For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.Corinthians 13:12
It is impossible for me, not to look at Jyoti Basu through the glasses of my childhood and adolescent years. My ancestral home is in ‘Taltala’. The locality sandwiched between ‘Nirmal Hriday’ Mother Teresa’s Home and Calcutta Boys' School. Within this vicinity as you entered ‘Taltala’ from Lower Circular Road (A J C Bose Road) opposite to Surfridge Building is ‘Lord Para’. The Muzzafar Ahmed Library is still housed in the first floor of the Mansion at the beginning of this Road. The Building in the 60’s housed the Office of the Communist Party (Marxist) after Dacres Lane and before Allimuddin Street. Jyoti Basu visited this office regularly, with a cheroot smoking gentleman and my first glimpse of him was here, while we played street-football in the evening. Many a time, I had also seen him sharing a cup of tea with this gentleman at ‘Basanta Cabin’, at the ground floor of this building.
Later as I grew up I saw him more closely in cut-outs, from street-corner rallies, from behind the dark windows of his car at the middle of his anaconda convoy, from the outskirts of Brigade Parade Ground up there in the rostrum. I believe Basu silently watched over us. He watched over our football, films, frustrations, fairs, fallacies, fabrication, falsehood, failings and fantasies. For us, the children of communism, there were no escape from the poker-faced patriarch.
All the while power cuts lengthened, and an unbearably grim, aged, arrogant, humourless party under Jyoti Basu proliferated. I remember vividly that day in December 1990 when I was a part of a group who organized a 'March for Power', to protest against load shedding in Calcutta. Subsequently there was an ad in the paper, we collected signatures from the people who mattered and the common citizen and on 15th.of March 1991. The writer, then working for ABP, along with Debjani Sinha of BusinessWorld and Amit Roy from ORG, went to hand it over to him. He refused to see us.
The copy was handed over to Ajoy Sinha the then Secretary to the Chief Minister. Subsequently, three days later he called me to his office and asked me most arrogantly if this was organized by some bourgeois organization, if not he said 'join me to improve the situation instead of criticizing'. Since I had seen him many a times in my childhood and that too sipping tea in a small tea shop, he did not intimidate me neither I was in awe. I promised to gather information to improve the power situation and thus my relation started with a fight and continued thereafter. I did try my best to suggest improvements after discussing with many organizations which began the process of the re-haul of the power department. As the power situation started to improve in Calcutta my idea about Jyoti Basu started to change. I took interest to guide anybody whosoever, who had any idea to improve the situation to contact his office. Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Technocrats ….
My driver Ashish Mondal, lived in a far village in Diamond Harbour where his father tilted the land and made a living. The return was not sufficient for the whole family to suffice and he came to Calcutta to earn a living like thousand others. In 1992 he came to me ask for a loan for the transfer of the land in his father’s name. He explained to me that the local panchayat has given them the option to own the land that they have been tilting for years on a payment of a transfer fee. I was aghast. At first I did not believe him, and warned him of swindlers. But after checking with my newspaper office I realised that what he is saying is possible. This was the result of land reform started in 1977 by Jyoti Basu. He began implementing land reforms, which shifted the power equations in rural Bengal away from the landed peasantry to the new landholders following redistribution of acquired ceiling surplus land. The land was distributed among share croppers and landless, creating a new ownership society.
This released the potential power of the peasantry to create wealth from the land. After this West Bengal’s gross state product grew at the rate of seven percent. Ashish invited me to his village the day the land was handed over officially and I saw the change in the rural area. Ashish’s son had the opportunity to study and is in College, with Mathematics Honours. This is the second instance that changed my view of Jyoti Basu.
It was at this time that there were some winds of change and there was a slow move towards industrialization. My colleague from BusinessWorld Sujoy Gupta wanted to do a story on this and met Jyoti Basu. During the course of the discussion the topic of The Heritage Park came up and Sujoy pointed out that he was responsible for introducing me to Harsh and that for some reason I was reluctant to take up the job. Again within days I was summoned to Writers to meet Jyoti Basu. This time I was asked to sit. Jyoti Basu was less aggressive and said he recognized me as the man marching for power. By then the power situation had improved which he pointed out. He told me that my father had a large collection of books in his house in ‘Taltala’ a few yards away from the erstwhile party office, hated communists and that he did not allow any communist to enter his library other than Mrinal Sen. I squirmed in the chair and did not know what to do or say. He went on to say that it is precisely because of this library and my knowledge on Bengal that the government has nominated me for this job. They want somebody to head who has a background of Bengal Culture and can complete a Project. If there is any fear of the government handing over the land, I can rest my fear as it certainly will be …. Thereafter I took up the job as The Chief Executive to build Swabhumi. To be honest Jyoti Basu took a keen interest in the project and whenever there was any hitch he would personally oversee to clear them.
Jyoti Basu's condition was critical on Saturday the 9th.of January 2010, when I went to see him with Dr. Nam Viyaketh, the Minister of Commerce and Industry of Lao People’s Democratic. I was surprised that Dr Viyaketh respected Jyoti Basu to an extent, that even; being a communist he knelled down, and bent down his head in obeisance on the hospital floor. The Lao people are originally Buddhist from a land which is 80% agricultural. I followed suit .I knelled down beside him and there were tears in my eyes. The only thought that came to my mind is that there should have been somebody to correct this man, as the flight of capital took course as the industrial belt turned to wasteland, as this man had the power to control.
His biggest policy initiatives were sweeping land reforms in West Bengal. The initiatives distributed land to more than two million landless families. Even now, his basic approach to poverty eradication through asset reform and community development is the most meaningful pathway to ensuring adequate social protection. India’s future has to be built on the foundation of social protection of the economically and socially handicapped sections.
Jyoti Basu lived and died by a doctrine that dissected historical forces in order to serve a utopian revolutionary purpose — the creation of a brave new world inhabited by brave new people, free from the oppression and exploitations of a feudal, capitalist, imperialist past. This is Jyoti Basu’s enduring legacy.
On 1 January, 2010, Basu was admitted to hospital, after he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Seventeen days after being taken ill, he died on 17 January 2010 at 11:47 am.
Jyoti Basu was born on 8 July 1914. Today is his Birth Centenary.
Image: With painting of Jyoti Basu at an exhibition in Academy of Fine Arts to mark the centenary of the Communist Leader.
Note: Corinthians 13 is the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It is authored by Paul of Tarsus and Sosthenes in Ephesus. It is written in Greek.