Com. Sitaram Yechury,
Polit Bureau Member, CPI(M)
JULY 8, 2013 marks
the beginning of
the birth centenary of
Comrade Jyoti Basu....
Even though all of
us are aware of
the inviolable law of Nature that once life is born, it has
to cease to exist
one day, this remains, universally, the most difficult
inevitability to come to
terms with. Comrade
Jyoti Basu’s
absence, particularly
in today’s
circumstances, is felt in every turn and twist. Yet, in his
absence, it is
incumbent on our part to carry forward his legacy to advance
the objective for
which he contributed all his life – the establishment of
socialism in India and
eventually in the world.
THE LEGACY
Jyoti Basu’s seven
decade long
political life is synchronous with the evolution of modern India. For this very
reason, he was always a source
of inspiration and a `role model’ for the younger
generation. His
legacy will continue to be such a
source. He,
truly, was one of the
legends of modern India,
not only of the Communist movement.
Having gone to England to return as a
Bar-at-Law, he was
attracted to the Communist worldview, embraced the ideology
and returned to India in 1940
not to don the black robes but to plunge directly into the
freedom struggle by
joining the Communist Party. Karl Marx had once said that
when an idea grips
the minds of the masses, it becomes a material force. The
desire for
independence from British rule had gripped the Indian masses
when Jyoti Basu
joined the Communist movement. He, however, was thinking
ahead of what should be
the character and content of independent India. The political
independence that would be
achieved needed to be converted into the true economic
independence of every
Indian. This meant the creation of a socialist society where
exploitation of
man by man simply ceases to exist. It is
with this passion that remained undiluted till the end that
he served the Indian
people. During
the course of his long and illustrious
life, he had to face many trials and tribulations but the
commitment to the
cause, however, never wavered.
He is a
`role model’ precisely for this reason: sheer power of his
commitment to his
convictions.
Modern India,
post independence, was
evolving through major struggles that led eventually to the
integration of the
feudal princely States into the Indian Union.
The struggles led by the Communists brought to the
fore the agenda of
land reforms and the abolition of feudal zamindari and other
land tenure
systems. This
was also the period when
the various linguistic nationalities in India
which had united in the
struggle for freedom, were seeking their distinct identity. A process that
finally led to the linguistic
reorganisation of the Indian States in 1956.
Jyoti Basu's
political evolution
converged with
the evolution of modern India
based irrevocably on the premise that the
recognition and celebration of India's
diversity
can only be on the basis of its secular democratic
foundations.
Jyoti Basu's firm
commitment to our
country's secular democratic character and administrative
structures remained
a constant feature of his work and
activities. As
communal forces represent
the very antithesis of this evolution of modern India,
Jyoti Basu worked to isolate
and defeat the communal forces and strengthen the secular
polity.
Simultaneously,
his entire
concentration was on carrying
forward
the struggle to convert India's
political independence into economic independence for its
people –
socialism. Within
the Indian Communist
movement, however, a very intense ideological battle erupted
on how this was to
be achieved. Steering
clear and battling
against both the right
and left
deviations, Jyoti Basu, alongwith his other comrades who
eventually formed the
CPI(M), adopted the correct line of combining parliamentary
and extra
parliamentary activity and struggles to achieve this
objective.
Jyoti Basu excelled in using parliamentary
democracy, its institutions and fora for both advancing this
struggle and
simultaneously providing greater relief to the people.
The implementation
of land reforms,
the deepening of democracy by developing the panchayati raj
institutions and
the articulation of the need for better centre-state
relations to strengthen India's
federal character were some of his important
contributions to the process of the
consolidation of modern India. These apart, he
was one of the first to
constitute separate ministries for environment and science
and technology.
Apart from all
these, the main facet
of Jyoti Basu's personality that attracted people towards
him was his unassailable
faith in them. He
would always urge the
Party and its cadre to go to the people and explain to them
what we are doing
and take them into confidence. This faith in the people was
the strength of his
credibility. They never questioned or even doubted his
integrity.
JYOTI BASU AS CM
Jyoti Basu
voluntarily demitted
office of the chief ministership in West Bengal, in 2000,
after a record tenure
of 23 long years, setting new standards of political culture
and morality in India. The
Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) had accepted his desire to step
down since he was
not satisfied with not being able
to discharge his administrative responsibilities as he was capable of doing
earlier. In an atmosphere
where the lust for power has seldom seen people demitting
office on such
considerations, this had come as a breath of fresh air.
When Jyoti Basu
took over as chief
minister in 1977, the poverty ratio in West
Bengal
was nearly 52 per cent. In 1994, this had come down to 26
per cent, a decline
of 4.2 per cent per year. West Bengal thus ranked the first,
in poverty
reduction, amongst all states in India.
Incidentally, the state
ranking second is Kerala, with 3.7 per cent decline per
year. (source: India:
Policies to Reduce Poverty,
World Bank, 2000). In
comparison, the
rate for Maharashtra was
2.7 percent and in
1994 43.5 per cent of its population lived in poverty.
Similarly, in
terms of annual rates
of growth of the Gross state Domestic Product, West Bengal
ranked No 3, behind
Gujarat and Maharashtra
with a 6.9 per cent
growth per annum. Between 1991-92 and 1997-98 in per capita
terms, it stood
once again in third place following Gujarat and Maharashtra
with a 5.04 per annum increase. (source: Montek Singh
Ahluwalia, EPW, May 6,
2000).
Phenomenal
advances have been made in
the sphere of agriculture.
During this
period, West Bengal was
transformed from being
a chronic heavy food deficit state into one with surplus. By
the time Jyoti
Basu demitted office, it became the highest rice producing
state in the country.
West Bengal contributed
nearly 20 per cent of
the increase in rice production in the entire country. The
yield per hectare
has also shown substantial increase. More than 90 per cent
of the state's
agricultural holdings belong to marginal and small farmers,
as a result of the
success of Operation Barga. As a result
of the successful
implementation of land reforms, noted economist Dr Nilakant
Rath then analysed
that the growth in per capita net domestic product of the
agricultural
production between 1981-82 and 1994-95 went up by 22 per
cent for the whole of India
but in West Bengal
it went up by a whopping 70 per cent. In 1981-82, West
Bengal was amongst the
lowest in the country with its per capita net agricultural
product being 18 per
cent lower than the all India
average. By 1994-95, it was above the all India
average by about 10 per cent.
These phenomenal
achievements in
agriculture have once again validated the position that land
reforms are not an
exercise meant only to achieve distributive rights. While
achieving this they
also unleashed rapid leaps in productivity which go a long
way in reducing the
overall levels of poverty.
In terms of
distributive justice, it
merits repetition that during Jyoti Basu's tenure as chief
minister, 13 lakh
acres of agricultural land were distributed amongst the
landless. These were
illegally held by vested interests in the past. Even if a
nominal value of Rs One
lakh per hectare is considered, then the value of the land
distributed would be
to the tune of Rs
13 crore. Such has
been the dimension of asset redistribution in West Bengal
in favour of the poor and landless.
Thus by all
counts, West Bengal
during these 23 years under Jyoti Basu's stewardship had
shown that it is
possible to both alleviate poverty and stimulate growth.
But, one should not
miss the wood for the trees. All this was possible not
because Jyoti Basu or
the Left Front government blindly embraced the economic
policies of
liberalisation. This was possible because they made one
fundamental departure
from the economic philosophy of liberalisation. And that is
in the decisive
role of State intervention in achieving the objectives and
priorities. Contrary
to the liberalisation pundits who advocate the withdrawal of
the State from the
economic sphere and abdication by the State of its social
responsibilities, the
Left Front government in West Bengal
has
played the role of the catalyst in stimulating economic
development and the
role of the initiator in generating sweeping agrarian
reforms.
STERLING PERSONAL QUALITIES
During my
association with Comrade
Jyoti Basu in our Party’s Central Committee for over two and
a half decades,
there are many admirable qualities of his that need to be
emulated. One,
is his unassailable faith in the power
of reasoning based on the Marxist outlook.
No argument can ever be won with him on the basis of
passion or
emotions.
The other facet of
his personality is
humaneness. During these years, I had
on a few occasions
travelled abroad with him, when he held the office of the
chief minister. Being
the chief minister of West Bengal,
he, naturally, was entitled to a
preferential treatment.
But, he always preferred
to travel with
other comrades and, till his last day in office, travelled
only in the economy
class of Indian Airlines.
During such
visits, he would, forever, be concerned about the welfare of
the other comrades
always by taking interest in their comforts and needs. I
have, for instance,
never seen him losing his patience even once!
Another enduring
quality of his was a
self-imposed discipline with which he conducted his personal
and political
life. He
displayed the rearest of
soldier-like quality when his opinion in 1996 to accept the
offer to become the
prime minister in the United Front government
was rejected by a majority of the Central Committee. Subsequently, the
Party Congress at Kolkata
in 1998 had endorsed the Central Committee majority opinion. Notwithstanding
his personal opinion, he,
till the end, upheld the majority view
and worked steadfastly discharging his
responsibilities. Such
steadfast loyalty to the organisational
principles of a Communist Party and its strict norms of
discipline is a quality
that the younger generation needs to emulate.
Comrade Jyoti Basu
had a unique sense
of humour. In
September 1993, both of us
travelled to Cuba at the invitation of the Communist Party
of Cuba for meetings
with Fidel Castro and the Party leadership.
We travelled via the Spanish capital, Madrid. On our
return journey, we
had a full day waiting to catch the flight back to India. The Indian
Ambassador to Spain asked if there
was anything in particular we would like to see in Madrid. Comrade Jyoti Basu
looked at me. I said that
since the original `Guernica’ of Picasso was in a museum in
Madrid, it would be
nice to see that. This
conversation was
on our way to Cuba. However, when we returned to Madrid,
Comrade Jyoti Basu was
not really feeling up to the mark to visit the museum. He
suggested that I
should however go. Upon which the Indian Ambassador said
that the museum was
being specially opened, on its scheduled off day, for Jyoti
Basu. Hearing
this, JB said, “How would they
recognise Jyoti Basu as they had never seen him before! Let
Sitaram go, they
would not know the difference!” Eventually
I did go alone, the museum was opened and I saw the
`Guernica’!
CARRY FORWARD THE STRUGGLES
The consolidation
of the modern
Indian Republic and elevating the much required bar of
political morality can
be achieved only by pursuing this course as
lived by Jyoti Basu.
The
strengthening of the secular democratic foundations and,
importantly, to
complete the unfinished task of converting
the political independence of the country into the
true economic
emancipation of the people, will define the contours of such a
consolidation. The
widening hiatus between `shining' and
`suffering' India needs to be overcome.
This, in turn,
requires, from all of
us, the strengthening of the spirit of selfless service to
the people and the
country. Pledging
his body to serve
medical science, Jyoti Basu on April 4, 2003, wrote : “As a
Communist, I am
pledged to serve humanity till my last breath.
I am happy that now I will continue to serve even
after my death.”
Jyoti Basu's
indomitable fighting
spirit that he displayed all his life was there to be seen
in his death as
well. Running
his 96th year when he was
brought to the hospital with pneumonia, medical science and
doctors, naturally,
saw not much hope. Jyoti
Basu, as
always, was to surprise everybody. For
17 days, the fight continued.
`Never say
give up' sums up the spirit of his life.
He is the last of
the original nine
member Polit Bureau to leave us – the navaratnas that
founded the CPI(M) and
steered it through
very troubling and
exacting times. The
only homage that we
can pay to Comrade Jyoti Basu is by redoubling our resolve
to carry forward the
struggle for human emancipation and liberty to its logical
conclusion.
Lal Salam Comrade
Jyoti Basu.
courtesy :
People's Democracy
