Schrödinger’s cat is a famous thought experiment meant to discredit a version of quantum theory, by which a superposition of possible multiple states in which particles exist collapses into one or another definite state when observed or made to interact with the external world. A cat locked inside a steel box might or might not be dead after one hour, depending on whether a radioactive substance kept alongside decayed or not. Before the box was opened and the cat observed, asked Schrödinger, was the cat dead or alive or both?The question can be asked of the Indian Left. Mamata Banerjee trounced it in Bengal in 2011, and in 2016. In the latest show of electoral strength in Bengal, the Left came in third, behind BJP. It seems unlikely to recover in a hurry. That left it with Tripura and Kerala to hold on to.No Relevance Without…The biggest Left party, CPI(M), has been convulsing over a simple question: should it go along with Congress, in order to defeat BJP? Former general secretary Prakash Karat, who presided over the Left’s virtual decimation as a force to reckon with in national politics, argues against it, with the support of the party’s Kerala unit. Current general-secretary Sitaram Yechury believes it should. The non-communist public, or rather, those few of them who deign to notice the Left, laugh in derision. In which state does the Left’s support to Congress make a difference in an electoral battle with BJP? Is there a cat at all to debate if it is alive or dead?Earlier this month, BJP wrested Tripura from the Left. That left Kerala, where, too, its glory days are over, and caste, religion, misogyny and money power hold sway in a manner not imagined possible a couple of decades ago. The Left seemed to be fading to the margins of the Indian polity.Then came, out of the blue, the long march of farmers in Maharashtra, thousands of them holding red flags and red banners, protesting with disciplined intensity of a kind that resonated with the public at large. The Left was not dead, after all, not quite.What explains the dichotomy between the decline of the Left in places where it had entrenched itself, and its salience among poor farmers, many of them tribal folk cultivating small patches of land that do not belong to them?The Left became a force in parts of India resisting pre-capitalist oppression, fighting for land reform, in the sense of ownership rights for tenants over the land they tilled. This is quintessentially a capitalist reform. Wherever this reform has not been carried out, the Left can be sure-footed, as in tribal Maharashtra.Wherever basic capitalist relations have been established, the Left has no clue as to how to go forward. Its preferred direction of progress is towards overthrow of capitalism, to set up a Soviet-style polity and economy. The Left hangs on to this absurdity, even after the error of this vision, revealed in the Soviet bloc that collapsed, in China that has morphed into authoritarian capitalism, in dynastic North Korea, in Cuba gasping for the oxygen of foreign subsidy.Having convinced itself that capitalism has become historically obsolete in crisis-prone, warring imperialism, the Indian Left sees it as its duty to undermine capitalism. This is essentially why Kerala failed to industrialise and Bengal stagnated, after its own green revolution in the wake of Operation Barga.Capitalism in agriculture is land reform, and so good; capitalism in industry is against the revolution, and so must be opposed. Four legs good, two legs, bad.…A Viable Economic VisionOf course, Left governments have tried to promote industrial investment, but as compromise with their basic programme, not as part of it. Compromises tend to blur the line between right and wrong.The Left in Singur lacked the emancipatory imagination of Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, who offered farmers displaced by a road project upfront compensation, annuities and return of a portion of the land in a developed form.Such failure of imagination derived from failure to accept some basic facts of recent history. The soviet experiment of building socialism in one country was doomed to fail. The Soviet Union’s biggest impact on workers’ lives was in the advanced capitalist countries, all of which became welfare states to varying degrees, to avert communist revolutions at home. Globalised capitalist growth since World War 2 has delivered millions of people out of dehumanising poverty. Raising absolute standards of living is far more important at the bottom of the pyramid than worrying about inequality.If the Left focuses on broadening the participatory base of ongoing globalised growth, instead of rejecting it as neoliberalism, it would find takers for the values of liberal democracy Left politics champions. But if it abandons revolution in favour of reform, what remains of the Left?Organising the less privileged for social, not just economic, progress is what defines the Left, not worship of a Soviet destiny. If the Left acts on this premise, it can reclaim lost ground. The cat has nine lives, after all.