TORMENTED LEGACY *** Jai Maharaj posts
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
Chandan Mitra says Jyoti Basu's mystique overpowered his myriad failures
The Pioneer
Sunday, January 24, 2010
India has always defied Shakespeare's famous observation in Julius
Caesar: "The good that men do are oft interred with their bones."
Here, cultural norms dictate silence about a dead person's faults, no
matter how glaring, while his achievements are showered with fulsome
praise, even if concocted and mythical. It was not surprising
therefore to be subjected to a barrage of purple prose extolling the
virtues of Red baron Jyoti Basu -- ranging from his contribution to
the Communist movement, to success in hanging on as Chief Minister of
West Bengal for 23 uninterrupted years and, finally, his allegedly
Spartan lifestyle. Much of what was said by way of tribute to the 95-
year-old Communist patriarch consisted of large doses of hyperbole
and retrospective imagination.
Jyoti Basu was an astute politician who skillfully crafted an image
of being an upright but aloof, unsmiling man, intimidating rather
than loving, stern and determined. In reality, he made no spectacular
contribution to ideology or governance. His critics rightly point to
his deliberate hands-off policy with regard to the party-backed trade
union movement which brought industry and commerce to its knees
during the '80s and '90s, drove talent and capital out of Bengal in
multitudes and virtually laid to waste what was one of India's
foremost States before CPI(M)'s untrammeled (and ongoing) reign of 33
years began in 1977.
As he looked on with benign indulgence, his party created a
frightening stranglehold on Government officials through the dreaded
Coordination Committee. Against all laws, the Committee became almost
a closed shop which forced everybody except all-India service
officials to join. So much so that even today, salaries at the West
Bengal Government headquarters at Writers' Building are disbursed in
cash: The Coordination Committee stonewalled incumbent Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's move to pay the staff by bank transfer. The
reason is not far to seek. On pay day, Committee apparatchiks move
from table to table in the head office of babudom to immediately
collect its monthly "levy". None dare refuse. This organisation
systematically spawned a non-work ethic whereby files that should get
routed in one day take at least one week. Recently, it threatened an
indefinite strike against the proposal to introduce a biometric
system to enforce timely office attendance. The Government bowed
again to its blackmail.
Finally, Spartan is an adjective that ill-adorns Basu's bhadralok
persona: He had suits tailored in the global capital of men's
fashion, Bond Street in London, and to his credit was not
hypocritical about his fondness for Scotch. A cultured offspring of a
distinguished family from erstwhile East Bengal, he studied law at
Inner Temple but barely practiced, preferring instead to internalise
tenets of Marxism-Leninism at the feet of 1930s Marxist ideologue
Rajani Palme Dutt whose seminal work India Today is still regarded as
the Indian Communists' Bible. Impatient with theoretical
propositions, Jyoti Basu was a devoted pragmatist, but unlike, say,
Deng Xiaoping, could never lead his party and remained only its
acceptable middle-class face.
However, this critique still begs the question as to what was it that
enabled him to become India's longest-serving Chief Minister (Gegong
Apang of Arunachal Pradesh has since beaten his record) and die such
a widely venerated man? What, indeed, was the secret of Jyoti Basu's
charisma? This is probably one of the biggest mysteries of post-
Independence Indian politics. Basu was no public speaker of repute.
His speeches were staccato, devoid of both depth and humour,
consisting primarily of banalities, which surprisingly, were lapped
up by adoring crowds.
I distinctly remember his address at a huge CPM rally at Kolkata's
Brigade Parade Grounds in 1984 when a shell-shocked nation was trying
to come to grips with Indira Gandhi's assassination and looking to
her son for succour. "Ei je Rajiv Gandhi. Uni ekhaney eshechhen,
bhashon dichhen chari dikey. Onar maa ke aami chintaam. Uni to
Emergency lagiye amader jailey purey diyechhilen. Ore chhele ki
kortey parbey? Oder bishshas korben na. (This fellow Rajiv Gandhi. He
has come here and is making speeches everywhere. I used to know his
mother. She imposed Emergency and put us behind bars. So, what can
her son achieve? Don't trust them)". The crowds broke into
spontaneous applause and cries of "Jyoti Basu Lal Salaam" rent the
air. The rest of his long speech consisted of similar inane,
simplistic comments. Anyone else would have tested a crowd's patience
with a string of statements like this. But such was his mass appeal
that coming from Basu, even such trivial remarks evoked huge
response.
He was also given to cutting but insensitive responses to media
queries on many occasions. When the gruesome Bantala incident
happened (a woman was dragged out of a vehicle and gangraped by CPM
goons in a Kolkata suburb in full view of assembled people), he
cursorily dismissed it by saying "E shob toh hoeyi thakey (Such
things keep happening)". There was hardly a murmur of protest against
the Chief Minister's shocking comment. Jyoti Basu was seen as above
such mundane administrative or police lapses.
Thus the CPM got away with the Bijon Setu massacre of 17 Ananda
Margis, burnt alive on a flyover in Kolkata, Barddhaman's Sai Bari
killings and a host of other grisly crimes. Each time, the police and
administration, thoroughly infiltrated into by party cadre, looked
the other way and even colluded with the murderers. At Marichjhampi,
an island in the Ganga delta of Sundarbans, the police opened
indiscriminate fire on hapless, tormented East Pakistan refugees,
killing an unknown number of people, estimated by locals to run into
hundreds. They had forcibly settled on the sparsely inhabited island
after being tossed around among States that broke all promises made
to them. An inactive and partially indoctrinated media virtually
blacked out the horrifying tale of Bengal's Gulag. Basu never
believed he owed an explanation for anything.
Maybe it was his aloofness and stentorian attitude that helped weave
a web of charisma around him. He was inaccessible to everyone -- from
party cadre to the media and even the "sarbohara" (proletariat) in
whose name he ruled. Accountability was a word that didn't exist in
his dictionary although he was feted for being a moderate and firm
believer in parliamentary democracy in contrast to hard-line party
leaders like BT Ranadive who propagated armed insurrection as the
road to power.
He was celebrated by Kolkata's high society for being "People like
us" (PLU), who talked no politics when he breezed into parties and
interacted with self-serving, fawning industrial barons who were in
complete awe of his personality. I recall that at a dinner hosted by
La Martiniere for Boys' to release a volume authored by me on the
school's sesqui-centennial in 1986, Basu walked in sporting his
legendary rapid gait, became the cynosure instantly, happily heard
praises lavished upon him by the city's Who's Who, barely spoke as he
consumed two drinks and left the venue in the same brisk manner after
just about 20 minutes. It was in his time that a clutch of Marwari
land sharks grabbed prize property in and around Kolkata for real
estate purposes and in exchange liberally funded a party that had
once vowed to eliminate the bourgeoisie.
Probably another factor adding to Basu's charisma was that he was the
only man of consequence in a party with whom people could identify.
Especially after organisation boss Pramod Dasgupta died, there was no
other leader of any stature in the party or Government. Stalwarts
like Harekrishna and Binoy Konar were too "rustic", while the younger
leaders were perceived as rowdy and uncouth. Till the early '90s the
CPM continued to spew venom against the affluent and this rhetoric
unnerved the urban upper strata. Although Basu rarely lifted a finger
to rectify the brazen wrongs committed by his party workers, the
middle class continued to live in the illusion that he was one leader
they could turn to for reassurance. And then there was fear. The CPM
had erected a merciless mechanism whereby its Local Committee
supplanted the police and administration. Even petty disputes
required the Local Committee's intervention and the message was loud
-- 'Come to us, not the police'.
On the back of Operation Barga, initiated during Basu's first stint
as Chief Minister (1977-82) -- which merely entailed implementation
of laws enacted by preceding Congress Governments -- his party
crafted a rigorous network in the countryside that was subsequently
institutionalised through the Panchayati Raj mechanism. From the
appointment of schoolteachers to contracts for rural road building
and compensation for flood damage, every minute detail of rural
governance was overseen by the party cadre. It is only in the '90s
that an opposition emerged for the first time in the shape of the
fire-breathing Mamata Banerjee who has since successfully outflanked
the CPM from the Left. As the CPM merrily went about demolishing the
existing State apparatus, permitting policemen to form a trade union
and reducing even the District Magistrate to a harried rubber-stamp,
Jyoti Basu presided over this edifice unconcerned about continuing in
office since elections were perfectly stage-managed starting with
doctored voters' lists. Cultivating a posture of being above it all,
Basu was content to be CPM's showpiece, cheerfully accepting
accolades from all.
Over the years he also got mesmerised by the propaganda around him
that created a personality cult. His friend and one-time Finance
Minister of the State, Ashok Mitra, once described Basu as Bengal's
greatest contemporary leader, at par with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose!
All such praise may have convinced Basu that he was the ideal man to
be Prime Minister when a motley Opposition combine in Delhi offered
it to him in the aftermath of PV Narasimha Rao's defeat in the 1996
Lok Sabha poll. Basu never forgave party hardliners for scuttling his
job. In a rare instance of defiance, he famously described the
Politburo's decision as a "historic blunder". But given his
disastrous track record as Chief Minister, his detractors are
probably right in asserting that the bigger blunder would have been
to install him at Race Course Road.
A short-tempered man, Basu never took criticism kindly. Once, as he
passed by a lobby in Writers' Building that had been refashioned into
a Media waiting room, he was aghast to find a few hundred clerks
enthusiastically watching the telecast of a cricket match. For once,
the Chief Minister's proverbial authority collapsed. "E shob ki
hochchhey? Choloon nijer jaygay kiye kaaj koroon shokoley (What is
going on? Come on, get back to your own places and start working)',
he sternly ordered. His very own staff, hand-reared by his own party
into anti-work culture derisively chanted "Jaan-jaan moshai apni bari
jaan" (You please carry on and go home) followed by "Jyoti Basu
Murdabad" in response to his admonition. An aghast Basu quickly
climbed down the stairs and exited, sparing himself further
embarrassment. Next day all TV sets at Writers' Building were removed
and the Media Corner permanently sealed. Livid with the media's new-
found aggression in the '90s, Basu frequently exhorted people to stop
reading "bourgeois newspapers" (naming them with varied epithets),
and subscribe to the party's own daily Ganashakti instead. Although
the cadre dutifully bought copies of the mouthpiece they continued to
carefully read the spicier "bourgeois" alternatives, much to Basu's
eternal frustration.
In the final analysis, it must be admitted that Jyoti Basu remains an
everlasting enigma. He was probably at the right place at the right
time for Bengalis who were ready to clutch at straws to relive their
dreams that progressively slid away through the '60s and '70s. Tired
with sectarian violence, Naxalite depredations and Congress counter-
terror, in cahoots with the police between 1972 and 1977, the average
Bengali wanted respite. Above all they wanted peace, even if it was
the peace of a graveyard. Jyoti Basu ensured Bengal got just that.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/231441/Tormented-Legacy.html
More at:
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed
by forgery by one or more net terrorists,
this post may be reposted several times.