Communist, Manifest

Will September 15 be the last day for the country’s longest-serving chief minister? SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY writes about life with and after Jyoti Basu

Thereis change in Calcutta’s soundscape. Missing for the first time in 24 years is the sound of the klaxon of Jyoti Basu’s pilot car screaming through the din of the city at 10.30 am and again in the evening. Basu’s motorcade of dozen cars with the gun-toting security men is also a less frequent sight.

In West Bengal, where a generation would be hard put to recall the name of the chief minister who preceded Basu, this is enough to set the addas abuzz with speculation: Is this the end of the road for India’s longest-serving chief minister?
The very fact that he has no official engagement listed after September 15 (Basu’s last engagement is a public meeting at Boplpur, Shanti Niketan) is enough for many to claim authoritatively that the old man will indeed call it quits mid-September.

Basu himself said that he has been ‘‘trying to retire since December last’’, before adding, ‘‘but the politburo will have the last word.’’ This cat and mouse response is typical. At the last Left Front committee meeting when one of his ministers, unable to restrain his curiosity asked him about his retirement plans, he was hastily shushed up by others present and informed that such questions were not a part of the day’s agenda. Yet again, a fortnight ago when the Indian Chamber of Commerce invited Basu for an interface, one of the captains of industry asked him flatly: ‘‘Sir, is it true that you are retiring?’’ Basu responded with stoic silence. At which, the unnerved industrialist muddled further: ‘‘Sir, we wish you a healthy retired life.’’

The sub-text is clear but the wily politician himself is not so sure. As he told reporters in Delhi, two months ago: ‘‘A Communist never retires. A Marxist has to continue as long as he breathes.’’ But back in Calcutta, he went on record to say that he was not in a position to run his office ‘‘even for a single more day’’.
Perhaps, there is some truth in both his responses. Even as he has been trying to distance himself from the day-to-day administration of the state, for the sake of his party he has desisted from openly declaring retirement.

THE first signs that the indefatigable chief minister was slowing down came during the 1996 elections when he expressed a desire to opt out of the contest but eventually gave in to the wishes of the party. He won a record fifth term in office but not before his victory margin was considerably reduced because of widespread resentment in his constituency — Satgachia — barely 30 km south of Calcutta. After 24 years of Basu as their chief minister, a sizeable section of the electorate in Satgachia does not have even potable drinking water. Hundreds of households still do not enjoy electricity.

While disenchantment is widespread, inner party squabbles, kept securely under wraps so far have begun to surface like sores. Just last month, Gokul Bairagi, Basu’s election agent since 1982 was shot at, allegedly by assailants belonging to a rival faction of the party. Though seriously injured, Bairagi survived the attempt on his life.

At Writers Building, Basu’s working hours end at lunch time these days. Often he is not present to chair important government meetings which are now largely handled by his deputy Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.

If one is to believe that Basu has been continuing in office despite his willingness to step aside because the party wants him there, it can only be concluded that the politburo has been less than pragmatic.

‘‘At the most, the party can postpone his retirement by another month or two. No further,’’ says one of the leaders off the record.

This dilly-dallying, a section of the party claims could cost them dear. For, like rising tide, Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress have been sweeping across the districts of southern Bengal, while a bitter power struggle within the CPI(M) has erupted in the districts in the north of the state. All this coupled with the fact that Basu shares an uneasy equation with the centre — he has never hidden his discomfort with the forces of Hindutva — makes the political situation in the state rather fragile. (In fact, he rued after the last assembly election that it was unfortunate that he had to witness a BJP MLA enter the precincts of the state assembly during his tenure).

For Mamata Banerjee, his bete noire, all this is grist for her unceasing mill. ‘‘How can a government urge its employees to restore work culture when the chief minister himself spends not more than an hour in office?’’ she hits out with unerring precision. Such attacks have not missed Basu’s attention. He has told close colleagues that it will not be proper for the party to project him any more and particularly during the campaign of 2001 assembly polls, since it is common knowledge now that he would not be ‘‘the chief minister any more even if my party wins the next election.’’

But whether out of myopia or just crippling indecision, the CPI(M) leadership in the state still refuses to accept that fact that Basu is easing out, though their denials now are more halfhearted. Understandably, the process of change of guard in a communist regime is a matter of extreme secrecy. More so with Trinamool Congress’ onslaughts on the so-called Left citadels like Panskura, the Calcutta Municipal Corporation and more recently the Uttarpara municipality.

Life without Basu is not only a fear that seems to haunt the CPI(M) alone but every other LF constituent as well. The harder political decisions to be addressed within the Front had always been left to the discretion of Basu. ‘‘His absence can upset the delicate balance within the Front and there are already perceptible changes in the tenor of some,’’ admits Ashok Ghosh, general secretary of the All India Forward Bloc.

Manfully, the party is attempting to address that issue. For some time now, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is being groomed to step into Basu’s shoes. After the 1996 elections the Home (Police) portfolio was shifted from Basu and handed over to Bhattacharya. More recently he was officially designated as the Deputy Chief Minister by the party, clearly indicating that he is the only No 2 in the hierarchical ladder in the government. In a subsequent move the party’s state secretary, Anil Biswas announced that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is the ‘‘natural choice’’ as the successor to Basu.

But this also throws a question mark over the future of other senior leaders in the party. Somanath Chatterjee, for one, a veteran parliamentarian and an accomplished barrister, was at one time tipped to take over from Basu. In 1994, when Chatterjee was appointed as the chairman of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), everyone thought that he was to give shape to Basu’s dreams for an industrial revival of the state and translate Basu’s new industrial policy into actions. But his chances gradually diminished as did the prospects of an industrial revival. Today there is stiff opposition within the party against his candidature. Nobody knows that better than Chatterjee himself who has been seeking release from the WBIDC and may actually do so as soon as Basu quits. Asim Dsgupta, the state Finance Minister is yet another leader who has a moderate ranking in the succession race. But he has figured basically because of Basu’s total dependence on him in economic matters. In fact, Dasgupta has fared better than Bhattacharya when it comes to dealing with the bureaucracy and leadership in Delhi. In the last inter-state council meeting, for instance, it was Dasgupta and not Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who accompanied Basu to the meeting in Delhi.

But Bhattacharya still tops the list. At a time when one of the principal agenda of the CPI(M) is to weed out corruption from within the party, Bhattacharya is the one man with ‘‘an absolute clean image.’’ Besides, he has mended his arrogant manners that earned him more foes than friends in the past.

It won’t be easy, taking over Basu’s chair. Or matching his tally of both pluses and minuses. Political stability, land reforms, a Panchayati system that works, Jyoti Basu brought his own special stamp to these areas. On the downside, it will be tough for any chief minister to scale down the staggering figure of unemployment — an approximate 40 million people, flagging industries (despite the top priority that the government accorded it), health, education, sanitation — the basic gridwork of any good government.

As one acerbic critic, using the famed Writers Building as a symbol of Basu’s achievements, pointed out, ‘‘Little has changed there except for fresh coat of red pain. For any new leader in the party it will be difficult to live up to Jyoti Basu’s legacy and even live it down.

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