He was the man CPI(M) leaders turned to in every crisis, the leader in who they vested childlike faith.
In Jyoti Basu’s death, the CPI(M) has lost its voice of reason. Neither a theoretician nor a great orator, Basu used sheer common sense and pragmatic politics to steer his party to the commanding heights it reached in West Bengal which it has ruled for 33 years, 23 of which were under him as chief minister.
It was this hard-nosed understanding of political realities that made him quickly grasp the significance of the fractured verdict of the 1996 Lok Sabha polls and push for the CPI(M) to lead the country’s first Third Front government. He was overruled by his ideologically moribund party, a decision which he famously criticised later as an “historic blunder”.
Even today, the CPI(M) regrets not listening to Basu at that time. Like it rues ignoring his sound practical advice in 2008 not to withdraw support to the Manmohan Singh government over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Who knows what the national fortunes of the Left would have been had it deferred to Basu.
“His death is a blow to the CPI(M),” Sumit Chakravartty, editor of the Left-wing publication, Mainstream, said. “There is no one among the top leaders of the party today, except maybe one or two persons, who can chart a pragmatic course the way he did.”
Coming on top of its sliding political graph in its fortress of West Bengal, Basu’s death has left the CPI(M) feeling totally bereft and orphaned. Although he stepped down from the post of chief minister 10 years ago and increasingly withdrew from active politics as his health failed, he remained a father figure for his party till the very end. He was the man they turned to in every crisis, the leader in who they vested childlike faith.
“It’s a void that can never be filled,” central committee member Nilotpal Basu said. “He was our mentor and tallest political leader.”
Basu’s uniqueness lay in his ability to transcend political barriers despite belonging to an ideologically-driven party. He was fiercely anti-BJP, yet managed to forge a working relationship with Vajpayee and Advani during the tenure of the NDA government.
This skill not only helped Basu run India’s most successful coalition government, it also put the Left on the political map of the country as the pivot of a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative. His political heirs have failed to carry his legacy forward. And they’ve failed to preserve it.
Today, the CPI(M) faces some of its biggest challenges. It is on a slippery slope in both its strongholds, Bengal and Kerala. But more importantly, it seems to have lost political direction. Without its leading practitioner of pragmatic politics, the party could be in steep decline for several years.
On his 95th birthday last year, Basu had wished that the Left should continue to reign in Bengal. Practical as he was, he must have seen the writing on the wall. At least he won't be around to see the eclipse.
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