Left right left right

 What is a slur nowadays in India? One of them is left liberal. Where as right wing is a title of honor almost.

So what are these words and what are the origins of these political terms? 

A leftist ideology is liberal, rooting for change, for equality and modernism. It advocates the rights of poor people. Right wing ideology gives importance to order, it is conservative and it is on the side of rulers and rich people. 

According to wikipedia which is modern day bible - 

Generally, the left wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism".

And these words have their origin in French revolution. Soon after french revolution, in the french assembly, people who were loyal to the church and the king sat to the right of the president and supporters of the revolution sat to the left of the president. So the terms were literal.

The terms spread to the entire world. And bolsheviks of Russia were inspired by the french revolution and the communism is most often termed as left wing. 

In India until recently the left wing political parties were CPI and CPI(M) - the communist parties who were in power only in Bengal and Kerala. And congress was neither left nor right, it was moderate - a center party. 

Now things have changed drastically with the rise of bharatiya janata party which is proudly right. And all other parties do not have definite ideology - according to my limited knowledge. The exception could be BSP which is the party of dalits and is certainly left. 

I came across this interesting chart from carneigeendowment.org

 

Some people argue that though left ideologies have all but vanished from Indian political spectrum, they are still relevant and prominent in the mindsets of people.