RIP Jyoti Basu

For better or for worse, Jyoti Basu was the man two generations of Kolkatans have known as their chief minister. He was always there. They have grown up seeing him call the shots at Writers’ Buildings. He was the man who ran Bengal.

He spelt changelessness and a strange status quo. He stood for continuum, unbroken, staid and seemingly endless.

For 23 long years, the newspapers wrote about him every day, his images in black and white and then in colour featured routinely on front pages. Such was his grip that all problems that seemed unsolvable were instantly resolved when he stepped in. Yet nothing seemed new. For 23 years, there was a sense of sameness all around.

The one new thing that seemed to be happening was the Metro rail, a project the late B C Roy had started. Many city dwellers say they were in Class II when the first big Metro digs blocked roads. By the time smooth black tops replaced them and the first trains rolled they were into their first job.

The faceless multitudes who only got a ringside view of the government’s workings saw it as painfully slow in Basu’s Bengal. Yet, there was great pride in the man who ruled from Writers’. He was upright. He was sophisticated and a raashbhari neta—a leader with gravitas and a standing that everyone in the country respected.

His government’s constant gripe was the centre’s boimatrik (step-motherly) treatment. Everything, from the endless power outages of the Seventies and the Eighties to the crumbling industries of Bengal was blamed on this. Perhaps these claims were true. Perhaps they weren’t wholly correct.

But whatever they were, even in this there was an immediate association with Bengali pride. Jyoti Babu stood his ground and backwardness was a spin off you couldn’t avoid. Election after election governments changed all around. Existing dispensations bit dust. But in Bengal, Basu it was. Someone replacing him was inconceivable. Basu’s dominating personality drowned out the opposition’s loud protests against rigging. The opposition looked so flimsy.

Every morning, journalists crowded in front of his offices at rundown Writers’ Buildings and Basu strutted by looking straight ahead, seldom would his gaze stray. All his life, this barrister from Middle Temple wore a starched dhoti and kurta. A pair of shiny black pump shoes covered his feet. His cold fisheyes surveyed the world through a pair of big square glasses.

Journalists quaked and fumbled asking him questions or even clarifications for answers he had so peremptorily or dismissively given. And they often had many to seek, especially since Basu’s delivery were inevitably punctuated with innumerable oder (their) and tader (them). At the end of a presser reporters often ended up wondering what the chief minister was talking about – a raped minor or a calf slaughtered somewhere in the districts.

There was reason for such deference. Basu was more a wise elder at home. One who everyone – be he the Burrabazar Marwari businessman or the Rajabazar daily wage earner or even the elite Ballygunge resident – looked up to. He was the tallest figure in the political landscape and worthy of great respect.

Bengal was poor, everyone derisively called her a dead state, a graveyard of industry but she was definitely not a state of turncoats and opportunists. The tag of being poor never mattered. Honour did. At the cost of everything Bengal marched on her own steam, or whatever little it had. Basu led this march.

A man of erudition and fine tastes, Basu’s years as chief minister overshadowed his days of struggle when he was a firebrand trade unionist. Few in Bengal even stopped to reflect on the truth that the man’s unbeaten stint as chief minister had come after years of backbreaking struggle in the merciless sun. The man came to occupy the high office only when he was 63, an age many of us plan retirement.

When he opted to bow out in 2000 after his health began to fail him, everyone asked if Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would sit in his chair. Bhattacharjee did not. Perhaps, he knew it would be difficult to match the Basu magic, which was so different and difficult to define.

For, his touch was actually dissimilar from what we see in contemporary politicians. Always reticent, Basu seldom smiled, was neverflippant and never courted the media. His political speeches were dead serious and conduct dignified. There was nothing catchy or snappy about this man. Para (neighbourhood) lads and opposition politicians alike referred to him with courtesy. Always Jyoti babu.

He came close to being prime minister of India and Bengalis rue the fact that he did not become one. His party came in the way. Not because of anything else but here was a man who had always taken a stand, good or bad didn’t matter, and Bengali pride was associated with him. He deserved to occupy a higher chair.

Basu, though, he called his party’s decision a historic blunder didn’t seem personally bitter about missing out. He had his regrets, but that was because the communist movement had taken a beating. His reaction was always so different from the run of the mill. The Kolkatan took great satisfaction from the fact that his counsel was always sought in times of national crises. Even in his defiance he had kept his impoverished state relevant to the national discourse.

Even in his twilight years, Basu didn’t lose his mind. He will forever remain part of the Bengali consciousness.