By Manoranjana Gupta
When a man who lost both legs to political violence places his artificial limbs on the table of the Rajya Sabha, and the first reaction from the Left is procedural outrage, not moral horror, the mask slips. What happened with Sadanand Master is not a one-off disruption. It is a mirror held up to the true character of communist political culture—globally, historically, and dangerously, in India.
The wound was on the table. They argued about the rulebook.
In that single moment in Parliament, the country saw something it is repeatedly asked to forget: the physical price of ideological violence. Reports describe how, during his maiden address, Sadanand Master displayed his prosthetic limbs, and a senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP raised a point of order, objecting that “showing any object” violated House rules.
That reaction is the story.
Because when a victim is forced to prove his suffering in public, and the first instinct of the communist side is not contrition but obstruction, you learn what the ideology is made of: not compassion, not justice, not equality—but control. Control of the narrative. Control of the stage. Control of what the nation is “allowed” to see.
If the limbs on the table made anyone uncomfortable, good. Discomfort is what truth does to propaganda.
This is what political violence looks like—name it plainly
Sadanand Master’s story is not a metaphor, not folklore, not “claims.” It is documented that he was attacked in 1994 and lost both legs; he has lived since with artificial limbs. The details differ by retelling, but the core fact does not change: this was not a scuffle. It was a deliberate act of political terror.
And terror is precisely the point.
Communist political culture, wherever it hardens into cadre power, does not merely compete; it coerces. It does not merely argue; it intimidates. It does not merely oppose; it punishes. This is why victims are inconvenient: they are walking, breathing evidence that the halo is fake.
That is why the reflex is always the same: silence the witness. If you cannot erase the event, erase the voice that remembers it.
Communism’s global record: a century of devastation dressed up as virtue
Let us stop pretending communism is only a set of economic ideas debated in seminar rooms. Across the last century, communist regimes repeatedly produced catastrophes that were not accidents but outcomes—born of coercion, central control, and contempt for the individual.
In China, the Great Leap Forward and the famine that followed produced death on a scale that still stuns the mind. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s policies produced the Holodomor, a man‑made demographic catastrophe. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge catastrophe killed on a scale that makes a mockery of communist claims of “humanism.”
These are not footnotes. These are the civilisational consequences of a politics that reduces humans into categories and then treats categories as disposable.
That is why communism doesn’t only wreck economies. It wrecks truth. And once truth collapses, everything collapses: justice, culture, family, faith, enterprise, courage—civilisation itself.
Why communism hates dissent: because dissent proves the people still own their minds
There is a reason communist political culture is allergic to free speech. The ideology claims a monopoly on virtue. It cannot tolerate rivals—especially not a rival called reality.
So it polices language. It bullies institutions. It captures campuses. It manufactures “intellectual” legitimacy around intimidation. It turns universities into factories of approved opinions, where disagreement is treated not as debate but as sin.
This is how nations are “finished”: not only by poverty, but by the slow murder of curiosity; by turning young minds into repeating machines; by making fear fashionable and obedience a badge of moral superiority.
And when a victim like Sadanand Master stands up, he tears the costume. He doesn’t need theory. He has scars.
Kerala: literacy without liberty is a fraud
Now bring this home to Kerala—a state that loves to project itself as a model. Literacy is important. Health indicators matter. But what is the worth of “progress” if political violence survives as a normal instrument of power?
Kannur has long been cited as a hotspot for political killings. Compiled figures have noted dozens of political murders over the years, proof of a culture where organised revenge and cadre violence became a recurring pattern rather than an aberration.
And yet, when people speak about Kerala, polite society often speaks as if it is insulated from the uglier truths of Indian politics. It is not. Sadanand Master is part of Kerala’s truth.
And with Assembly elections around the corner, the stakes become even sharper. Because election season is when ideologies try to rebrand themselves. It is when reputations are laundered. It is when violence is minimised as “old history,” and the victim is told to move on—quietly, preferably off-camera.
But the nation should refuse this silence. Elections are not only about promises. They are about the moral character of the political culture asking for votes.
India’s left-liberal ecosystem: loud on slogans, silent on communist brutality
Here is the part that enrages ordinary Indians—and rightly so.
India has a thriving industry of pseudo-intellectualism that becomes ferociously eloquent on “human rights” only when the politics is convenient. It will write endless essays about intolerance but will find sudden respect for “procedure” when a communist victim shows the consequences of political violence. It will sermonise about empathy—until the victim is on the “wrong” side.
This is not scholarship. It is ideological lobbying disguised as intellect.
If the Left truly believed in human dignity, it would have used that Rajya Sabha moment to say: “Political violence is evil. It must end. Victims must be heard. Perpetrators must be punished.” Full stop.
Instead, the instinct was to obstruct the message by attacking the method. That is the classic communist move: debate the container, not the content—because the content is fatal to the brand.
Stop the soft language: this is not ‘political rivalry’—it is political terror
India must stop describing ideological violence in polite terms. When activists are hacked, when families are destroyed, when intimidation becomes routine, this is not “rivalry.” It is terror with party flags.
And terror thrives only when consequences are slow, weak, or selectively applied.
The demand now should be simple and non‑negotiable: political violence must be prosecuted fast; party protection must not shield criminals; and victims must never be pressured into silence for the comfort of the powerful.
The symbolism of Sadanand Master’s prosthetic limbs should not fade into tomorrow’s feed. That was not “dramatic.” That was evidence placed before the nation.
A society that cannot face evidence will eventually lose its right to call itself civilised.
The verdict of that day
That day in Parliament, one man forced India to look at what ideological violence does to flesh and bone. And the communist instinct—procedural outrage before moral horror—told the world what it always tells the world, whenever communism is confronted with its own victims: deny, deflect, disrupt.
Sadanand Master did not bring an object to the House. He brought a truth.
And here is the truth India must say without apology:
Communism has repeatedly poisoned societies wherever it gained coercive power. It has finished nations by finishing dissent, finishing truth, finishing the individual. And when it cannot win the argument, it reaches for intimidation—sometimes with fists, sometimes with cadres, sometimes with the comfort of “rules” used as a gag.
India should stand with Sadanand Master—not quietly, not cautiously, not with diplomatic hedging—but with the clarity this moment demands. Because if a democracy cannot protect a victim’s right to speak, it will not protect anyone’s right to speak for long.
