JYOTI BASU, THE LEGEND: October 2013

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

"It's the end of an era in the annals of Indian politics." - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

"He was our guardian. The country has lost a great leader and the Left democratic movement in the country has received a severe blow. He will forever be remembered for his contribution to the country." - Buddhaded Bhattacharya

He was a towering personality, longest serving chief minister in contemporary period. He was the architect of first UPA government. I developed close intimacy with him from 1960s; have lost great well wisher. Country has lost great parliamentarian and a patriot." - Pranab Mukherjee

"Basu strode like a colossus on the Indian political scene for several decades. He was a great patriot, a great democrat, a great Parliamentarian and a great source of inspiration. Basu served the people of India with the best of his ability. It's a sad day for all of us...we will remember this great son of India...we salute his memory." -P. Chidambaram

"Shri Jyoti Basu did not go gentle into the good night - he fought bravely until his last breath, just as he did throughout his life. And what a rich, fulfilled and glorious life he had!" - Sonia Gandhi

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Recalling Basu's simple lifestyle, Nabanita Dev Sen said despite being the chief minister he never had an inverter even during the years when loadshedding was rampant in the state.

"In spite of his very busy schedule, he was a warm and affectionate neighbour who would participate in our family celebrations and would even hold back his convoy to allow me to drop my daughter to her exam when we were late." - Noted Bengali writer Nabanita Dev Sen (IANS)

JYOTI BASU, THE MAN WHO STOPPED HIS CONVOY FOR A KID

http://www.topnews.in/jyoti-basu-man-who-stopped-his-convoy-kid-2252045

Friday, October 25, 2013

JYOTI BASU (1914-2010)

http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=672984

Jyoti Basu Basu: The Man Who Came Close to Becoming PM

http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=672994

In the last days of 1996, Jyoti Basu came very close to becoming the Prime Minister of India but his party interdicted the chance that the veteran Marxist described as a "historic blunder".

But the CPI(M) did not agree with Basu's description of the offer, a chance that rarely comes the Communist's way in India.

Just after the 1996 elections produced a hung verdict in which the Congress could not come back to power and the BJP failed to prove its majority, the non-Congress stalwarts sat together in Tamil Nadu House to chose their Prime Ministerial candidate.

It was the late V P Singh, who himself had turned down the offer first, suggested that Basu should be made the Prime Minister of the United Front government.

The proposal was taken to CPI(M) by the ever-pragmatic practitioner of politics late Harkishen Singh Surjeet, the then CPI(M) General Secretary.

The Polit Bureau met and riven by differences it forwarded the issue to the powerful Central Committee (CC) after a voting.

The CC declined the offer saying the party was still not in a position to dictate its policies and would not be able to get them implemented by a coalition government.

When Surjeet conveyed this to UF leaders, V P Singh again suggested that the CPI(M) CC should be asked to reconsider the decision.

From Tamil Nadu House, Surjeet called Prakash Karat to tell leaders to stay back in the capital for an emergency meeting. But the CC again turned down the offer politely.

After Basu, the names of late G K Moopanar and H D Deve Gowda, then Karnataka Chief Minister, came up.

After initial round of discussions with coalition leaders including DMK chief M Karunanidhi over issues like administrative experience, Gowda's name prevailed.

But it was Basu who suggested Gowda for the top post citing his experience as a minister first and Chief Minister later of Karnataka.

There was some feeble attempt by some to prop up the name of late Ramakrishna Hegde but it fell by the wayside.

When Basu suggested his name, Gowda said it was for his party Janata Dal to decide on the issue. Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad, who was also JD president, immediately latched on to the proposal and said his party was ready.

The rest is now history.

Gowda went to the hospital in Kolkata last week to pay his "gratitude" to the ailing Basu and recalled the role played by the Marxist leader to make him the Prime Minister.

Years later when asked about his description of the CPI(M) decision as a "historic blunder", Basu said, "yes, I still think that it was a historic blunder because such an opportunity does not come. History does not give such an opportunity."

Basu had said he was offered this post by leaders who knew that he was a Marxist and a Communist as they had no other Prime Minister in view

JYOTI BASU, THE MAN WHO STOPPED HIS CONVOY FOR A KID

http://www.topnews.in/jyoti-basu-man-who-stopped-his-convoy-kid-2252045

Kolkata, Jan 18 - Noted Bengali writer Nabanita Dev Sen was for long Basu's neighbour when the former West Bengal chief minister -- who died Sunday -- lived at Hindustan Park in south Kolkata. She remembers the times he stopped his convoy for her daughter's exams.

Recalling Basu's simple lifestyle, Sen said despite being the chief minister he never had an inverter even during the years when loadshedding was rampant in the state.

Sen remembered seeing Basu sitting in his balcony often in the summer months alongside his wife and using a hand fan during power-cuts.

"Always a principled person, he would not get an inverter when we all had," she told IANS.

Sen said she had known Basu as a neighbour since her birth. "My parents held my marriage ceremony in his backyard."

"In spite of his very busy schedule, he was a warm and affectionate neighbour who would participate in our family celebrations and would even hold back his convoy to allow me to drop my daughter to her exam when we were late." (IANS)

QUIET WEST BENGAL MOURNS JYOTI BASU

Kolkata, Jan 18 - The tricolour flew at half mast, state government offices and almost all private establishments remained closed and roads were deserted as a quiet fell over West Bengal Monday, a day after the death of the Communist patriarch Jyoti Basu.

There was a motley crowd before central Kolkata's Peace Haven, the funeral parlour where Basu's body is being kept for Tuesday's last journey.

Red flags in half mast have been put up all around the parlour, while a red cloth with "Jyoti Basu amar rahe" (Long live Jyoti Basu) written on it was flung near the main gate.

"I will stay here the whole day. I have attended so many of his huge rallies. Listening to his speeches was always an inspiration," said Jaideep Majumdar of Jadavpur, standing before the parlour.

With the state government declaring a two-day mourning till Tuesday, all official programmes have been cancelled to show respect to one of the most accomplished political leaders of the country, who had a record 23-year reign as chief minister from 1977 to 2000.

A day after the 95-year-old leader's demise at a private hospital after a 16-day battle with pneumonia and then multiple organ failure, Kolkatans woke up to screaming headlines announcing the death of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) veteran and the state's most famous political figure for over half a century.

"Bidai" (adieu) said a brief but emotional headline in the CPI-M's Bengali mouthpiece Ganashakti with a full page photo of Jyoti Basu giving the Communist red salute as the red flag fluttered in the background.

Many of the vernacular dailies made pun on the name 'Jyoti' meaning light. "Jyoti nirbapito" (the light goes out) said Aajkaal, while the largest circulated Ananda Bazar Patrika's banner headline read "Jibon Jyoti nibhlo" (The light of life is extinguished).

Ganashakti claimed that a CPI-M worker Pranabesh Chakraborty died of a heart attack when he received news of Basu's death Sunday, but there was no official confirmation.

Red flags have been lowered in hundreds of offices of the state's ruling Left Front major CPI-M, while all educational institutions have declared a holiday and postponed all examinations scheduled for the day as a mark of respect to Basu.

The state government has announced a day's paid holiday for all its staff, while most of the private offices and establishments have also remained closed following a request from the state chief secretary. The courts also did not open.

However, banks and financial institutions were open as the holiday has not been declared under the Negotiable Instruments Act.

On the roads, very few vehicles plied, as most people chose to stay indoors.

Basu will not be cremated but his body handed over Tuesday to a state-run hospital as he had donated his body. His eyes have been removed as per his wishes. He had pledged to donate his eyes.

The body will be taken in a procession Tuesday to state secretariat Writers' Building and then to the West Bengal assembly for the public to pay homage. (IANS)

http://www.topnews.in/quiet-west-bengal-mourns-jyoti-basu-2252052

JYOTI BASU: Last colossus of Bengal politics

http://www.topnews.in/last-colossus-bengal-politics-2252076

I had known Jyoti Basu for more than 40 years. I met him first in 1967, when the first United Front government was constituted in West Bengal. Basu was the deputy chief minister, representing the CPI(M) in the coalition government headed by Ajoy Mukherjee. The coalition returned power in 1969 with Ajoy Mukherjee as chief minister and Basu as his deputy, but the latter also got the home ministry as CPI(M) had emerged the largest party in the coalition.

As home minister, Basu had a confrontation with his CM on some policy issues and also on some actions by the home ministry. The differences escalated and ultimately, the second UF government collapsed. During this period, the CM and his deputy exchanged some notes on issues in regard to the relationship between a Cabinet minister and his chief minister in a coalition government.

The notes were later reported in newspapers. Mukherjee’s contention was that, as chief minister, he had the right and the privilege to overview the functioning of any ministry and issue corrective directions if required.

However, Basu maintained that the constitutional position taken by Mukherjee was untenable in a coalition government. Because the chief minister is the product of political understanding amongst the political parties constituting the coalition, he or she cannot enjoy the same authority as the CM of a single-party government, without the approval of the entire coalition.

As I was associated with both UF governments as a representative of Bangla Congress, which was also a member of the coalition, I came in close contact with Basu. During the mid-term election of 1969, Basu suggested to Mukherjee that I be nominated to contest an assembly constituency so that I could be inducted into the state Cabinet later. However, that did not happen as my party entrusted me with other responsibilities. I was elected to Rajya Sabha in the same year.

Basu had a very long innings both in the legislature and in administration. He was elected to Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1946 and continued to be its member till 2001, except for a short period of 5 years (1972-77). Till date, his record as the longest-serving chief minister (1977-2000) is unbroken.

Basu was an excellent parliamentarian and he built his reputation as the opposition spokesman for nearly 20 years – from 1947 to 1967. He kept that reputation even after he became chief minister in 1977 -- as the chief spokesperson of the government and as the leader of the house.

As chief minister for 23 years, his unique contribution was to lead CPI(M) to victory in every election in the state -- from panchayats and municipalities to the assembly and the Lok Sabha. He turned West Bengal into an impregnable fort of CPI(M). His charismatic personality was the main factor that kept the Left Front together.

During his tenure as CM, Basu is credited with introducing successful land reforms. He decentralised power and authority, and strengthened the panchayati raj system. The process of industrialisation was initiated by him and could have achieved more success but for the dogmatic approach of his party.

During his lifetime, he became a legend. He was described as the great patriarch of the CPI(M). Because of his personality he could criticise his party in public and even described one as a “historic blunder”. At the same time, as a disciplined and committed party man, he followed every decision of the party. Perhaps, he was the last colossus, who dominated Bengal politics in Independent India.

The author is the finance minister of India.

BBC News - Chinese court rejects Bo Xilai appeal and upholds life sentence

Jyoti Basu leads a surge of body donations in Bengal

yoti Basu leads even after death, in his own state of West Bengal and across the border in Bangladesh. After the media played up donation of his body for medical research, there has been a surge of enquiries by people interested in donating bodies.

Since the death of the 95-year -old Communist leader on January 17, Gana Darpan - the only NGO in eastern India campaigning for body donation since 1977 - has been flooded with phone calls from eager donors.

"We have had around 600 enquiries in nine days since Basu passed away," Gana Darpan secretary Manish Sarkar told Hindustan Times on Wednesday.

Usually the NGO gets around 1,000 enquiries a month.

The eagerness in Kolkata, Basu's own city, has been matched by enthusiasm in Bangladesh, the land of his birth.

Gana Darpan General Secretary Brojo Roy is camping in Dhaka and addressing seminars about body donation among the scientific and medical community of Bangladesh.

"Roy has been invited by the Mayor of Dhaka. We send copies of our monthly newsletter to NGOs and academics in Bangladesh. But this time the interest is unprecedented," said Sarkar.

Bangladesh doesn't yet have a forum for body donation.

In West Bengal, the prospective donors are from all walks of life, from affluent businessmen and well-known faces to the man on the street.

Since 1986, while more than 700,000 people have pledged their bodies in Bengal only around 1,400, or 0.2 per cent, have translated into actual donations. "Reluctant survivors usually don't hand over bodies," said Gana Darpan functionaries.

As a matter of policy, however, Gana Darpan doesn't divulge details of those who pledged their bodies or expressed interest in the last few days.

HT had earlier reported most communist leaders such as Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPI(M) Bengal secretary Biman Bose have pledged their bodies.

http://www.topnews.in/jyoti-basu-leads-surge-body-donations-bengal-2252593

Basu, the man who could have made history

Among the many images Jyoti Basu conjures up for me is the irreverent one of a party at the Tollygunge Club and its British manager’s voice admonishing the barman: “Abdar, Jyoti babu ka daab-vodka kyoon nahi laya (why haven’t you brought Jyoti babu’s vodka in green coconut)?”

Given customary political posturing, Basu’s candour had to be admired. He joked about Maneka Gandhi’s attempt to embarrass him by publishing a picture of him dancing at the Navy Ball. One wondered, though, if this insouciance did not suggest a disregard for ordinary Bengali sensibilities.

Inevitably, he outlived the legend he became in his lifetime.

The legend rested on two nebulous factors: the public perception was of a stern leader born to rule. The hoi polloi saw him as a sahib in a dhoti — he could have walked into the old Indian Civil Service.

Those who came into contact with Basu were impressed by his wit and ability to charm.

Manmohan Singh called him the best prime minister India never had, referring to an episode Basu never forgave or forgot.

Some claim he regretted the “historic blunder” of 1996 (when his party refused to make him prime minister of a United Front government at the Centre) because it killed the prospect of introducing Marxism at the central level.

It is more likely that Basu could not get over the disappointment of a glittering, and unexpected, prize being dangled before him and then being snatched away.

No government could have started off with greater promise than the coalition (United Front) in which Ajoy Mukherjee’s Gandhian purity was expected to temper Basu’s revolutionary zeal to usher in an ideal society.

Calcutta (now Kolkata) bubbled exultantly on March 2, 1967 when Padmaja Naidu swore in the state’s first non-Congress ministry. The euphoria was not to last. If Dharma Vira’s arrival (as governor) only two months later sounded the death knell of hope, the saintly Mukherjee and the obdurate Basu were equally responsible for the chaos that engulfed West Bengal.

Either Basu could not control his cadres or he was more reckless than his terse speech, brisk movements and air of confidence indicated.

Many journalists knew him much better than I did. Our first encounter was in 1970 when I interviewed him in his dusty flat for a magazine in London. I had just returned from a stint in England.

Basu said graciously he used to read my despatches from London and asked when I was going back. It was my distinct impression that his face fell a little when I said I wasn’t. I had returned home to stay.

When the article appeared — I don’t know how he got hold of the magazine — he sent someone round with it to say I had misunderstood some of his views. He telephoned on another occasion to complain that an English journalist I had introduced to him had dismissed the CPI-M’s Darjeeling district committee as “the Chinesey-looking types surrounding” him. Worse, a mortified Basu protested he was in his usual dhoti, not “in a sarong” as the Englishman had written.

He telephoned again when my paper published extracts from Mole in the Crown in which British ICS officer Michael Carritt disclosed his secret flirtation with India’s Communist Party (in the thirties) on behalf of the Communist Party of Great Britain. “We were in the same cell,” Basu exclaimed, savouring memories of his initiation into Communism in London.

Like Indira Gandhi, he was intensely interested in British coverage. By extension, he also took pleasure in the weekly column I wrote in those days for an Australian newspaper.

The self-evident Anglophilism prompted me to flippancy as a member under his stewardship of a committee to consider a new name for West Bengal. The official favourite was ‘Bangla’. My suggestion was merely to drop the West.

If the chief minister could be “Mr Basu”, I argued, there was no reason to de-anglicise Bengal.

He gave one of his wintry smiles.

My editorship (of The Statesman) disappointed him. My predecessor had worshipped him for social reasons. He expected more from me. First, because of our early exchanges about things English. Secondly and more pertinently, he confided in a common friend that he could not understand how “Ronu Gupta’s nephew could be so anti-Left”.

But Ronu Gupta of the ICS, a former chief secretary, was his personal friend, not political comrade. Basu did not recognise the distinction. He also did not accept that ideology or friendship had nothing to do with my inability as editor to overlook the effects of decades of unchallenged Marxist rule.

Unaware of the person, posterity will judge him by the record. He will be remembered for the land reforms he initiated but also for the neglect and disappearance of many institutions (like the Haringhata farm) that Bidhan Chandra Roy tried to create.