As first minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000, Jyoti Basu was the longest-serving chief minister of an Indian state and the last of the original politburo members of the Communist Party of India. He was also the most left-wing prime minister India never had, after his party refused to participate in the leftist United Front government formed in the wake of the Lok Sabha elections in 1996. Born into an upper-middle class family, Jyotirindra Basu was the son of a US-educated doctor from East Bengal (now Bangladesh). He was educated at prestigious Catholic schools, Loreto and St Xavier's, in Calcutta and graduated from the eminent Presidency College in 1935. He sailed for Britain where he studied at University College, London, and read for the Bar.
While in London he was influenced by Professor Harold Laski, the anti-Fascist lecturer at the London School of Economics, and Krishna Menon, the founder of the India League. Another mentor was Harry Pollitt, the general secretary of Britain's Communist Party, who advised against the young Basu joining the party because it might harm his return to India under the Raj. He was called to Middle Temple in 1940 and returned to Calcutta.
He was very soon an organiser for the Communist Party of India (CPI), rallying railway workers. When an integrated railways union was formed, he became its general secretary. In 1946 he was elected to the Bengal Provincial Assembly as a Communist and, after independence, he was repeatedly re-elected until his retirement. In the early 1960s the party split and in 1964 Basu joined a separate Marxist party, the CPI (M). In 1967 he became deputy chief minister, but in 1971, despite winning the election, President's Rule was imposed and the party was refused the chance of forming a ministry.
In 1977, after a five-year boycott of the assembly by the party, Basu, in an alliance with left, lower caste and regional parties, became chief minister of West Bengal. In his 33 years as first minister he achieved much. His government instituted land reforms that were said to give up to two million families a stake in the land on which they toiled. Unlike others, Basu also managed to quell communal violence in his state, especially after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, and after the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992.
Yet rural democracy came at a price - stagnation in the cities, especially Calcutta. He accepted with grace, but not without regret, his party's refusal to join the United Front government, thereby robbing him of the chance to be prime minister in 1996. He may not have been king but he was something of a kingmaker, an influential figure even after his retirement in 2000. He was neither an orator nor a demagogue, but a pragmatist often seeking consensus, not a common Marxist trait. Ultimately he managed to be both a true party man and a champion of Bengal.
Jyoti Basu was born on July 8, 1914, and died on January 17. Both his wives predeceased him; he is survived by his only son. * The National
