922, USSR was established and by 1927, Stalin had exhibited all the desire to spread its influence world-wide (at least starting with Eastern Europe). The Communist International (Comintern) lasted 1919-1943. This had alarmed the British Raj as "bloody revolution" was a significant threat to their colonial existence. The Britishers did everything to crush any communist leaning individuals in India. By 1945, when the USSR emerged as a victorious party in the second World War, and parted ways with its earlier Allies (the US, UK and France), it was too late for a communist party to take hold in India. The modern-day Naxalites are the disillusioned fringe-groups who consider overthrow of Indian state using Maoist means their goal. They came into being after 1979.
5. India starts off as a mixed economy, neither communist, nor capitalist (1947) - It so happened that Netaji Bose vanished in 1945, Nehru overruled the Gandhian economic vision (but accommodated its ideals as part of the Directive Principles of State Policy) and Ambedkar prevailed in implementing his vision. So all possibilities of India adopting a communist model ended. We became a mixed economy on Fabian Socialist lines. A smart adaptation was Nehru's copying the Soviet Central planning model (the 5 year plans started by Stalin) and incorporating it through the Planning Commission in India.
6. Indian tradition as a backstop against Communism - If one looks at the deep history of India, the tradition of violence has always been over-shadowed by the culture of cohesion, assimilation and tolerance. This acted, in my opinion, as a major impediment for spread of communist ideology. Despite millions of oppressed peoples, it did not happen. Gandhiji's adoption of non-violent means as the prime method since 1918 may have turned the tide decisively against communism's success. Just compare the first picture in this post, with the following, which is a snapshot of Acharya Vinoba Bhave's land-gift movement (Bhoodaan Andolan) where millions of acres of land were donated free by landlords upon his non-violent exhortation.
   
   
   
   

   
   

So overall, a complex mix of national and global factors ensured that India turned a democratic socialist nation, in 1947. It seems to have been a good idea, as most of the communist nations have either collapsed (USSR), or have turned capitalist ultimately (China), or have ensured a miserable life for their citizens (N Korea).

Source : Quora