The Telegraph
Jyoti Basu Jyoti Basu, who died on January 17 aged 95, was the Marxist chief minister of West Bengal for 23 years, making him the longest-serving head of a state government in India.
Published: 5:42PM GMT 17 Jan 2010
Basu was a Communist who believed in parliamentary democracy. He founded the Marxist wing of the Communist Party of India (CPM) in 1964, and brought peace to West Bengal after a violent uprising by Leftists known as "Naxalites" in the late 1960s and 1970s; he also initiated much-needed reform to redistribute land among the poorest farmers. His secularism, meanwhile, had positive repercussions in that, when violence between Hindus and Muslims occurred in other parts of India, West Bengal in general and Calcutta in particular almost completely escaped religious clashes.
At the same time, by preventing English from being taught in primary schools he was said to have held back progress (years later he was to acknowledge that this had been a mistake); and he was accused of damaging, in the long term, the economy of a region that had been an industrial powerhouse in the days of the Raj. Under his leadership Calcutta, once the capital of India, was allowed to fall into a state of disrepair; and he was accused of failing to control militant trade unions or to encourage foreign investment. In 1996 Basu might have become prime minister of a coalition government, but he was not permitted to accept high office by the CPM's politburo. He later described this as a "historic blunder". Jyoti Kiran Basu was born into an upper-middle-class family in Calcutta on July 18 1914, the son of a doctor, and was educated at missionary schools in the city. He read English at Presidency – then Calcutta's most eminent college. Aged 21 he came to London, where he failed the examination for the Indian civil service. While studying British history, economics and anthropology at University College London, he also attended lectures in political organisaion and in constitutional and international law at the LSE. Among the lecturers he heard was Professor Harold Laski, who, Basu later said, "was drawing huge crowds with his anti-Fascist lectures ... I was reading a lot on Fascism. We Indian students were at the same time trying to generate public opinion on the [independence] movement back home." While in London, Basu became immersed in Indian student activities. He was inspired by, among others, Krishna Menon, who had set up the India League to campaign for independence, and he organised speaking engagements for prominent Indian political figures such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Jawarhalal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. He was called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1940. Years later, Basu would take time off from the stresses of being chief minister to spend a month every summer in London. He rarely drank, but would occasionally accept a warmed-up glass of Remy Martin Champagne Cognac at the India Club in the Strand, home of the India League. He also made frequent visits to the theatre, much enjoying a production of Madame Bovary. During his five years as a student in Britain, Basu was much influenced by thinkers such as Ben Bradley, Rajani Palme Dutt and Harry Pollitt. He became convinced that only the British Left was sincere about opposing Hitler and Fascism. More importantly, he decided that only the Left would back Indian independence. Members of his family would later say: "London made him into a Marxist." Basu was first elected to the West Bengal state assembly in 1946. Six years later he became the delegate for the Calcutta constituency of Baranagar, which he represented for most of his political career. He became chief minister in 1977, remaining in the post until 2000, when he stood down owing to ill health. Since his retirement Basu had been viewed as India's senior elder statesman, and was often consulted by political leaders in Delhi. He is credited with keeping in check the wilder Leftist elements in the Congress-led coalition governments that have ruled India since 2004. Jyoti Basu's first wife, Basanti (Chabi), died shortly after their marriage in 1940. His second wife, Kamal, whom he married in 1948, predeceased him in 2003. He is survived by a son of his second marriage.
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges