Such connection is not merely a footnote. It is a reminder of a time when Indian politics—especially the Left—imagined itself as part of a global ideological movement, not just a domestic power contest.
That era is gone. But in an age when India is once again redefining its global identity, the echoes of that forgotten Left globalism still whisper—from Caracas to Rajarhat, and from Banaras to the Andes.
“From Latin America to West Bengal, it is Communism that binds.”
From Indira Gandhi’s landmark 1968 visit to Hugo Chávez’s cheque for a Bengal school, the unlikely India–Venezuela relationship reveals how Marxist internationalism once shaped Indian politics—and why it quietly faded.
Between 2004 and 2009, Indian communists enjoyed what many within the Left still remember as a golden interlude. With substantial strength in the Lok Sabha, Left MPs exerted disproportionate influence on how the Manmohan Singh government functioned—often acting as ideological gatekeepers on foreign policy, economic reforms, and strategic alignment.
It was also a period when talk of a “global communist network” was not dismissed as nostalgia. In West Bengal, Tripura, Kerala—and select circles in Delhi—the Left’s international solidarities were taken seriously. One of the most curious, and now largely forgotten, chapters of this global Marxist bonding ran thousands of miles away: between Venezuela and West Bengal.
As the Press Trust of India once put it succinctly, “From Latin America to West Bengal, it is Communism that binds.”
When Chávez Reached Rajarhat
(Courtesy - The Raisina Hills)
The symbolism was not abstract. In December 2007, then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez sent a cheque of ₹11.91 lakh to build a new school structure in North 24 Parganas, a CPI(M)-ruled district in West Bengal. The cheque was formally handed over by Venezuelan Ambassador Milena Santana Ramirez to then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
The beneficiary was Bagu Primary School in Rajarhat, named after village teacher Nikunja Sen, who had inspired revolutionary freedom fighters Badal, Benoy and Dinesh. The new building was christened Simón Bolívar Bhavan, after the Venezuelan revolutionary who liberated much of Latin America from Spanish rule.
Chávez had promised not just infrastructure support, but also assistance to strengthen the mid-day meal scheme—a cornerstone of Left welfare politics. For Marxist Bengal, this was more than charity; it was ideological affirmation from a fellow traveller in the global anti-imperialist struggle.
Long before Chávez and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Indira Gandhi had already laid the diplomatic groundwork. She remains the first—and so far only—Indian Prime Minister to visit Venezuela, landing at Caracas’ Simón Bolívar International Airport on October 10, 1968.
Greeted by then President Raúl Leoni, cabinet ministers, and a military band playing the Indian national anthem, Indira Gandhi’s visit marked India’s early outreach to Latin America and the Caribbean—regions she believed were natural partners in a post-colonial world.
“It is to our advantage and in our national interest to forge the closest relations with proud and resurgent nations of South America,” she declared.
Her tour that year included Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. Reporting to Parliament later, she admitted: “We knew less about South America than South America knows about us.” Gandhi, Tagore and Nehru, she noted, were widely known across the continent.
In Caracas, Indira Gandhi famously said: “I come to build bridges of love between Latin America and my country.”
From Ideology to Amnesia
Over the decades, however, this ideological bridge collapsed into obscurity. India–Venezuela relations—once rooted in anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and Third World solidarity—slowly slipped out of public memory, overshadowed by economic pragmatism and geopolitical realignments.
The decline of the Indian Left after 2011, the fall of CPI(M) in West Bengal, and Venezuela’s own economic implosion under Nicolás Maduro ended this chapter of romantic internationalism.
Yet traces remain. Not long ago, reports emerged that a young Venezuelan parent named his son “Banaras”, inspired by India’s ancient spiritual city—and coincidentally, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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| Hugo Chavez |
History, it seems, has a way of leaving behind symbols even after ideologies fade.
The story of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s Venezuela connection is not merely a footnote. It is a reminder of a time when Indian politics—especially the Left—imagined itself as part of a global ideological movement, not just a domestic power contest.
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