Basu's Bengal....

For every child who grew up in West Bengal in the 80s and 90s Jyoti Basu was nothing short of a war hero. Left politics would never be the same again in Bengal.

It might seem a bit unfair to judge a towering individual of his stature by the fate of the political movement he left behind. I admire him for 2 reasons; one, for having exercised an unchallenged hold on the politics of West Bengal in a manner unprecedented in politics. This in itself is an achievement. Two, Bengal remained politically immune from communal politics for years.

But no matter what he remained a committed communist, and in doing so cheated Bengal of its simplicity. He was a ruthless political party machine. He overlooked the fact that Bengal’s transition from an agricultural to a non agricultural one would depend upon basic things like health and education. Therefore his rule remains something of a puzzle to me.

But you have to admit that he built a citadel against two enemies: the Congress centralism of Delhi and the exploitation of share croppers in Bengal. His legacy remains monumental despite his regressive policies which drove industrialization out of Bengal. His historic land reforms and spectacular political fortunes still prevent the state to come out of the economic quagmire that Basu led it into. I think he owed his civility to a bhadralok cultural sensibility than to a revolutionary. The Bengali upper classes made their peace with him because he became a mascot of a genial Bengali identity.

What still bothers me is whether his contributions to Indian democracy will survive debates over his ideological fidelity to communism.