October devolution

It may, after all, finally come to pass. After many a false start, Indian communism8217;s most charismatic figure is all set to stroll into the sunset of his long and eventful innings. Or is it really that simple? It is ample evidence of Jyoti Basu8217;s towering status in the communist pantheon that news of his impending retirement 8212; in the first week of November, says the Great Helmsman, but then when has he ever stuck to superannuation schedules before? 8212; has his comrades scurrying for post-Basu contingency plans instead of authoring paeans to a lifetime of service to the Cause. Therein, however, lies a sad comment on Basu8217;s 60-year-long association with, first, the Communist Party of India and, then, the CPIM after the fractious split in the early 1960s. If the hallmark of a great leader, that too one who promises revolution, is said to be the efficacy with which he passes on the baton, Basu has at the end of the day failed the test. Yes, the heir apparent, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, was identified longback, but the number of times the word quot;interimquot; has been employed to qualify his ascension demonstrates the precarious change of guard.

So, how does one assess Jyoti Basu? It is a multilayered legacy, with a romantic sheen. Basu8217;s is a story of a young man journeying to England in the 1930s to study law, only to serendipitously stumble upon the heady currents of communist thought sweeping Europe at the time, upon a possible dialectic of social change for his still colonised people back home. It is a story of a young man acquiescing to his dream of struggle and of revolution and taking membership of the CPI within a year of returning home. From there it was but a logical, yet arduous, step to becoming in 1977 chief minister of a Left Front government in West Bengal, a position to which he was democratically returned another four times. Counterbalancing this stamp of popular approval, this proven capacity to carry with him the liberals and the conservatives among the communists, is the story of West Bengal in the last quarter of a century. That the great leap forward never quite materialised was indicated recently when a newsmagazine chronicledthe slow but definite fading away of the bhadralok. It is a descent also profiled in statistics. If the external context of communist theory was to be neutralised by securing benefits for the faceless millions, it never happened. Today, West Bengal is only behind Orissa among all the states in the Indian Union in having the highest percentage of the population living below the poverty line. Ranked sixth in terms of per capita income in 1976, the state has slid almost 10 positions since.

But perhaps Basu8217;s legacy will be tainted more by his intemperate 8212; some would say senile 8212; outbursts of recent times. By his seemingly unwarranted petulance vis-a-vis his partymen for not allowing him to become prime minister in 1996 and experience firsthand Sitaram Kesri8217;s adventurism. By his and his comrades8217; insistence on theorising about a possible role in future central regimes at a time when the CPIM has lost its national party status and is facing its toughest challenge in Bengal. But then, Basu8217;s innings is not quite over; more than any successor, it is he who will play a key role in deciding the Left8217;s fortunes in the coming assembly elections.