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Jyoti Basu, who passed away on Sunday, was an iconic figure in Indian politics. More a social democrat than a dogmatic ideologue, Mr Basu worked for and led the communist movement in India for more than six decades.
His forte lay in bringing together disparate voices so that left-leaning coalitions could be forged and a way forward agreed upon, irrespective of political differences.
He ruled West Bengal for 23 years from 1977 to 2000, a record unmatched by any other Indian chief minister. With him at the helm, Mr Basu’s Communist Party of India-Marxist was credited with restoring stability to West Bengal after the political tumult of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Perhaps more than anything else, he was revered as a cult figure for redistributing wealth through land reform. A rural support base gained further strength as peasants became landowners, and in the cities Mr Basu was backed by trade unions and West Bengal’s cultural intelligentsia.
He also had an opportunity to become India’s first Marxist prime minister following the inconclusive 1996 elections. However, his party chose to support the government instead of joining it, a move Mr Basu subsequently called a “historic blunder”.
Mr Basu had his critics who felt that he let the West Bengal economy stagnate by letting trade unions, who were opposed to foreign investment, dictate terms to the chief minister.
He had been in retirement for almost nine years when the CPI-M lost significant ground in last year’s elections. Ironically, the party that once gave land to the people suffered heavily for its plans to sell arable holdings to industrial concerns.
Some also believe that the CPI-M’s younger leaders who went from college to the party politburo in just a few years do not understand the peasantry.
But whatever the CPI-M’s future in West Bengal, Mr Basu’s legacy will remain intact.
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