Jyoti Basu

Jyoti Basu (born Jyotirindra Basu; 8 July 1914 – 17 January 2010)[1] was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the Chief Minister of West Bengal state from 1977 to 2000.[2][3][4] He was one of the co-founders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and a member of the Polit Bureau of the party since its inception in 1964 till 2008.[5][6] He was noted to have been the longest serving chief minister in an elected democracy, at the time of his resignation.[7]

Jyoti Basu
6th Chief Minister of West Bengal
In office
21 June 1977 – 5 November 2000
Governor
Preceded bySiddhartha Shankar Ray
Succeeded byBuddhadeb Bhattacharjee
1st Deputy Chief Minister of West Bengal
In office
1 March 1967 – 21 November 1967
Preceded byPost Created
Succeeded byVacant
In office
25 February 1969 – 16 March 1970
Preceded byVacant
Succeeded byBuddhadeb Bhattacharya
Member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly
In office
1977–2001
Preceded byNew constituency
Succeeded bySonali Guha
ConstituencySatgachhia
In office
1952–1972
Preceded byNew constituency
Succeeded byShiba Pada Bhattacharjee
ConstituencyBaranagar
In office
1947–1952
Succeeded byConstituency disbanded
ConstituencyRailway Employees
Member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly
In office
1946–1947
Succeeded byOffice disbanded
ConstituencyRailway Employees
Personal details
Born
Jyotirindra Basu

(1914-07-08)8 July 1914
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died17 January 2010(2010-01-17) (aged 95)
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Cause of deathPneumonia
Political partyCommunist Party of India (Marxist) (1964–2010)
Communist Party of India (1940–1964)
Spouse(s)
Basanti Basu
(m. 1940; died 1942)

Kamala Basu
(m. 1948; died 2003)
Children1
Alma materPresidency College, Kolkata
University College, London
London School of Economics
Signature
Websitewww.jyotibasu.net

Early life and education
Paternal house of Jyoti Basu at Barudi in Narayanganj, Bangladesh[8]

Jyotirindra Basu was born on 8 July 1914 to a middle class family at 43/1 Harrison Road, Calcutta, British India.[1][9] His father, Nishikanta Basu was a doctor whose hometown was the village of Barudi in Dhaka District of the Bengal Presidency while his mother Hemlata Basu was a housewife.[10] He grew up in an Indian style joint family and was the youngest of three siblings.[10][8] He had an affectionate nickname called Gana.[2] One of his elder uncles, Nilinkanta Basu was a judge in the High Court.[11] His family also retained ancestral lands in Barudi where Jyoti Basu is described to have spent part of his childhood.[8] The Barudi home of Jyoti Basu was later turned into a library after his death, reportedly on his wishes.[8][12]

Basu's schooling began in 1920 at Loreto School Kindergarten in Dharmatala, Calcutta.[11][10] His father shortened his name from Jyotirindra to Jyoti during the time of admission.[9][10] However, three years later he was shifted to the St. Xaviers School, Calcutta.[9] He completed his intermediate eduction from St. Xaviers in 1932.[13][11][14] Subsequently, he took an undergraduate course in English from the Hindu College, Calcutta (later renamed to Presidency College).[9][11] Following his graduation in 1935,[15] he acquired admission in the University College, London (UCL) to study Law and became a barrister at Middle Temple on 26 January 1940.[9][16] He had already left for India by the time he acquired his barristerial qualification which he received in absentia.[16]

During his stay in London, he became involved in political discourse and activism for the first time.[11][9][10] Besides his general curriculum at UCL, he would attend various lectures on political organisation, constitutional law, international law and anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE).[17] Due to which, he is also credited as an alumni of LSE.[18][17][19] He had reportedly attended the lectures of the political theorist and economist, Harold Laski and was influenced by his anti-fascism.[11] By 1937, Basu was an active member of several anti-imperialist Indian students unions such as the India League and the Federation of Indian Students,[9][10] and had become acquainted with young Indian communists such as Bhupesh Gupta and Snehangshu Acharya.[11]

In 1938, he had also become a founding member of the London Majlis and subsequently its first secretary.[11][9] Apart from raising public opinion for the cause of Indian independence, one of the primary function of the Majlis was to arrange receptions for Indian leaders who were visiting England at the time.[11] Through the Majlis, Basu came into contact with various Indian independence movement leaders such as Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.[10][11]

Independence movement (1940–1947)

On returning to Calcutta, India in early 1940,[20] Jyoti Basu enrolled as a barrister at the Calcutta High Court,[11] and got married to Basanti Ghosh.[21][2] However in the same year, he also inducted himself as an activist affiliated to the Communist Party of India (CPI). [20][14] His entry into the communist movement at the time had reportedly been in opposition to the wishes of his relatively well off family.[14][22] Following the Meerut conspiracy in 1929, the Communist Party had also been made illegal by British authorities,[9][23] as a result Basu was initially involved in providing liaison and safe houses for underground Communist leaders in the Independence movement.[14][11] However soon afterwards, he also became involved in organising railway workers, planning strikes and is described to have preferred direct action over ballot box in the initial years.[22][24]

In 1941, Basu was appointed as the party secretary of the Bengal Assam Railway and tasked with organising a workers union.[14] By May 1943, he had become the representative of the Calcutta Port Engineering Worker's Union in the All India Trade Union Congress,[25][26] while the Bengal Assam Railway Workers Union under him increased its membership to over 4,000 with union members present in Dacca, Calcutta, Kanchrapara, Mymensingh, Rangpur and Assam.[27] Although by this time, he had also became a widower with the early death of his wife, Basanti Basu, just two years into their marriage.[9][21]

In the following Bengal famine of 1943, the members of the Communist Party including Jyoti Basu were involved in famine relief work.[11][28] The party also organised "People's Food Committees" which would attempt to force hoarders into releasing their stocks for distribution; Basu participated in the organisation of such committees in Calcutta and Midnapore.[29][28] According to Basu's testimony, they only had a small organisation at the time and did the best they could while the famine took the lives of over 3 million people.[30] Basu was elected to the Bengal provincial committee of the Communist Party in the same year.[14]

By 1944, Basu had started leading the trade union activities of the Communist Party.[31] He was again delegated to organise labourers working for the East Indian Railway Company in order to further the interests of the Indian workers and is described to have been instrumental in the formation of the Bengal Nagpur Railway Worker's Union of which he became the general secretary.[9][11] With the merger of the Bengal Nagpur Railway Worker's Union and the Bengal Delhi Railroad Worker's Union in the same year, Basu was elected the general secretary of the new combined union.[1][10] He would also be elected as the secretary of the All India Railwaymen's Federation.[32]

In 1946, Jyoti Basu was appointed by the Communist Party to contest as the candidate for the Railway Employee's constituency in the Bengal Legislative Assembly.[33] He subsequently defeated Humayun Kabir of the Indian National Congress and was elected to the assembly.[34][35] He is noted to have given a "soul stirring speech" on the presiding food crisis in the Bengal Assembly;[34] according to him the only means of solving the issue was to completely dismantle the Zamindari system and the Permanent Settlement agreement, and to drive out the British with haste.[36] Basu had also organised a continuous railway strike in support of the 1946 Royal Indian Navy ratings revolt,[37][38] and later secured the release of various political prisoners on 24 July 1946.[24][26]

Early political career (1947–1977)

Interim Government in West Bengal (1947–1952)

Following the partition of India, Basu remained as the member of the now divided West Bengal Legislative Assembly.[10] Prafulla Chandra Ghosh of the conservative Indian National Congress became the first Chief Minister of West Bengal.[39] The Congress however faced civil unrest from the onset;[40] hartals, civil disobedience and demonstrations had soon become the order of the day in the face of a Congress government that was seen as unresponsive to the social and economic distress that was widespread in the state at the time.[39]

The new assembly therefore instituted the West Bengal Special Powers Act 1947 modeled on the Defence of India Act 1915; the act gave unchecked power to the bureaucracy and the police to suppress public agitations allowing law enforcement to detain individuals for upto 6 months without trial on reasonable grounds, which was justified on the grounds of maintaining the law and order situation.[40][11] The bill was inordinately criticised and opposed by Basu who declared that "it seeks to perpetuate (the undemocratic rule)".[40] In 1948, the government sought to extent the act through the West Bengal Security Ordinance which would remove the restriction of "reasonable grounds" for imprisonment.[41] According to Basu, the new ordinance had made it clear that the Congress intended to establish a police state in West Bengal.[41] By this time, the state of West Bengal had already been declared as a "problem province" by the Congress administration and Bidhan Chandra Roy replaced as the new chief minister.[40][39]

During the presentation of the ordinance as a bill in the assembly, Basu attempted to oppose it on a clause by clause basis but in vain due to the dominance of the Congress in the assembly, only the two communist legislators Ratanlal Brahmin and Jyoti Basu along with independent members opposed the bill.[42] Basu argued that while the Congress spoke of Kisan Raj (transl. Farmer's Rule), it had made no progress in abolishing the Zamindari system and had instead developed vested interests with the Zamindars (transl. Landlords) themselves which resulted in the persistence of poor socioeconomic conditions and the employment of repressive tactics against agitations.[43]

In the following period the Communist Party was made illegal by the government on allegations of trying to incite on open rebellion and Basu repeatedly arrested as a result;[26][24][44] on 24 March 1948, he was imprisoned for a period of three months and released on the orders of the Calcutta High Court.[24][10][44] In December 1948, he got married for a second time, this time with Kamala Devi but had soon go into hiding and kept changing residences due to an ongoing crackdown on communist leaders.[21][14][11] For a period at the time, he had reportedly lived alongside Indrajit Gupta who would later become the Home Minister of India.[11] In 1949, Basu had remained as the vice president of the All India Railwaymen's Federation.[45] In the same year, the federation had held a strike ballot which displayed overwhelming support for a railway strike on 9 March in demand of better wages and working conditions in the Indian Railways.[46] The strike notice was however withdraw by the socialist leadership of the federation to whom the government had shown a reconciliatory attitude but the communist members under the leadership of Basu insisted on proceeding with the strike which resulted in disciplinary action being taken against the communists.[45][46] Subsequently, the government also decided to crackdown on the communist leadership arresting 118 leaders involved in the railway sector in West Bengal including Jyoti Basu. In the aftermath, the strike was a failure as the administration mobilised troops and police force to prevent any disruption from communist influenced union members.[45]

After the adoption of the Constitution of India in 1950, the ban on the Communist Party was lifted on the orders of the Calcutta High Court.[11] In September 1951, Congress attempted to renew the Security Act with the introduction of the West Bengal Security (Amendment) Bill of 1951 which raised criticism in the assembly on the lines of creating an environment of fear and intimidation on the eve of the first elections to the assembly which were to be held in December.[42] Although the bill was passed once again despite Basu's persistent opposition, this time he had garnered the support of a number of Gandhian Congress members including from the former chief minister and architect of the bill, P. C. Ghosh, all of whome had resigned from the party and formed their own Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party by the time of voting.[47][42] In same year, the Bengali daily organ Swadhinata of the Communist Party was resumed and Basu appointed as the president of its editorial board.[14][11] The legislative assembly elections for 1951 were also held by the Election Commission in March 1952 instead.[48]

First Assembly & Agitations (1952–1957)

In the West Bengal State Assembly Election of 1952, Basu was elected as the representative of the Baranagar constituency and the Communist Party emerged as the second largest party in the assembly.[48][49] Following which Basu was unanimously elected as the legislative party leader of the CPI in West Bengal.[11] In the following year, he was also elected as the secretary of the state committee of the CPI.[14] The preceding period in West Bengal was marked with the rise of a number of anti-establishment mass movements,[50] in which Basu is described to have played a key role.[51]

Even after the Independence of India, the Calcutta Tramways Company had remained a British owned company which operated in partnership with the Government of West Bengal.[52][53] On 25 June 1953, the company announced a fare hike for second class passengers that was to be implemented from 1 July onwards, which was supported by the West Bengal Government.[53] In response to the move, the "Tram and Bus Fare Enhancement Resistance Committee" was formed in which Jyoti Basu was inducted as the representative of the Communist Party.[53][44] The Calcutta Tramway Union announced their support for the committee and published statistical data through the Swadhinata which displayed that the company was privy to "swelling profits" concluding the fare hike to be "absolutely uncalled for".[53] From the day of implementation of the new fares, the city underwent a series of agitations which began with disobedience to pay the new prices and caused severe losses for the company, culminating into police deployment and arrests of hundreds of disobedient passengers.[53]

Basu was arrested on 4 July alongside Ganesh Ghosh and Subodh Banerjee who were also involved in the agitations, he was bailed out the following day.[53][49] On 7 July, during a large picketing of the company headquarters at Mango Lane in Calcutta, five Resistance Committee leaders including Basu met with A.C.T Blease who was the agent of the company in India and presenting him with the demands of unilateral withdrawal of the fare hike.[53] On the evening of the same day, 500 citizens including Basu were arrested under the Preventive Detention Act which had been earlier implemented through the Security Act.[53][42] Over the course of the month the movement faced progressively increased police action and subsequently heightened civil unrest spreading all across West Bengal with general strikes, mass demonstrations, tramway boycotts to hunger strikes from imprisoned agitators and even violent confrontations between the police and agitators on the streets. In the end, the five committee leaders including Basu were released on 26 July, the fare hike scrapped by the Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Roy on 31 July and the remaining imprisoned agitators released by 2 August.[53]

In January 1954,[54] the Communist party held its third congress in Madurai and Basu was elected as the new Central Committee member during the congress.[14][11] In February, Basu became involved in the 1954 teachers' agitation in West Bengal.[4][51] The All Bengal Teachers Association had been called for implementing the recommendations of the Secondary Board for raising the allowances of secondary school teachers.[50] The association was joined in by various labour unions and opposition parties in support of their demand.[50] The government as a result decided to crackdown on the leaders of the agitation but Basu escaped custody and took refuge in the West Bengal Legislature. The police force who were trying to arrest him through the Preventive Detention Act were reluctant to enter the assembly to arrest a legislator. In Basu's testimony, he states that it was easier for him support the agitation from inside the assembly by projecting the police action on the movement without getting arrested.[4]

During the presentation of the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission in 1956, a proposal for the merger of Bihar and West Bengal into a single state called Purva Pradesh was floated which was supported by the Indian National Congress.[55][56] The Communist Party having maintained the stance of supporting linguistic reoriganisation of states in India since 1920, was vehemently opposed to the proposal of the merger.[56][57] The announcement of the proposal caused widespread protests in West Bengal led by students, workers and even peasantry, the Central Committee of the Communist Party held a meeting between 28 January to 4 February protesting the move. Jyoti Basu and Yogendra Sharma, the secretaries of the state committees of the Communist Party in West Bengal and Bihar respectively issued a joint press statement calling the merger proposal to be "antidemocratic and reactionary".[56]

Basu is noted to have opposed the proposal from both within and outside the assembly, he presided over the mass meeting at Wellington Square in opposition to the proposal and severely criticised the governor's position in support of the proposal.[56][51] According to his testimony, the proposal was akin to a conspiracy to annhilate the basic identity of Bengal.[56] Basu presented the idea of the proposal as a poll issue for the by-elections of the year, supporting the candidacy of Mohit Mitra who the Central Committee's secretary for linguistic reoriganisation and declared that the results should reflect the people's mandate. In the subsequent by-elections, Mohit Mitra won from the Calcutta North constituency and Lal Behari Das won from the Khejuri constituency, defeating their Congress counterparts by a margin of over 20,000 in both constituencies which caused the Chief Minister Bidhan Roy to scrap the merger proposal.[56]

Leader of Opposition (1957–1967)

In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly Election of 1957, Basu was re-elected as the representative of the Baranagar constituency and the Communist party returned as the second largest party with an increased representation.[58] As a result, Basu formally became the Leader of Opposition in the assembly.[49]

He served as the Leader of Opposition for a long time when Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy was the Chief Minister of West Bengal. Jyoti Basu led a number of agitations against the State Government and earned enviable popularity as a politician particularly among the students and youth. Beside organising the movements of the Railway Labourers, he led a movement by the teachers demanding a hike in salary. When the Communist Party of India split in 1964, Basu became one of the first nine members of the Politburo of the newly formed Communist Party of India (Marxist).[5]

In 1962, Jyoti Basu was one amongst the 32 members of the National Council who walked out of the meeting. When the CPI(M) was formed in 1964 as a result of the ideological struggle within the Communist movement, Basu became a member of the Politburo. He was, in fact, the last surviving member of the "Navaratnas", the nine members of the first Politburo. The leftist section, to which the 32 National Council members belonged, organised a convention in Tenali, Andhra Pradesh 7 to 11 July. It was here where the radical sections of party further showed their pro-Chinese stand. The Tenali convention was marked by the display of a large portrait of the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong.[59]

Period of Coalition Governments (1967–1977)

In 1967 and 1969, Basu became Deputy Chief Minister of West Bengal in the United Front governments. In 1967, after the defeat of the Congress Government, Jyoti Basu was sworn-in as the Deputy Chief Minister under the Chief Ministership of Ajoy Mukherjee. In 1970, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at the Patna railway station. Though CPI(M) became the single largest party in the assembly elections in 1971, the party was refused the chance to form a ministry and presidents' Rule was imposed in West Bengal.

Through the 1972 elections the Congress returned to power in West Bengal and Jyoti Basu lost the elections from Baranagar to Shiba Pada Bhattacharjee who used to campaign for Basu in Baranagar in earlier elections when the Communist party was united.[60] Basu famously declared the new assembly as "assembly of the frauds" and CPI(M) boycotted the assembly for the next five years.

Chief Minister of West Bengal (1977–2000)

After the sweeping victory of the Left Front in 1977, Jyoti Basu became the Chief Minister of the Left Front government, a position he held continuously for a record more than 23 years, until his deputy Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee took over the reins primarily due the former's deteriorating health.[61][62]

In 1996 Jyoti Basu seemed all set to be the consensus leader of the United Front for the post of Prime Minister of India. However, the CPI(M) Politburo decided not to participate in the government, a decision that Jyoti Basu later termed a historic blunder. H.D. Deve Gowda from the Janata Dal instead became prime minister.Still, there was great chance for this Netaji devote to the Prime Minister of India but he didn't do because of his own desire.Basu resigned from the Chief Ministership of West Bengal in 2000 for health reasons, and was succeeded by fellow CPI(M) politician Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. At present, Basu would remain as the longest rulling Chief Minister of west bengal if he would not left the ministry with his own-wish.longest-serving Chief Minister in Indian political history serving for 23 years 4 months and 17 days behind Sikkim's ex CM Pawan Kumar Chamling.[63]

First Term (1977–1982)

Second Term (1982–1987)

Third Term (1987–1991)

Fourth Term (1991–1996)

Fifth Term (1996–2000)

Post–resignation (2000–2010)

The 18th congress of CPI(M), held in Delhi in 2005, re-elected Basu to its Politburo, although he had asked to be allowed to retire from it. On 13 September 2006, Basu entreated the CPI(M) to allow his retirement due to his age, but was turned down. General secretary Prakash Karat said that the party wanted Basu to continue until its 2008 congress, at which point it would reconsider.[64] At the 19th congress in early April 2008, Basu was not included on the Politburo, although he remained a member of the Central Committee and was designated as Special Invitee to the Politburo.[6][5]

Death

On 1 January 2010, Basu was admitted to AMRI hospital (Bidhannagar, Kolkata) after he was diagnosed with pneumonia.[65][66] On 16 January 2010, his health condition became extremely critical and he was suffering from multiple organ failure. Seventeen days after being taken ill, he died on 17 January 2010 at 11:47 am IST.[67]

The death was followed by public mourning on an unprecedented scale. Draped in the national flag, Basu's body was escorted through the streets of Calcutta on a gun carriage. However, the time schedule went awry in his last moments as lakhs of people thronged the streets of central Kolkata to pay their last respects. Police and volunteers wore a helpless look as a sea of people poured in from every possible corner of the city.[68] The Army escorted the cortege from the State Assembly to the Maidan through Red Road . At MoharKunj, arrangements for the state Funeral had been made. The army buglers performed the last post as twenty one Gurkha troops fired a 21 volley rifle salute. A day of Mourning was declared nationwide as President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh led the nation in mourning.[69]

Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters in Kolkata: "He was a colossus who straddled India's political scene for many decades. Not only the leader of West Bengal, but of India. He was a great patriot, great democrat, great parliamentarian and great source of inspiration. He served the people of India to the best." he said.[69]

Basu had pledged to donate his body and eyes for medical research on 4 April 2003 at a function organised by Ganadarpan and Susrut Eye Foundation in Kolkata and not to be burned at a crematorium. His eyes are donated to Susrut Eye Foundation.[70] He is survived by his son Chandan, daughter-in-law Rakhi, grand daughters Payel (Mallika Basu), Doyel (Bithika Basu) and Koyel (Juthika Basu),[71] offspring of his first daughter-in-law Dolly (separated with son Chandan in 1998), and grand son Subhojyoti, offspring of daughter-in-law Rakhi.[72] His second wife Kamala Basu had died on 1 October 2003. Basu's body was kept at 'Peace Haven' for those who wanted to pay their respects. His body was handed over to SSKM Hospital, Kolkata for research on 19 January 2010 around 16:50 pm IST after a guard of honour at the nearby Moharkunja park (formerly, citizens' park).[73] The hospital authority is considering preserving his brain.[74]

See also

References
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Preceded by
Siddhartha Shankar Ray		 Chief Minister of West Bengal
1977–2000		 Succeeded by
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya
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