In January 2026 -- it would be 16 years ... of West Bengal "without Jyoti Basu" ::: Till he was in chair ... Bengalis had taken a long pause from voting him out ::: Left was ousted in 2011; Basu did not live to see the day

As politics of West Bengal is in fierce debate; it may be worthwhile to reflect upon the politics of Jyoti Basu (1914–2010). 

In 2021 - the communists could not even open account in the state assembly polls. 

Basu was a stalwart of the 'much-fractured communist movement'. He was devout Marxist but his politics of so-called socialism was well tempered by pragmatism.

People called it Jyotism. He was chief minister of West Bengal state for more than 23 continuous years – a record.  

Basu came to power as chief minister first in 1977 elections. That year it was simultaneous polls in the state - both for the state legislature and Parliament. The issue before the voters in West Bengal was not whether to chose a Marxist CM or otherwise. It was whether to get rid of Congress that imposed Emergency. 

About Basu's success, there were many reasons. One of them was 'scientific rigging'. The new terminology for Rahul Gandhi is Vote-chori. 

The scientific rigging was well known and well believed too. But Vote Chori allegation does not convince even Rahul's soldiers in Bihar nor his allies such as RJD or even Omar Abdullah of National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir. 

But there was one major reason for Basu's long success story. The grand old party since B C Roy (who had expired in 1963) never produced a good mass-based leader. 

What about Pranab Mukherjee ?

He was High Command' 'yes-man' and always a Rajya Sabha man. He first won Lok Sabha election only in 2004 - the year he would long remember for missing prime ministership.  

But Basu had one unique quality. He was the 'last link' for Bengalis with a by-gone era. People out of sentiment saw him the legacies of Deshbandhu C R Das and perhaps even Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.  Basu was one of the last Indian politicians whose careers started before the end of British rule. 

He studied law in England. 

Jyoti Kiran Basu was born into a well-to-do Hindu family. His father, a respectable medico, was horrified by Jyoti's choice of a political career, and even more by his choice of the Marxist party. 

He graduated from Presidency College, Kolkata, before sailing to Britain in 1935 to study law.  

Blogger : Durgapur CPI-M office 

Over the following 23 years, Basu achieved much but he also failed.

He symbolised urban stagnation and anti-industry phenomenon. His rural reform was paralleled by goondalism and 'dada-gri'. Kolkata remains the most lovable of cities probably, but Basu-stamp has denied it the new prosperity visible in other metro centres. Big tycoons like IBM were shunted out. Bengal's loss was Bengaluru's gain.  

But he deserves credit for bringing reform to a largely feudal landscape, and his redistribution of land-wealth made him electorally invincible. 

Basu also brought stability to a chaotic state. In 2010, after his death; London-based 'The Guardian' wrote -- 

"Basu remained an idol to the working class and rural peasantry, but in the end became a symbol of the statism which is so despised by today's MBA-brandishing classes."  

  

The Politics - he created ultimately gave Bengal Mamata Banerjee -- whose stint has many chapters of non-performance. But the worst is Muslim-appeasement -- and technically that was one of the election-success stories of Basu as well. 

Mamata Banerjee carries forward the Basu legacy in several sectors. 

The Marxists' Dada-giri is now called Syndicate. The state's industry is passing through a procession of bankruptsy and closure. Foreign investors and Indian industralists hardly plan anything big in Bengal. During the Basu era and later even under his Marxist successor Buddhadeb Bhattacharya -- the left labour unions have always made matters worse by raising wage demands on firms already on stretches. 

Coochbehar palace - North Bengal 

According to a former Secretary and a retired officer in the state, the likes of Anish Majumdar, N Krishnamurthi, Rathin Sengupta and T C Dutt were made Chief Secretaries during the erstwhile Basu government because they were “either not given to taking tough stance or they were viewed as the pro-communists”.

The state also had a unique cadre of officials and 'sympathisers' called the “street cadre". 

 

ends