Sri Jyoti Basu (1914-2010)

tarunraju

Sanathan Pepe
Mod
Joined
Sep 18, 2009
Messages
9,080
Likes
40,077
Country flag
Farewell comrade Basu.

Good, that's one commie down. Hope Kolkata and the Bengalis in general choose the path of rapid progress, and the embrace the mainstream Indian path of development. Be nice to capitalists that bring in money and jobs.

Bengal is perceived by many to be the land of intellectuals. It's just that archaic ideologies have prevented that collective intellect to be applied on things that really matter. Thankfully it's changing now.
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
Controversies that dogged the pragmatic chief minister

Unlike Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Jyoti Basu was never known as a politician who would court controversy.

The CPM patriarch will be remembered more as the middle-roader whose strength lay in common sense, pragmatism and an ability to carry others along with him.

Yet several controversies erupted during his 23-and-a-half-year tenure as chief minister.

Marichjhapi firing

The first big controversy came within months of the Left assuming power in 1977, when refugees from the former East Pakistan, settled in arid Dandakaranya, began migrating to Bengal.

The Bengal government goaded them to go back. Basu and the CPM accused “anti-Left forces” of instigating the refugees. The Janata Party, then in power at the Centre, and others accused Basu of betraying the refugees whose cause the Left had earlier championed.

On January 31, 1979, police opened fire at Marichjhapi in the Sunderbans when the migrants, who had built a thriving community life there, refused to leave.

The government admitted a few casualties but the Opposition alleged a cold-blooded carnage. Police boats and launches apparently encircled Marichjhapi and dumped bodies in the river, while many drowned while trying to flee.

The truth is yet to emerge after 32 years. The pre-television media were barred from the area on the day of the police crackdown, and the government ignored demands for a judicial inquiry.

In his memoirs, Basu doesn’t mention the police firing and its aftermath except for claiming that the refugees went back by May 1979 “after the state government’s tolerant and sustained efforts”.

Massacre and arms-drop

Basu and his party faced allegations of another “carnage” in 1982 when 17 members of the Ananda Marg, a Hindu religious cult, were charred to death on Bijan Setu near Ballygunge station, allegedly by a CPM-led mob that ostensibly took them to be kidnappers.

The CPM-Ananda Marg feud again rocked the nation after the mysterious air-drop of virtually an entire arsenal near the cult headquarters in Purulia in December 1995. Basu and his party alleged a foreign plot to topple the ruling communists and accused the Centre of keeping the state in the dark despite having prior intelligence.

‘Stepmother’ plea

Worried that Indira Gandhi would destabilise the Bengal government, if not topple it outright, after she returned to power in 1980, the Left Front began a bitter campaign against the Centre’s “step-motherly discrimination against Bengal” and demanded more power for the states. It remained a constant theme and excuse for years.

English and education

The decision to ban English from primary education in government schools triggered a huge controversy over the CPM’s intervention in education. Basu, an alumnus of Loreto and St Xavier’s, was said to be sceptical about the move but couldn’t prevail on the powerful state party secretary, Promode Dasgupta. The folly was amended only at the beginning of the new millennium after Bhattacharjee took over.

In 1983, Basu and his party resumed their clashes with new Bengal governor A.P. Sharma after he appointed vice-chancellors to the Calcutta and Burdwan Universities overruling the CPM.

Favouritism flak

Basu’s administrative and policy decisions sometimes triggered complaints of favouritism and nepotism.

In 1988, the trouble came from within the government. Basu’s PWD minister and long-time comrade Jatin Chakraborty of the RSP accused him of favouring Bengal Lamp over its competitors because his son Chandan was associated with the company.

Basu denied the charge and wanted Chakraborty to step down after the minister remained “stubborn”. The RSP first threatened to quit the ministry but later sided with Basu and expelled the minister, who resigned from the cabinet.

Complaints of favouritism later cropped up over the plot allotments in Salt Lake, leading to a Supreme Court notice to Basu and others in 2006.

Ally trouble

Basu’s towering personality and charisma often subdued the murmurs of dissent from allies on policy decisions. Even then, occasional outbursts revealed the tension, such as RSP minister Debabrata Banerjee’s description of the CPM as “social fascists”, an epithet that Maoist top gun Kishanji uses today.

Crime and police

The Opposition accused Basu of insensitivity to crimes against women, and slammed him for condoning the CPM’s strong-arm tactics and misuse of police power to target rival parties.

The gruesome attack on a car carrying women health officials and the killing of one of them and the driver by criminals off EM Bypass in May 1990 caused public outrage. But people were shocked even more at the latent indifference in Basu’s reported initial reaction — comments that he later denied.

The alleged rape of a destitute woman by policemen at Calcutta’s Phoolbagan police station area in the early ’90s too raised a furore.

Mamata-baiting

As Mamata Banerjee grew to become a perennial thorn in the CPM’s flesh since the late ’80s, Basu hardly let a chance to belittle her pass. He often ridiculed her for holding a “fake” doctorate.

Mamata, for all her recent “daughterly concerns for the father figure”, had bitterly clashed with Basu when he was in power. The CPM-Mamata acrimony reached flash point after CPM goons attacked her close to her south Calcutta home in 1993.

The relations turned uglier the same year when Mamata, then a junior minister in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government, staged a sit-in before Basu’s chamber at Writers’ demanding a meeting to seek justice for a hearing-and-speech-impaired woman, Deepali Basak, allegedly raped by a CPM man. The police evicted her forcibly, triggering a long war of attrition between her and the CPM.

Thirteen people died in police firing on July 21, 1993, after a violent gathering of the Mamata-led Youth Congress laid siege to Writers’. Basu justified the firing.

Industry lag

Basu was accused of lacking the courage to take “hard decisions” on sick public-sector units, and to inject life into the state’s stagnating industrial scene. But his supporters cited his bold moves in 1985, when he pushed through his plan for joint ventures with the private sector and courted foreign direct investment at the 12th CPM congress despite the scepticism of many in the party and the front.

Controversy raged within the Left when he declared his industrial policy in 1994, seeing a new opportunity to revive industry in Bengal after the Rao government dismantled the licence raj.

Bhattacharjee and Nirupam Sen, in their battles with critics within the party and the front, have often insisted their post-2006 industrialisation drive merely continued the Basu legacy.

Both have cited Basu’s “sustained fight” with the Centre, during Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s tenures, over Haldia Petrochemical, the first mega-project during Basu’s term, the electronic complex in Salt Lake, and the Bakreswar thermal power station.

Buddha, Benoy blows

Bhattacharjee created a crisis for Basu when he resigned from the government in 1993 after the chief minister disapproved of the way he dealt with bureaucrats. Another blow came from the No. 2 in the ministry, the spartan Benoy Choudhury, a Gandhian turned communist who called the government “choreder sarkar (thieves’ government)” in the late ’90s.

Caravan goes on

For all the controversies, the Opposition couldn’t throw a serious enough challenge to Basu. The land reforms and the implementation of the panchayati raj remained his crowning glories, helping the Left consolidate its rural base and giving a fillip to farm productivity.

Inside his party, the no-nonsense Basu was neither known for his interest in ideological hair-splitting nor in lobbying for factional support to establish his opinion. He remained almost unchallenged both in the government and the party after Dasgupta’s death in 1982.

It was his stature and personal rapport with the Gandhi family that helped his government tame the Subash Ghisingh-led Gorkhaland agitation of the mid-1980s, the first post-Independence threat to Bengal’s territorial integrity.
BISWAJIT ROY

Some Interesting Issues
Some claims he was a great humanist.

His legacy of humanism is what this news report indicates.
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
BORN TO CHARM
- He did little when he could have done so much
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

Manmohan Singh once adapted a famous comment about Britain’s R.A. Butler to say that Jyoti Basu was the best prime minister India had never had. The prime minister may long ago have outgrown that personal view privately expressed before he held a governmental position; but there is no denying that Basu had a panache that never failed to impress. This writer too waxed eulogistic about the former chief minister in an anthology published about 15 years ago. It’s only when West Bengal is compared to other states that doubts about Basu’s long stewardship creep in.

People who worked with him in his early years in politics say he strove to model himself on Bidhan Chandra Roy, his hero. If so, the main resemblance was in his relationship with his party. Basu towered over his comrades as Roy had done over other Congressmen. He also had a broader perspective than other Bengali Marxists. Legend had it that he was on first-name terms with Indira Gandhi, whom he had known as a student in England. Others (P.N. Haksar, Bhupesh Gupta, Mohan Kumaramangalam) had also fallen under Rajani Palme Dutt’s spell and returned to join either politics (Congress or communist), law or the civil service. But surrounded by sycophantic civil servants, Basu was intolerant of independent appraisals.

His principal asset was his personality. It followed, therefore, that his successes were largely personal. A Roman Catholic prelate told me he would “pick up the telephone and speak to Jyoti” at the least hint of labour trouble in any of their church institutions. Basu had not forgotten his childhood and adolescence at Loreto House and St Xavier’s School. A former communist colleague recalls that Basu fell silent for a whole month when the undivided party resolved that public speeches would be only in the mother tongue. He was brushing up his Bengali oratory. In some ways, he was a sahib in a dhoti.

Given Indian class consciousness, villagers and the party’s rank and file were awed by his aloof manner and unseeing, hooded gaze. He seemed born to rule. Westerners, especially the British, loved his unsmiling visage and clipped, monosyllabic replies. Society women swooned over his gallantry. One who wanted her whiskey small at a cocktail party was very taken when Basu intervened, “Don’t worry, they serve it in homeopathic doses in this house!” Such repartee was not expected from an austere Marxist whose government was identified with radical social and economic measures.

There was a serious dimension to his pleasantries. They enabled him to enjoy convivial sessions with the captains of industry, who profited from the relationship. To my intense embarrassment, I have more than once opened a door at some large gathering and stumbled on Basu in a huddle with some of West Bengal’s best-known business operators. The wintry smiles I got made it clear my presence was unwelcome. Basu could be very cold when he wanted to. He was too sophisticated to discuss land concessions, contracts, loans and licences at social occasions; but they soldered the bond that gave rise to the “Communist Party of India (Marwari)” joke about the CPI(M).

Ideology sat lightly on this urbane man of the world. He did not slave through the party ranks like the Cambridge-educated Indrajit Gupta, who came from a more distinguished, affluent and Westernized background but identified himself wholeheartedly with the mazdoor he represented. Snehangshu Acharya, Basu’s lifelong friend and, some say, financial supporter, used to talk of taking him to Alexandra Castle, the family seat of the Maharajas of Mymensingh, after their return from England. The castle was said to boast a stairway of solid crystal and two kitchens that served lavish Bengali and European meals every day. Basu left after a week of this luxury, saying he would lose his communism if he stayed.

One of his campaign promises in the Seventies was that sub-divisional officers and district collectors were archaic institutions and that the government would find new channels of communication with the people. Having just visited Sri Lanka, I told him on the morning after the CPI(M)’s sweeping victory that Sirimavo Bandaranaike had appointed a political officer from her Sri Lanka Freedom Party in each district. The PO bypassed the established colonial era conduit. Basu was outraged. “That would mean duplication and confusion!” he expostulated. What new channels of communication did he have in mind then? He thought for a moment and said mahila samitis were very effective. The answer reminded me of the Fifties English joke, “Vote Labour to keep out the Socialists!” It is party lore that ambivalence and inconsistency also marked his stand on the revolutionary line that B.T. Ranadive advocated. To start with, he was critical of armed insurrection as in Telangana but later supported Ranadive as general secretary replacing P.C. Joshi. “Tiger” was his unlikely code name when the party went underground.

It would be unfair not to give Basu credit for the major changes that transformed West Bengal’s landscape during his chief ministership. Operation Barga was a significant achievement. So was the tiered panchayat administration. But it seems now that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has a better appreciation of how to handle the fruits of success than Basu did. He did not seem to realize that his own reforms in the countryside had created a new breed of ambitious young Bengalis with a smattering of education, determined to break out of the peasant mould and become bhadraloks.

One saw the same upward mobility in Punjab after the Green Revolution. Agricultural universities like the one at Ludhiana were set up for the sons of well-to-do cultivators in the hope of turning them into modern gentlemen farmers. But those youths had no intention of demeaning themselves by going back to the land. All the boys I spoke to then on the Ludhiana campus demanded a white-collar job — in the block development office if all else failed. Luckily for them, industry mopped up Punjabi manpower and avoided the kind of discontent that manifested itself in the Naxalite movement and other forms of unrest. I found Basu singularly unsympathetic to this phenomenon when I was interviewing him in the early Seventies for a British magazine. He dismissed Naxalites as “wagon-breakers and anti-socials”.

He sanctioned or turned a blind eye to criminally harsh repression and the use of agents provocateurs. He chose to condone police brutality, often making light of the atrocities reported in the newspaper I edited. “Editor-sahib sees torture everywhere!” he once joked. When I defended my reporter’s eye-witness account he replied that he had asked the police commissioner, who had denied the story. Naturally, the police commissioner would deny a report that indicted his men. Similarly, Basu did little or nothing to prevent the CPI(M) and its allies from sponsoring illegal immigration from Bangladesh. He railed against the Anandabazar group at our last meeting, saying they invented stories about him.

A former governor of West Bengal would say that Basu refused to read or sign files. He preferred to discuss things over a drink in Raj Bhavan. The governor saw this as a form of escapism. That may also explain why he did not ever try to grasp the nettle of unemployment as Bhattacharjee is trying with his plans for rapid industrialization. However inept the operations may be, they represent a realistic appraisal of West Bengal’s requirements.

Compare that with the fate that befell Roy’s tangible legacy. Salt Lake has flourished because land means profiteering but Kalyani has not. And very little remains of the nurseries Roy planned for the hills, his deep-sea trawlers and the Haringhata farm. Jyoti Basu with his charm, access, privileged position, legal training and worldly outlook could have done so much. His sad epitaph is that he did so little.
[email protected]
Born to Charm
Interesting commentary.

Quite balanced.
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
A Governor of West Bengal remembers JB.

A PATRIARCH REMEMBERED
GopalKrishna Gandhi

“See my condition,” he said, “I have to meet you like this, sitting on my bed.” It was the day prior to his 95th birthday. “I can’t hear in one ear, and can’t see in one eye.” “You are not missing much,” I suggested, “there is so much around us one doesn’t want to hear and so much one does not like to see.” He smiled a wan smile, a variant of the dry smile of his that has been the photographer’s despair. I am not sure he had heard me.

When I went to call on him again on December 13, 2009, a day prior to my demitting office, he was weaker. He started the conversation by saying, “I cannot see, I cannot hear...” His mouth was parched and he clenched his teeth as he spoke, in apparent irritation with his condition. This birdlike figure, now confined to his bed, had been part of my consciousness for much of my adult life as a larger-than-life figure and yet real, distant and yet accessible, a figure from history and also from tomorrow’s newspaper. He had, of course, been that for millions, whether communist or non-communist, political or wholly apolitical.

I met him at regular intervals in places as far removed as London and Pretoria, New Delhi and Calcutta. It was in London, where I was working as director of The Nehru Centre, that I had got to know Jyotibabu. The year was 1993. The Nehru Centre had organized a commemoration of the 200th year of Cornwallis’s Permanent Settlement. Jyotibabu was the chief speaker. His head buried in the text, he read in an unfluctuating timbre and tone from a prepared script. And as he progressed from page to page of the closely typed document I could see many in the audience ‘switching off’. Jyotibabu, too, seemed to realize this for he suddenly stopped midway and, looking up through his spectacles, said, “You can see I am reading this out. It has been written for me by an expert who knows all these things. I do not know all this myself. I am also learning as I read this. You see, for most of my life I have been among the people, with little time to read or study….” The audience burst into applause in appreciation of the candour of this man who had shaped history, while most of the listeners had only read history and some had written on aspects of it. He visited us at The Nehru Centre again the following year to unveil a bronze bust of Tagore made by Somnath Hore which we had been lucky enough to obtain through the then minister of culture in West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and the facilitation of my friend of many years, V.K. Ramachandran. The Centre had arranged the procedure to be worthy of the originality of the masterpiece. Jyotibabu was requested to press a button that would cast a beam of light through the darkened hall onto the bust. As the work came to light and life, an exclamation rose from the audience collectively, loud and clear. But I can never forget the look of sheer wonder, at once childlike and hugely knowledgeable, that passed for a brief moment over Jyotibabu’s face. Never one for verbal excess, he said to me, “It is a good piece.” And added, “One of Somnath’s best.”

Jyotibabu visited South Africa in 1997, with his wife, Kamaldi, and four associates. He was driven straight from the airport to the presidential office in South Africa’s capital. Mandela had been president for just over two years. Jyotibabu had governed West Bengal for over two decades. As the high commissioner for India, it was my privilege to receive the visiting Indian dignitary at the airport (where, unnoticed by our bouquet-holding welcoming party, he had disembarked with other economy class passengers from the plane’s rear), and to accompany him on his calls and visits. “Excellency,” I said to our iconic host, “Chief Minister Basu is the longest serving head of a communist government in the world after Fidel Castro.” This was a quite unnecessary introduction, for President Mandela knew his guest’s political history well. But, as it turned out, my comment required nuancing. Correcting me gently, Jyotibabu said to President Mandela, “I may be the longest serving head of a communist government after Comrade Fidel, but I believe I am the longest serving head of an elected communist government in the world.” And it was in that unique capacity that South Africa gave a red-carpet welcome to this leader of the Indian Left who was, clearly, more than a party’s leader, more than a shining star of doctrine, ideology or political adherence, more than a chief minister. And more than the mould that political evolution had encased him in. Then, explaining one of the objects of his visit, Jyotibabu said to Mandela, “Mr President, I understand that your party, the African National Congress, is in alliance with the South African Communist Party and with the apex organization of trade unions. In my province of West Bengal also, we are in alliance with other parties and with like-minded Unions. Your alliance has grown in your struggle. Our recent history has been different. But be that as it may, we need to learn from you, from your struggle, and see as to how the interests of the common people can be served through such partnership arrangements, within a democratic framework, and how we can explain our programmes better to the masses.”

President Mandela heard Jyotibabu intently, his eyes narrowing and his forehead furrowing to capture the essence of his visitor’s intent. “Also, Mr President, I understand your struggle has been well-documented by your own people. Unfortunately, we have not done that. Our history remains largely undocumented, so our understanding of historical processes has been hindered. I want to collect specimens of your documentation so that we can do something in that direction.” And then Jyotibabu said something I can never forget. “Mr President, we have to constantly educate ourselves.”

On the drive to the airport for his departure, he asked me, “When are you returning to India?” I said I had but just taken up my assignment. “When you come back ,why don’t you work in West Bengal?” “That would be a privilege,” I said, whereupon one of his colleagues said to him, “If a person who has been an Ambassador or High Commissioner is to serve within an Indian State, it can only be in one capacity.” “Yes, I know,” Jyotibabu said laconically.

A couple of years later, I was back in India, as secretary to President K.R. Narayanan. The phone rang in my home one evening to say Chief Minister Basu was in town and would like me to see him. I mentioned this to President Narayanan the next morning who said I must of course see the veteran leader if he wants me to. Jyotibabu met me in his suite in Banga Bhavan. He was wearing a shirt and a coloured lungi. He was looking both relaxed and also not. “You see, the time has come for a new Governor to be appointed in West Bengal and the Union Home Minister himself has rung me to suggest a name… I have given my agreement…” As he spoke, the conversation in the car on the way to the airport in Johannesburg came flooding back to me and I divined what Jyotibabu was intending to convey. Jyotibabu then smiled that dry smile of his that has become his ‘signature’ and said, “I just wanted you to know, that is all… and let us see… perhaps… some day in the future… I hope.” As I drove out of Banga Bhavan, I said to myself if there is such a thing as simple decency in public life, Jyotibabu has to be its best example.

Five years later, as I entered the Throne Room at Raj Bhavan, Calcutta, under a very different political constellation for the swearing-in ceremony, I saw Jyotibabu seated in the first row. He was not chief minister. And he was not in the best of health. But he had come for the event. I was quite overwhelmed. Seated beside the chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, he was clearly the head of a large family, respected, if not adhered to, by all. After the ceremony was over, as I walked up to him, he said, “So, congratulations,” and then added with his characteristic economy with words, “finally.”

My visits to see him in Indira Bhavan were always brief and whenever conversation went beyond that thoughtless genre of ‘polite talk’, it was because he chose to steer it further. On a couple of occasions he gave me, in a few chosen words, his concept of a governor’s role, describing Professor Nurul Hasan as “an ideal Governor”. And that discussion, needless to say, was minimalist. Jyotibabu offered, on those occasions, certain perspectives on my way of working in what might be called homeopathic doses.

Jyotibabu honoured my wife and me by joining us for dinner on a couple of occasions. On one such evening, over his favourite menu of Chinese food, he reminisced about his time as a student in London. “I disagreed with Rajani Palme Dutt over his assessment of Gandhiji. I could not accept RPD’s characterization of Gandhiji as a bourgeois leader. I said Gandhi was the first man to rouse the whole nation.” He then told me of his visiting Gandhiji at his Hydari Manzil camp in Beliaghata, Calcutta, in August 1947 when the city had been engulfed by communal riots. “Bhupesh Gupta and I went to him and asked what, in his opinion, we in the communist movement should do at that point in time. Gandhiji said that going by his limited experience, the best thing to do would be to organize peace marches, joint Hindu-Mussalman processions. And we did try but it was not of much use as the processions got broken up…” I was struck by the phrase “limited experience”, used (as Jyotibabu recalled ) by Gandhiji to describe his own millennial expertise in that field. And I was struck equally by Jyotibabu’s laser-sharp recollection of that meeting. It was for me a great fulfilment to see Jyotibabu open the new exhibition gallery at the same house, now renamed Gandhi Bhavan, in Beliaghata on August 15, 2007.

Over my last two visits to him, when he received me in his bedroom, I noticed that on a dressing table at the far end of the room, stood three framed pictures. One was of Kamaldi, one of his grandchildren and the third one, smaller than the other two, of Venkateswara, the deity worshipped in Tirupati. I did not ask about it and assumed that it had been placed there by some devout person and that Jyotibabu had not interfered with that gesture. I do not know about its provenance, but it said a great deal to me, that little picture there.

For Jyoti Basu to be ideologically committed was not the same thing as being intellectually closed, to be doctrinally connected was not the same as becoming an island of received wisdoms. Consistency was not coextensive with conceptual stagnation, nor loyalty the same as mental slavery. He knew in the core of his being that vitally important as an ideology is, there is such a thing as the web of Life which has its dividing lines but also interconnections. When he strove it was for the success of his beliefs, not for the defeat of others’. This is what has made and will sustain his image as a political leader who, to adapt T.S. Eliot’s phrase, “cared and did not care”.

Communist by training and patrician in temperament, Marxist by conviction and a liberal democrat in practice, mass leader and recluse, Jyotibabu’s goal was a classless social order. And his road? Made of the rough terracotta of politics and the gleaming marble of power, its surfaces were discrete. But these dichotomies did not seem in him self-contradictory or self-defeating. This was because he established very early on his own special blend of affinity and autonomy, the space he shared with his associates and the space he reserved for himself.

Jyoti Basu’s leadership will be remembered for what it did in terms of the land-human population congruence. ‘Land reforms’ are the two words that will rise in anyone’s mind when asked to name his innings’ most lasting achievement. The same land-population congruence, necessitated this time not by landlordism and inequity but by sea-surge and the inevitable push-back of millions, now demands attention, urgent attention. The foresight and quiet, undramatic determination that this phenomenal man showed is an urgent need. Will the region be as farsighted as he was, as brave, and as wise? There can be no more abiding way of paying tribute to this leader of leaders than addressing this waiting behemoth of a challenge.
Governor Remembers
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
A fellow Communists eulogy of JB

MASTER OF THE POLITICS OF FEASIBILITY
Ashok Mitra, a younger comrade, pays homage to Jyoti Basu, a leader who died with his faith in the historical process unimpaired

India is to be without Jyoti Basu. The new reality will not sink easily into most minds. For most of the past half-a-century, the man had filled a crucial spot in the country’s political landscape. It was a movable spot since circumstances were evolving all the time, but the picture would never be complete without this man’s position and point of view. Allies, permanent or temporary, would be there to seek his counsel. Adversaries, too, would be aware of the differences and the weight of his views. The general feeling of a lack of coordinates, which has accompanied the announcement of his passing, is therefore understandable. This vacuum of feelings will, however, be different from person to person. That too owes to the magic of his persona. He had a way of interacting on the individual plane with whomever he met.

And this is perhaps what charisma is about. After Subhas Chandra Bose, Jyoti Basu was the next idol the Bengali masses created and clung to. The chemistry at work was almost inexplicable, for Jyoti Basu was by nature a shy and reserved individual. That apart, despite his fame as a spellbinding speaker, he abhorred histrionics; his voice never deviated from the normal pitch, the electric current nonetheless hurtled across in waves and a bond got instantly established between the person on the podium and the assembled dishevelled rows of humanity. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Left Front owe an immense deal to this inexplicable phenomenon.

The Jyoti Basu story has a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary beginning. Some three quarters of a century ago, India was still a subjugated nation. The main agenda was the struggle for freedom. But a few youngsters with a background of affluence, living and studying in India, were convinced that liberation from foreign bondage was not enough: postcolonial India must be a just India, a socialist India, an India which would be an integral part of the great proletarian revolution ushered in by the Soviet Union. Jyoti Basu joined in and found company in the imperial capital. The young cadets even redistributed their allegiance between the India League and the Communist Party of Great Britain.

He returned to Calcutta as a full-time party worker, learning the rudiments of trade unionism in the loco-shed at Kanchrapara, at the docks in Kidderpore, spending long hard days at the Terai as comrade-in-arms of the struggling tea-garden workers, agitating for the tenurial rights for the share-croppers and living rights for the landless workers, learning the art of public speaking at impromptu street-corner sessions in Calcutta, getting to know comrades with different backgrounds in party classes where one learnt as much as one taught, finally arriving at the exhilarating awareness of reaching emotional integration with the down-and-outs in society. Charisma develops from a modest base, but once that base was formed, there was an inevitability in the manner Jyoti Basu went to win mass adulation. His entry into the Bengal legislature was a happenstance that turned into a qualitative departure. The clipped three-fourth complete sentences that comprised his individual style of speaking to comrades, mixed with controlled passion and an added tincture of sarcasm, began to make history. The man continued to make history since.

The post-freedom Congress ruling the country had its own agenda. The fledgling communist party, often irrepressible, was a nuisance. Jyoti Basu was an integral part of that nuisance. Prison terms, short or long, therefore became commonplace. That further contributed to the charisma. For many from the lower echelons of society, going to his meetings or participating in a strike led by him was a privilege cum romantic adventure. But there was another side to his personality. He did not think much of the so-called intellectuals. He, however, knew that in Indian conditions a revolutionary party must strike its roots in the psyche of the middle-class. The intellectual community is an excellent intermediary. It was not difficult for Jyoti Basu to speak to them in their own lingo and tickle their ego. He, however, also knew how far to depend on them.

When the uprooted millions arrived from East Pakistan, his charisma worked wonders again. The great coalition formed in the Sixties and Seventies of the middle- and lower-classes, the peasants, the organized workers, the millions of unemployed and underemployed seemingly lost in the wilderness of the informal sector and, finally, the displaced persons provided the communists with its massive base of support in West Bengal, and in turn became the capital asset of the Left Front. Jyoti Basu emerged as the natural leader because of one particular personal attribute: he knew the limits of feasibility. He did not promise the moon either to the peasantry or to the workers or the destitute refugees. When he negotiated on behalf of engineering workers or college or school teachers too, he urged them to stay united, but he also warned them against indulging in excesses.

When he assumed office as chief minister, it was once more the same concern for feasibility. Entering government was not a giant stride towards revolution; a state administration has to respect the ambits laid down for it in the Constitution, reflecting the mindset of the feudal capitalist power structure. The opportunity still has to be availed of to prove the point that the Left was capable of combining passion with efficiency and use the limited resources and the limited authority to advance the cause of the deprived masses. It was important to succeed in this goal, for such success would increase the credibility of the Left all over the country, thereby advancing the cause of the popular democratic revolution.

The deep regard for him at the national level was for a similar reason. Given the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-party chiaroscuro and the fact that the Left had to contain simultaneously the two dominant national parties, it would be necessary to combine formations that did not that easily combine. It was therefore important to harp on issues that bring disparate elements together. Jyoti Basu found a uniting theme in the early 1980s: the third alternative was a living reality. Debate continues whether the refusal of his party in 1996 to let him be prime minister was a historic blunder or not. What can, however, be asserted with a measure of confidence is that but for the historic mishap which took place in October 31, 1984 — Indira Gandhi murdered by her own bodyguards — Jyoti Basu might well have emerged as the nation’s prime minister following the 1985 Lok Sabha elections. The powerful movement for restructuring Centre-state relations which Jyoti Basu initiated had gone from strength to strength and counted within its fold apart from the Left the as yet unfractured Janata Dal, the DMK, the Telugu Desam, and even the National Conference in Kashmir. Public fury at Indira Gandhi’s coups in Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh — the first successful, the second a disaster — was intense and there was, of course, the standing discontent with runaway prices. It could have been a famous victory for the Opposition and the Left and its allies might have emerged as a major and decisive force in the rainbow coalition that would have come to power. Indira Gandhi’s assassination overturned the pseophologic arithmetic. The coalition Jyoti Basu had put together disintegrated. The 1996 scenario was qualitatively different. After that, it was a more inward looking statesman concentrating on West Bengal and retiring with grace in the final year of the century. The last few years were sad. Unfortunately his legacy was made a hash of in the last couple of years. But he still maintained his fortitude.

But he must have been an intensely lonely man missing his comrades, such as E.M.S Namboodiripad, B.T. Ranadive, P. Sundarayya and Pramode Dasgupta. And even earlier from his London days — Snehangshu Kanti Acharya and Bhupesh Gupta. The tranquillity of death could not have been altogether unwelcome to him, for he departed with his faith in the inevitability of the historical process totally unimpaired. Did he not, given his long long years in the movement, face the sequences, ups and downs?

This piece is a humble homage from a comrade 13 years his younger who happened to be sworn in as minister under his leadership in the first Left Front government on that morning of June 21, 1977. Of the five sworn in that day, the rest are gone, only the junior comrade will perhaps have to survive for a while longer.
Communist's Eulogy
It is claimed that he fought for the tea garden workers. What the writer misses out is that his family owned Tea Estates in Jalpaiguri and I presume they still do. His nephews studied in my School and they drove their own VW Beetle to School, while we went by the School Bus or in the State buses!
 

..Azad

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
Messages
62
Likes
5
Attain peace.
Yes even a dead commie deserves some eulogies. The irony is that he died in a private hospital.
 

sandeepdg

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
2,333
Likes
227
No politician is India has ever escaped controversy whether in life or after his/her death. Late, Mr. Jyoti Basu is no exception. Its true that under his more than two decade rule, he practically killed the superb industrial infrastructure and capabilities that the state had after independence and led to the loss of thousands of jobs for the people of the state and led to exodus of Bengali youths to to the other parts of the country in search of a bright future. But, nevertheless being a Bengali, I am not going to ignore the fact that he was after all one the tallest politician of this country and initiated the land reforms on a wide scale, probably the only notable achievement of his rule. He was the one of the greatest communist leaders of Asia, one of the main founders of CPI-M, highly charismatic, intelligent and loved by millions. He kept a keen interest among the leaders of the communist and the non-aligned world, like Zhou-en Lai, Fidel Castro, whom he personally adored and Nelson Mandela all of whom he personally met in Kolkata.
My condolences to his family, and may your soul rest in peace Mr. Basu !
 

..Azad

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2009
Messages
62
Likes
5
Prime minister said "The country mourns the death of a patriot". What a joke! - this patriot was under house arrest in 62 war with China _l_
 

Pintu

New Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
12,082
Likes
348
http://www.ptinews.com/news/473833_-Basu-a-Marxist-CM-who-learnt-radicalism-in-London-

'Basu a Marxist CM who learnt radicalism in London'

STAFF WRITER 17:36 HRS IST

London, Jan 18(PTI) British media today paid tribute to veteran Indian Communist leader Jyoti Basu, describing him as the Marxist chief minister who learnt his radicalism as a student in London during the 1930s.

The 95-year-old iconic Marxist patriarch who was India's longest-serving chief minister ruling West Bengal for an unbroken 23 years and came within a hair's breadth of becoming prime minister in 1996, died yesterday after a prolonged illness.

"Basu was a Communist who believed in parliamentary democracy," The Daily Telegraph said in its obituary column.

While it complimented him for bringing peace to West Bengal (during his chief ministership) after a violent uprising by Naxalites in the late 1960s and 1970s, he was criticised for holding back progress by preventing English from being taught in primary schools.

While studying in London, the report said Basu became immersed in Indian student activities.
 

Ray

The Chairman
Professional
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
43,132
Likes
23,834
Attain peace.
Yes even a dead commie deserves some eulogies. The irony is that he died in a private hospital.
And the most expensive one.

State funded his internment?
 

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
One should not speak ill of the dead, however the sad state of West Bengal is his legacy.

To be fair to him, he carried out the agrarian reforms that helped many a share cropper.

However, he produced the goon squads called cadres which were extra constitutional authorities and beyond law. A recent case in point is the manner in which the land was 'acquired' in Singur, not that Mamta Bannerjee is some angel. She is an equal nuisance. These good squads called cadres ran amok and ordered the normal citizenry around!

He ensured that industries vanished from Bengal so that all became poor being unemployed. He brought in a new word in the English language - gherao.

He politicised the police wherein the Indian law was not applicable but the dictates of the Communist Marxists. A case in point was the burning of 18 Ananda Margis on street lamp posts on Bijon Setu and no action in law was taken.

The govt machinery was brought to anarchy since the heads were not the real source of decisions - each department was controlled by the Coordinating Committee, which overruled the authority.

He ensured that English was abolished in WB so that none could get an All India job and hence remained poor and dissatisfied - the source of power for Communists!

Read this:





JB

When one dies, it is common practice to praise a person. Indians are good at it. Good PC is what we are good at.

His son is a top capitalist and JB owned tea estates in Jalpaiguri.

Compared to this man JB, Buddhadev is a far better bet for Bengal!

However, one should pragmatically analyse.

If an era has come to an end, so be it. Bengal will once again find its place in India!
First of all condolences to his family.

I would have to agree with Ray Sir. The sad state of WB is due to the long rule of Jyoti Basu. I think apart from land reforms, he did nothing else that benefited the state. His mis guided policies drove out industries. I can personally vouch for that as a huge chunk of my community members who are all traders and depended on supplies to industries started to leave the state in the late eiighties and early ninetees. They all moved down south to Hyderabad, Chennai, Coimbatore and Bangalore. There was no business for them and saw no future.
Under him, we saw the greatest election engineering which saw him in power for 23 years. It also saw all the illegal Bangladeshis being legalised for election gains and thereby putting a strain on Indian economy and also security.
 

Pintu

New Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
12,082
Likes
348
Thousands pay their last respects to Jyoti Basu - India - The Times of India

Thousands pay their last respects to Jyoti Basu
IANS, 19 January 2010, 03:44pm IST

KOLKATA: They came in thousands, from far and near. Some queued up at night for one last glimpse. Some cried and yet others broke into spontaneous shouts of "Long live comrade Jyoti Basu" as the Marxist patriarch's body was carried in a procession around the heart of Kolkata on Tuesday.

Men and women, some with children in tow, thronged the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) West Bengal headquarters at Alimuddin Street, the state secretariat at Writers Buildings and the assembly premises to pay their last respects to Basu, who had been chief minister for 23 years and died on Sunday.

"I can still hear the speech he had given at Barasat Kachari Maidan during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. He will remain in my heart as one of the greatest icons Bengal had ever produced," said Jamal Ahmed, who had queued up in front of Alimuddin Street since midnight to get a glimpse of the leader.

Long queues of people, young and old alike, holding garlands and placards could be seen outside the assembly. "Red salute to comrade Jyoti Basu", "We will never forget you" said the placards.

In death too, he lived up to his reputation as a mass leader.

Basu's body was placed in a flower-bedecked lorry. It was taken out of Peace Haven funeral parlour at 7.30 a.m. Tuesday and brought to CPM's party office. From there, it headed for Writers' Building at 9 am navigating through Lenin Sarani and Sidhu-Kanhu Dahar in central Kolkata.

The mortal remains of Basu were taken to the assembly at around 10.20am.

Paresh Mandal, 86, had come all the way from Satgachia, which was the assembly constituency of Basu from 1977 to 2001, to see his beloved leader one last time.

"I have come to see my leader for the last time. I never missed any of his election campaigns when he used to address rallies at Satgachia. Though I am not affiliated to any party, Jyoti Babu will remain my leader till the day I die," said Mandal breaking into tears.

Chotan Dutt, a businessman from Kolkata's New Market area, said: "I decided to skip business today and came here to witness Jyoti Basu's funeral procession. I know I will never get any chance to hear him at any political rally any more. This is the last time I am seeing his body."

Basu's body will be kept at the state legislative assembly till 3pm.on Tuesday. It will be donated for medical science to a state-run hospital.

"The gathering during Basu's last journey proves that the Communist movement in West Bengal has not died out.

We will again rise and follow the ideals he had shown us during his long political life," said Suchandan Ghosh, an officegoer, who was seen shouting - "Long live comrade Jyoti Basu."
 

Pintu

New Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
12,082
Likes
348
The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Frontpage | Pioneer seeks Basu brain

Pioneer seeks Basu brain
- Good mental faculties make organ ideal sample: Nimhans


G.S. MUDUR


The bed in AMRI Hospitals on which
Basu died. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta


New Delhi, Jan. 18: The neuropathologist who built India’s first and only human brain bank wants to turn Jyoti Basu’s brain into a potential resource for scientists trying to fathom fine differences between healthy and diseased brains.

The brain repository set up 15 years ago at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (Nimhans), Bangalore, has a collection of brains of deceased individuals from all age groups, chemically preserved for pathological analysis.

“Basu’s brain would be extremely useful for the kind of research that our repository facilitates,” said S.K. Shankar, professor and head of neuropathology at Nimhans. Basu’s body is to be donated to the SSKM Hospital, Calcutta, on Tuesday. “He appeared to have good mental faculties until the end. His brain could become a normal control sample that we need for studies comparing healthy brains with the brains of aged people with neurodegenerative diseases.”

Nimhans has adopted a standard operating protocol under which every donated brain is “anonymised” — a code with an age is assigned to the brain, so that not even scientists who work on the brain have knowledge of who it belonged to.

“If we do indeed get Basu’s brain, we will follow this procedure. We’ll assign a code and indicate the age of the brain — that is it. Scientists who use the tissues for studies have no need to know its origins,” he said.

Brain tissue viable for research may be extracted up to 24 hours from a body preserved with ice. But a brain may be extracted from an embalmed body after any duration. Structural and genetic studies may be done on such brains.

Shankar said the brain of a nonagenarian would be of particular value to research aimed at comparing healthy brains with the brains of people who were suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

In such studies, neuropathologists typically pick tiny sections of tissues from healthy brains and Alzheimer’s brains and seek out differences that might provide clues about the pathology of the disease.

“The preservation process would allow certain structural and genetic studies on the brain,” Shankar said. “Present-day technology allows us to extract small amounts of proteins for molecular biology studies,” he said.

A senior anatomist at the SSKM Hospital had said on Sunday that the body would be embalmed for preservation and possible use for medical lessons in human anatomy.

Shankar declined to say how many brains the Nimhans repository contains.

“You don’t ask someone how much they have in their bank, do you?” he said. “But we don’t get enough. So every brain is valuable to us.”
 

Pintu

New Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
12,082
Likes
348
The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Frontpage | Empty, but a room that will for ever be Jyotibabu’s

Empty, but a room that will for ever be Jyotibabu’s


SANJAY MANDAL


The room at AMRI where Basu
breathed his last. (Bishwarup
Dutta)


Calcutta, Jan. 18: The city’s most famous hospital bed today stood empty in its 10ftx10ft glass enclosure for the first time in 17 days.

Bed number 649 at AMRI Hospitals in Salt Lake is where Jyoti Basu had fought the last battle of his life, shielded by curtains and surrounded by doctors as the world outside waited for good news.

Today, the advanced cardiac monitor that had captured every fluctuation in his heartbeat for more than a fortnight was switched off. In a corner of the cubicle stood the ventilation machine, inert.

The oxygen supply port and the suction apparatus stayed fixed to the wall behind the Fowler Bed, designed to make patients needing critical care as comfortable as they can be. A stethoscope hung from a hook just below the cardiac monitor. A food trolley, a side table with two glasses and a jug, and a couple of freshly cleaned waste baskets completed the picture.

“To us, this room filled with medical gadgets would have been just another intensive care unit but for the fact that Jyoti Basu spent the last 16 days of his life here. We had all hoped that he would pull through, though it was not to be. He may be gone but this room will always hold a special place in my heart,” critical care consultant Rajarshi Roy, a member of the medical board that had treated the late Marxist leader, told The Telegraph.

To the doctors, Basu — shifted from room no 827 on the eighth floor to the sixth-floor ICCU on January 2 — was “Sir”. But for the nurses and attendants who cared for him day and night, he was an endearing Dadu (grandfather) rather than someone who ruled Bengal for 23 years.

Before being put on ventilation on January 6, Basu would speak to the doctors and other hospital staff in syllables. “I heard him saying pete byatha (pain in the abdomen) a few times,” recalled Roy.

Medical superintendent Debashish Sharma said Basu would also complain of respiratory distress by saying “shash kashto hochchhe (I am having difficulty breathing) or point to where needles were inserted to say “byatha (pain)”.

On being asked “Sir, ekhon kemon lagchhe? (how do you feel now?)” after being administered palliative medicines, Basu would say: “Bhalo (good).”

January 5 was the last day Basu tried communicating. “I went near his bed and he gestured to me that he needed his reading glasses. He then raised his hands again to indicate that he wanted to write something,” said T.S. Kukreja, the executive vice-president of AMRI.

But Basu did not have the strength to put pen to paper.

Once he was put on ventilation with tubes inserted through his mouth, Basu would respond to questions by opening his eyes, said a member of the ICCU staff.

“We would hold our meetings by his bedside, looking at the readings on the monitors and making assessments. Some decisions had to be taken there,” said a doctor.

Except for the first couple of days, no visitors were allowed into the glass enclosure. “Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was allowed to see him only from outside the cubicle,” said a doctor.

The freshly fumigated enclosure may soon have a new occupant, but for those who attended to the former chief minister from Day I it will always remain “Jyotibabu’s room”.
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top