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Jyoti Basu : The Authorized Biography: Surabhi Banerjee; Viking;
pages 333; Rs 400.
Of all the non-BJP political leaders. Comrade Jyoti Basu stands
out as the tallest among them. On this there are possibly no two
opinions. The man has a long record of service. Whatever else he
is or he is not, he is not a turncoat like Haradanahalli Deve Gowda
and has never betrayed his party, right or wrong, though it has
been mostly in the wrong. Much has been said about his record as
Chief Minister of another kichidi a government in West Bengal. His
biographer Surabhi Banerjee should have asked Mamata Banerjee what
she thought off Jyoti Basu and his left-wing government. Is it true
that in every West Bengal village there is a parallel government
where the communist cadres have the last word?
Jyoti Basu has himself once spoken out against the corruption
Prevalent among his communist followers. How did this come to
happen? For years industrialists were harassed to the point that
not many were willing to invest in West Bengal. It is a pity that
Ms Surabhi Banerjee never got to speak to industrialists like Lal
Charat Ram. Under Jyoti Basu's benign reign Calcutta continued to
go steadily down the drain. Under the surface the City of Joy was a
City of Agony. In this "authorized" biography these issues are not
discussed. The approach, verily, is one of suppressing the truth
and suggesting the false.
Let us begin from the beginning, say, August 1942 or, may be, a
little earlier. When the second world war started somewhat shakily,
the Soviets condemned it as an Imperialist War. That was correct.
It was indeed a war against British and French imperialism waged by
another power that would have liked to be imperialist, too,
Germany. The Communists should have fought the havens, namely
Britain and France, to force, them to disgorge their ill-gotten
empires. The communists dithered. Then came Germany's attack on the
Soviet - Union. Overnight the Imperialist War became a Peoples' War
and the Comrades decided to fight Indian: nationalists. This they
did shamelessly, even viciously.
Communist cadres betrayed Congress volunteers to the British
without any compunction. Jyoti Basu's biographer says the
",communists were in a terrible dilemma". Some dilemma, that. They
were plainly traitors to the cause of Indian independence. Comrade
Basu's biographer does not have anything to say about what he
thought about the communist betrayal of the nationalist cause.
Does he have a guilty conscience?
Again, the biographer dismisses the Bengal Famine in a few words.
She attributes it to the failure of the monsoon and the withering
of the crops. This is an atrocious whitewashing of British -- and
communist - crimes. There is any amount of documentation on the
famine that was artificially caused because the British government
sequestered food stocks for the Armed Forces and allegedly burnt
boats on the east coast of India so that. they do not ferry across
the Bay to bring food from Burma. Basu's biographer concedes that
"it lay in the Bengal Government's power,-, to avert the tragedy?
But what did ,Comrade Basu do? According to his biographer, "he
plunged into relief activities"! How noble! He should have
plunged a knife into 'the British Government. Instead lie
supported it, all in the noble cause of fighting fascism.
In regard to, the Chinese attack on India, again, the CPM's record
is nothing short of despicable. Surabhi Banerjee says "Indian
communists became the targets of public outrage: the flames were
fanned by Indian jingoists". Jingoists? It is a needless slur on
Indian patriots who were incensed by the Communists' sell-out. As
during the Quit India movement, once again the comrades were ready
to betray their country. But how does Jyoti Basu's "authorized
biographer" handle this hot potato?
She says-that the majority 'it the Indian Communist Party was in
favour of condemning the Chinese aggression, but that "a vocal
minority was -not willing to accept that China was motivated by a
desire for territory". More significantly. this "vocal minority"
stuck to the view "that a socialist country could not commit
aggression, nor was it prepared to support a Policy under which
India would receive arms front western powers even if it paid for
them". The party supposedly was divided into two camps. But where
did Jyoti Basu stand? He was straddling the fence!
According to his biographer, a third camp was formed to mediate
between the two opposing. groups. called the Communist Unity Centre
(CUC) and she adds: "Basu worked with the CUC"! The nation was
under attack and Jyoti Basu was trying to mediate between two camps
on whether or not the invader should he fought and resisted! Call
this patriotism?
Worse still, Jyoti Basu, addressing a meeting was saying: "It's
being propagated that the country has been attacked by the Chinese.
We don't know what is happening in the snow-clad areas of the
Himalayas. We the border problem to be solved Peaceably across the
table. And if the country has been attacked how is it that this
by-election! is being held?" Consider the use of the words like
"propagated". Basu was suggesting that the news that the Chinese
were attacking India was false. When he should have been fully
aware of what was going on, he was pretending to ignorance, as an
excuse. True, a by-election was indeed being held in Calcutta, but
that; merely showed India's inherent democratic strength -
something not to be sneezed at.
It was Lal Bahadur Shastri, then Home Minister, who gave an apt
reply to Basu's outpourings. Said Shastri: "How an Indian could
make such a statement, I can't even imagine." This "authorized
biography" is an excellent white-wash job, dishonest from the word
go. Jyoti Basu is a highly educated man. Surely he could have
spelled out his philosophy that moved him at crucial times, during
the Quit India Movement; during the Great Bengal Famine and during
the 1962 Chinese attack on India?
Even in regard to the demolition of the Babri Masjid the biography
can only think of it as "an act of communal vandalism", without so
much as an attempt to understand the event against the accumulated
burden of history. Facile judgements are made on issues of major
importance, the biographer probably believing that most readers
are, if not morons, surely forgetful. Jyoti Basu, no doubt, is a
good man, a loving husband, a considerate grand father and a loyal
colleague. Certainly he would have made a better Prime Minister
than Deve Gowda. But that doesn't mean his political sins are
pardonable. The very fact that [his biography is "authorised" makes
it highly suspect. It is one-sided, incomplete and motivated.
Surabhi Banerjee should stick to literature which is her forte and
leave political writing to others better qualified to do so. This
book is a disservice to history.
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