Jyoti Basu

Jyoti Basu, whose death here yesterday came as a huge blow to Indian communist movement, straddled the Indian political arena like a giant for more than six decades as a charismatic leader and was respected across the political spectrum.
As a young barrister from England who embraced communism, Basu displayed remarkable pragmatism by acknowledging that socialism was not possible in the capitalist set-up of India.
As the chief minister of West Bengal, he wooed private domestic and foreign investment for industrial development of the state.
A political legend, Basu was the longest serving chief minister of West Bengal for 23 years from 1977.
His CPI (M)-led Left Front government in the last years in power showed that it was ready to woo private capital and adopt some market-oriented policies.
A relentless crusader against communalism and a fervent advocate of secular politics, Basu was instrumental in prodding his party CPI (M) into supporting a Congress Party-led government in 2004 after parliamentary elections did not give Congress majority with a view to keeping BJP at bay.
Born in an upper middle-class Bangalee family in Kolkata in 1914, Basu's father Nishikanta Basu, a doctor, hailed from the village of Barodi at Narayanganj in Bangladesh.
Jyoti Basu studied at St Xavier's Collegiate School in Kolkata and graduated from prestigious Presidency College with an honours degree from the Arts Faculty in 1935 before travelling to England to study law.
Ushered into the Communist Party of Great Britain through another legendary communist leader Bhupesh Gupta, Basu involved himself with the India League, the communist party and the London Majlis.
On his return to India in 1940 after qualifying for the Bar, he became a fulltime activist of the Communist Party of India in 1944 and got involved in trade union activities.
He was married to Kamal Basu who predeceased him.
Basu joined the electoral arena by defeating Congress stalwart Humayun Kabir from the erstwhile railway constituency in 1946.
He went underground when the Communist Party was banned in India in 1948 and was jailed several times during the Congress regime in West Bengal. He was imprisoned in 1953 for spearheading a movement against a hike in tram fare.
Basu had wrested the Baranagore seat from then Education Minister Roy Harendranath Chowdhury in 1952.
Though 28 communist candidates were elected to the West Bengal assembly that year, the then Speaker refused to accord Basu the status of the leader of the opposition.
The recognition finally came in 1957 when Basu was re-elected from Baranagore constituency, the seat that he retained till 1972 when he suffered the only electoral defeat in his political career.
He emerged as an influential member of CPI (M) after the
1964 split in Communist Party of India over sharp ideological difference over the Sino-Indian war in 1962.
Basu, in a letter entitled 'Save the party from revisionism and dogmatic extremists' written from jail in 1963, a year before CPI (M) was formed, was initially against its creation saying, "We have to continue our ideological struggle against SA Dange's politics of revisionism. It will not be right to split the party."
The content of Basu's letter was revealed in a book 'Communist movement in Bengal, Documents and Related Facts' published by CPI (M).
In 1967 and 1969, Basu was deputy chief minister of the United Front governments in West Bengal. Eight years later, he became the chief minister in 1977 and remained in the post for 23 years.
In 1980s, he played a key role in convening a meeting of non-Congress chief ministers in Kolkata to raise their voice against the "step-motherly attitude" of the Congress government at the Centre in close liaison with late NT Rama Rao of Andhra Pradesh and late Ramakrishna Hegde of Karnataka.
Basu's political astuteness showed up once again when he succeeded in his efforts in late 1985 to convince late premier Rajiv Gandhi of the utility of forming a hill council to restore peace in strife-torn Darjeeling where the Gorkha National Liberation Front under Subhas Ghising had waged a violent agitation for a separate state.
A fierce critic of economic liberalisation policy of the Congress government headed by the then Indian Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao government (1991 to 1996), Basu, however, initiated formation of an "alternative" policy to woo investors. He also went abroad to attract foreign investments in the face of strong criticism by his own party comrades.
This clearly showed Basu's pragmatic approach to political and economic issues. He was the main advocate for the initial participation of the Tatas in the Haldia Petrochemical Complex in West Bengal, which was among the first major industrial initiatives during the Left-ruled state.
Basu was among the CPI (M) leaders who fully supported his successor Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee's initiatives for private-capital driven industrialisation.
Acknowledging that socialism was not possible, Basu said, "We want capital, both foreign and domestic. After all we are working in a capitalist system. Socialism is not possible now."
Basu resigned from the post of chief minister in 2000 for health reasons.
The 18th Congress of CPI (M), held in Delhi in 2005, re-elected Basu to its Politburo although he had pleaded to be allowed to retire from it.
The era of coalition politics in India, which began in 1996, had offered him the chance to become the prime minister of the United Front government in 1996 but his party CPI (M) declined to take over power at the Centre.
Some years later, Basu described his party's decision of not accepting the prime ministership as a 'historic blunder', which was termed by his party, the CPI (M), as his 'personal view'.
An astute politician, able administrator, a reformist and a record-setter in many respects, he had the distinction of holding membership of the West Bengal assembly uninterruptedly since 1946, save a break in 1972.
Steering the Left Front government, a coalition of Left parties, barring SUCI, since 1977, Basu put into practice the concept of decentralisation of power right down to the block level -- by introducing Panchayati Raj and effectively implementing land reforms.
Even Rajiv Gandhi as a prime minister had lauded Basu's role and convened a National Conference of Panchayati Raj in 1989.
Basu had raised his voice for restructuring relations between the federal Indian government and governments in the states and decentralisation of powers, which finally led to formation of the Sarkaria Commission in the late 80s.
It was his political foresight that brought together all like-minded parties on a single platform to provide a third alternative to Congress and BJP in the National Front-Left Front combine in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Age and indifferent health forced Basu to step down as chief minister of West Bengal in 2000 and six years later he requested CPI (M) to allow him to retire from politics.
But his plea was turned down and party general secretary Prakash Karat said the party wanted Basu to continue until its 2008 congress where the issue would be reconsidered.
At the party's 19th Congress in April 2008, Basu was not included in the Politburo, although he remained a member of the Central Committee and was designated as a Special Invitee to the Politburo.
CPI (M) may have made anti-Congressism as its main political plank for much of its existence, but Basu himself was considered close to Congress leaders like Indira Gandhi, for whom he had high regards, and Rajiv Gandhi.
Basu was one of the CPI (M) stalwarts to prod his party to extend outside support to a Congress-led coalition government at the Centre after the 2004 Lok Sabha polls to keep BJP at bay.
This was a far cry for CPI (M) from the emergency days of 1975-77 when it had ridiculed its present partner CPI for aligning with Congress, comparing the CPI to a calf along with the 'cow', the then election symbol of Congress party.