India won't brook a McCarthy to bludgeon the organised Left, but it is hurtling towards the precipice anyway due to its own fallacies and decline of its ideological appeal. As an ex-Communist, any critique I make of the Left runs the risk of being dismissed as the rant of a renegade. However, today the number of ex-Communists in the world probably exceeds that of the remaining faithful, which is why Communist parties would do well to analyse why so many have deserted their ranks.