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JYOTHI BASU, WEST BENGAL’S DOUBTFUL LEADER

:- Dr. M. V. Kamath

So Jyothi Basu is no more. He has been praised to the skies by an obliging media and by politicians across the entire political spectrum. To imagine leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, L.K. Advani, Manmohan Singh and Deve Gowda singing his praise says something of a man who in his time ruled-some call it misrule- for a record 23 continuous years from 1977 to 2000, earning both praise and opprobrium for his efforts. He was admired by a certain segment of the public and cordially disliked by another. But how did he make it for almost a quarter of a century as Chief Minister? There are many answers. One is that by hook or crook the Communist Party Marxist (CPM) went all out to capture the peasants loyalty through epochal land reform and empowerment of Panchayats, and saw to it that the jahagirdars’ land was widely distributed to more than ten lakh landless sharecroppers. Something of a major achievement. That it didn’t greatly help them raise their living standards is another matter. West Bengal has eighteen districts, but 14 of them are among India’s poorest 100. Uttar Dinajpur, which is West Bengal’s poorest district has a per capita SDP that is 33.6 per cent that of Kolkata. According to two-well known economists, Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari, for all the talk of equity and removal of inequities in West Bengal, the Leftist Government "hasn’t been able to improve the lot of people in the worst-off and backward districts". But the sharecroppers can say they own the land. And to them that’s what matters. How else did Basu gain popularity? According to what a Bengali research scholar, Subit Sen noted in The Indian Express (18th January) "the party (CPM) captured the trade unions, the white collar associations, especially of government employees, educational institutions from primary schools to universities with its own unmeritorious flunkeys, even citizens’ committees and Durga puja Managing committees…" Pay commissions inflated salaries of government employees at regular intervals. Benefits flowing from the government were funneled to party adherents and no one dared raise questions. What wonder, then, that when his body was taken round the streets of Kolkata, thousands poured into the streets in tribute to their benefactor? Distribution of land to the peasants did not raise agricultural production or even their standards of living. They have remained abysmally low. Unlike Uttar Pradesh’s Mayavathi today, the Scheduled Castes under West Bengal’s government got nowhere. In Jyoti Basu’s Ministry in 1977 and 1982 there was not a single Scheduled Castes member in the Council of Ministers. Shocking, considering that Scheduled Castes form 24 per cent of West Bengal’s population. Basu concentrated in getting the support of the bhadralok. Percentage-wise there were more Brahmins in Basu’s cabinet (35%), more Kayasthas (31%) and Vaisyas (23%) than in any Congress government. Basu in that sense, was a practical Communist, not an ideological one like, say, S.A. Dange, B.T. Ranadive, or even E.M.S. Namboodripad and M. Basva Punniah, not to speak of P. Sunderayya and Pramde Dasgupta. He was born in a bhadralok family and lived like any bhadraloki. He dressed like any upper middle class Bengali, in starched dhoti and kurta, shared his favourite Blue Label whiskey with friends across the political board-politics did not matter as much as friendship, regularly went to England during summer more on a holiday than for any political mission, looked the other way when CPM gangsters indulged in violence and gherao. Only Bengal could have produced a Jyothi Basu because of its unique culture, as it produced an M.N.Roy, a Subhas Chandra Bose, Rajani Palme Dutt, a Hiren Mukherjee, a Nikhil Chakravartty and a Bhupesh Gupta though Tamil Nadu did produce a Mohan and Parvati Kumaramangalam. Common to most of them was a rich family heritage that afforded
a son to go to Britain for studies in Law or Economics. All of them were products of their times and the ethos of their surroundings. They professed Marxism but probably they were more shamed of the wealthy homes they were brought up in and wished to do something for the poor. Guilt is a powerful motivational force. Harold Laski of the London School of Economics was a source of inspiration, not Mahatma Gandhi or a Sri Aurbindo. Communism was fashionable and the Communist Party of Great Britain helped assuage guilt feelings. Jyothi Basu is credited with setting up an industrial zone but he has been bettered by at least a couple of non-Communist Chief Ministers elsewhere. And only under Basu’s regime were capitalists terrorised by extreme left trade unionists, enough for the former to get out in search of bases where they would be welcome. It was Basu who resisted computer technology and was responsible for plummeting health services. Not industrial development but leftist muscle power that was evident everywhere. A man who invariably made London his holiday resort abolished teaching of English in government-run primary schools with disastrous consequences in later years as children grew up, and went looking for jobs. Importantly West Bengal became notorious for the terror tactics indulged in by CPM-led trade unionists with the tacit support of the Chief Minister. Many years later he did admit that the extreme Left in his party had been mercilessly indulging in the most cruel forms of gherao which he had tried to put a stop to, but that must have been an afterthought. Credit is thoughtlessly given to him for popularising United Fronts with other- but left-of-centre- parties. Big deal. The CPM desperately wanted to come to power and was willing to make some superficial concessions. It was a tactical move that paid rich dividends. True, he could have become India’s first (and hopefully, the last) Communist Prime Minister of India had the post not been denied to him by his party’s Politburo. Deve Gowda, as Prime Minister, turned out to be bad enough. Jyoti Basu would have been worse. He was never a national leader. He didn’t have it in him to be one. He all but destroyed Kolkata. As a putative Prime Minister he would have pulverised India, at his party’s instance which he seldom had the courage to stand up to. The politburo committed no "historic blunder" as Basu made out. It unknowingly saved India from a voluntary blunderbuss. The only thing to his credit was when his party colleagues in jail with him in 1963 wanted the Communist Party Marxist (CPM) to be made a subsidiary of the Communist Party of China and he told them "to discuss movies and the weather" rather than politics. We may not live to see the likes of him again but one has to thank God for that. One Basu is enough.