India on the Threshold of the New Millennium contributed to its organisation, strength and societal goals or objectives to a lessor or greater extent. Certainly, it was committed to secularism from the very beginning and its democratic objective was defined in a more and more radical manner as its mass context deepened over time. The founders of India's struggle for freedom not only fought for electoral democracy but made the struggle coterminus with civil liberties — the freedom of speech, the press and association. From the beginning of the 20th century, the demand for electoral democracy incorporated the principle of adult franchise for all men and women. Throughout, from its very beginning in the 1870s the movement based itself on economic critique of colonialism and defined its economic goal as independent economic development and removal of poverty though this critique and the economic goal were at the same time confined within the perspective of the development of capitalism. Its social content deepened further with the advent of Gandhiji, the socialists and the Communists and the organisation of the workers and peasants during the 1920s and 1930s. The left as a whole also played a significant role in deepening the Movement's commitment to civil liberties. While the socialist and non-socialist forces in the National Movement were equally balanced by 1947 and the socialist forces had been unable to establish ideological hegemony over the Movement, there is also no doubt that they had succeeded in becoming a formidable force in the Movement and in the country. I may point out in this context that Comrade P. Krishna Pillai and Namboodiripad and other leaders succeeded in building a strong Communist Party and a strong peasant movement in Malabar by establishing a correct relationship with the ongoing National Movement. This has been put graphically by several leaders. When Communists known in Malabar in the 1930s as Congress Socialists went to the villages, they recruited 100 members of the Congress, 10 of the Kisan Sabha and 1 of theCSP. It was one of the great triumphs of Indian National Movement that, despite the partition of India in 1947 and the barbaric and horrendous riots and killings and migration of millions that accompanied it, the Indian people accepted secularism as a basic value, enshrined it in the constitution, and set out to build a secular state and society. Despite numerous communal riots since the early 1960's and the spread of communalism to all parts of the country, including the South, and to ever new segments of the society. Indian people,