Convention at COIMBATORE Remembers Comrade Jyoti Basu

By M Girija

People's Democracy, November 24, 2013

COMMEMORATING the birth centenary of Comrade Jyoti Basu, a great communist leader, the Coimbatore district committee of the CPI(M) organised a convention on November 18, with the party’s general secretary, Prakash Karat, delivering the main address. While celebrating the birth centenary of Comrade Jyoti Basu, Karat said, we should draw lessons from the life and work of this great revolutionary. India has seen many communist leaders who made great contributions and sacrifices. But Comrade Jyoti Basu was one of the few leaders who stand tall among them. He spent 70 years in the communist movement. He joined the Communist Party in 1940 and passed into history in 2010. In these seven decades of communist life, this great leader made very significant and pioneering contributions. He returned from London as a barrister but began to work as a trade union functionary among the railway workers in Bengal, becoming the secretary of the railway workers’ union of Bengal. Though he was the chief minister of West Bengal for about three decades, he had his association with the trade union movement intact, and remained a leader of the CITU till the end.

JYOTI BASU IN LEGISLATURE

The second major contribution of Comrade Basu was in legislative sphere. He got elected to the Bengal Assembly in 1946, before independence, from the railway workers’ constituency. From 1946 to 2010, except for a period of five years following the rigged elections in West Bengal in 1972, he remained a member of the West Bengal assembly, and showed how a communist should function in a legislature. While he was a leader of the opposition, he led many struggles and echoed the voices of struggling workers and others inside the assembly. In all the major struggles, Comrade Basu made it a point to personally lead them, both within and outside the legislature. Once he stayed inside the premises of the assembly for three days lest the police should arrest him, in case he came out, for leading the teachers’ struggle.

When he became the chief minister of West Bengal in 1977, we saw how he carried forward the land reforms there. After being a part of continuous struggles when he was the deputy chief minister in United Front government earlier, he told the peasants and Kisan Sabha members to go and occupy the lands the landlords were holding illegally. Through this combination of outside struggles and legislative action, Jyoti Basu showed the way as to how communists could utilise such avenues. Between 1967 and 1969, when he was the home minister of West Bengal, he told the police would not interfere with any strike conducted by workers, nor it would be used to stop the peasants from occupying the surplus lands in landlords’ illegal possession. His lasting legacy as the chief minister of Left Front government is of the land reforms that were implemented in Bengal, when 11 lakh acres of surplus land were taken over and distributed among the landless farmers and 1.5 crore tenants got security of tenure by registration.

Karat further said: “History will also remember him as a leader who was most consistent in the defence of secularism. Everyone knows that after the assassination of Smt Indira Gandhi in 1984, Sikhs were killed in thousands in the whole of North India. But Comrade Basu did not allow a single attack on the Sikh community in Calcutta or West Bengal. Similarly, in the 1990s, when communal forces began the movement for Ram temple in Ayodhya and communal riots broke out all over the country after Advani’s rathyatra, Jyoti Basu said not a single person would be allowed to be attacked in West Bengal, and that he was ready to invite the army if necessary.” Comrade Basu was not only a communist leader; he was a symbol of the Left, democratic and secular forces in our country. That is why today, when we are observing his birth centenary, we must pledge to continue to uphold the values, principles, politics and ideologies which he represented, Karat added.  

Speaking on the current politics, Karat said today in our country we have a government which is following policies that are causing great sufferings and distress to the people of the country. In this context, he touched upon issues like the excruciating and unabated price rise, especially in case of food items and other essentials; favours being meted out to the big capitalists and foreign multinationals; agrarian crisis and the farmers’ sufferings, rising unemployment etc, with education, housing, healthcare etc all going beyond the reach of the common man. Unless we are able to reverse these harmful neo-liberal and anti-people policies being pursued by the UPA government, there can be no real relief and no real development and progress for the people of our country. “That is why the CPI(M) and other Left parties have put forth alternative policies,” Karat added. 

In the context of the Lok Sabha elections which are nearing, Karat also attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party which claims to be an alternative to the UPA and the Congress, while Narendra Modi is going around the country posing as if he is already the prime minister elect of the country. But, Karat said, the BJP is not a whit different from the Congress in terms of policies, and that we have seen in practice, e.g. in the BJP’s support to the UPA government on the issue of banking laws, privatisation of the pension funds etc.

Karat further said if the BJP today, under the leadership of Narendra Modi, is claiming to be better than the Congress, it is better in only one way --- Narendra Modi is a more ardent and vigorous supporter of the big business houses of our country. They talk about the Gujarat model of development for the country. But what does the Gujarat model mean?  Under Modi, all the big business houses – from Ambanis to the Tatas, Essars, Adanis –have been given huge concessions, free land, free electricity, tax exemptions and other concessions so that they could make super profits. This is the model of development which Narendra Modi wants to implement in the whole country. Another aspect of the Gujarat model, which Modi and BJP do not talk about, is how they organised attacks on and carried out the most heinous pogrom against the Muslim minorities in Gujarat in 2002, under the auspices of the Gujarat government. 

The CPI(M) leader also pointed out that even though the Congress and the BJP both say they would lead the government after the Lok Sabha elections, they have, taken together, not been able to get 50 percent of the votes in the last two Lok Sabha elections. As for the non-Congress, non-BJP parties, they command substantial support among the people and are successfully running many state governments. So we are confident that in the coming days the people will reject the UPA for its wrong policies and massive corruption and also the BJP for its equally corrupt practices in the states it is ruling and its communal politics. What is required is people’s mobilisation and struggle to demand alternative policies that are different from those of the Congress and the BJP. In this context, Karat also referred to the recent Delhi convention of 14 non-Congress secular parties and its significance.

Referring again to Comrade Jyoti Basu as an architect of land reforms in West Bengal, Karat said more and more people are losing their land today. According to the latest census figures of 2011, in the last ten years 35 percent of peasants have become agricultural workers, which means 35 percent more people have lost their land. That is why we say we have to still implement the land reforms and distribute lakhs of hectares of surplus land among the landless people and give housesites to lakhs of families. These are some of the alternative policies required in the country today.

Talking of the contours of a policy alternative, Karat included in it a minimum wage of Rs 10,000 per month for unskilled workers, more government spending on education and health, and taxing the rich for adequate resource mobilisation, among other things. It is through struggles on these issues that a political alternative to the Congress and the BJP would emerge, he added.

Concluding, Prakash Karat expressed confidence that the efforts of the CPI(M) and other Left parties would find a reflection in the coming Lok Sabha elections, and the non-Congress, non-BJP forces would get substantial electoral support.

CPI(M)’s Tamilnadu state secretary G Ramakrishnan and its Central Committee member A Soundararajan, MLA, also addressed the convention. Both of them recalled the memories of Comrade Jyoti Basu.  

The convention was presided over by U K Vellingiri and inaugurated by V Ramamurthi, secretary of the CPI(M)’s Coimbatore district committee. S Krishnamurthi welcomed the participants and Kesavamani proposed the vote of thanks.  

Earlier, a sum of Rs 10,08,500 was handed over to Prakash Karat by the Coimbatore district committee as the second instalment of the election fund donated by the people.

Amartya Sen on Jyoti Basu centenary panel advisory board

KOLKATA: Nobel laureate Amartya Sen will be a member of the advisory board of the Jyoti Basu Birth Centenary Celebration Committee, said Rabin Deb, CPI(M) State Committee member here on Monday.

He was speaking at a discussion to finalise the names of the members of the committee.

Other eminent members of the committee include the former Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee; the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee; film director Mrinal Sen; poet Sankha Ghosh; and former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly. State CPI(M) Secretary Biman Bose will be its general secretary.

Pointing out that Jyoti Basu had created an impression at the personal level too, with the various people he interacted and worked with, Mr. Bose said the aim was to highlight “milestones” of the political career of the Marxist leader.

Mr. Chatterjee said: “I believe the committee will be able to bring into focus Basu’s work for the public and his faith in the people.”

Samaresh Banerjee, retired judge of the Calcutta High Court, recalling the administrative capabilities of Basu, said “He was not only a politician, but a real statesman.”

Amartya Sen on Jyoti Basu centenary panel advisory board - The Hindu

Committee formed to celebrate birth centenary of Jyoti Basu

I voted against Jyoti Basu's candidature as PM: Manik Sarkar

TNN Jul 31, 2013, 03.45AM IST

AGARTALA: After 17 years, Tripura chief minister and CPM politburo member Manik Sarkar on Tuesday said he had voted against the move of making Jyoti Basu the Prime Minister in 1996.

Sarkar said this during a condolence meeting of CPM leader Samar Mukherjee who died Kolkata on July 18.

"The CPM central committee had decided not to take part in the central government with Jyoti Basu as prime minister through voting in 1996 and I had also voted against participation in the central government," said Sarkar.

"I voted against the party's participation in the government but did not disclose it to others because several veterans, including former Tripura CM Dasarath Debbarma, was also a CPM central committee member," he added.

It shows that he was not dared to disclose the decision because his political mentor and former Tripura CM Nripen Chakraborty was expelled from the party in 1995 for criticizing the CPM leadership, including Basu.

In 1996, Basu might have become the PM of a United Front government but the CPM didn't allow him to accept the high office that paved the way for HD Deve Gowda of Janata Dal to become PM for 10 months. 

I voted against Jyoti Basu's candidature as PM: Manik Sarkar

Tussauds-like wax tribute in Asansol

In Asansol’s Mahishila Colony, believe it or not, you can meet Jyoti Basu, Maradona, Mithun Chakraborty and Uttam Kumar in one room.

Of course, not alive and kicking, but as life-like wax models, all made by Sushanta Roy.

A better reference point to what Roy has done would be the wax statues in Madame Tussauds in London, where many a Bollywood star has found place.

On July 8, Sushanta celebrated Jyoti Basu’s birth centenary. He made offerings of food and flowers, as if to a god — which perhaps would have displeased the communist leader.

Roy, 50, has been making the wax sculptures for decades. He had been an admirer of Basu and had the privilege — if it can be termed so — to take his measurements at Indira Bhavan for the statue.

The Basu statue had been at Indira Bhavan from 2003 to 2011 — a gift on the then chief minister’s 89th birthday. But after the leader’s death, Roy was requested to take it back to Asansol. The statue, he said, was “melting for lack of care”.

Now in an air-conditioned room, Jyoti Basu has found a place beside Manna De, who plays a harmonium — the singer is in wax, not the harmonium, by the way.

Roy said he had been visiting Indira Bhavan since 2003 and would “congratulate Jyotibabu always on his birthdays”.

“The last time too I had gone to attend his birthday celebration organised by Pather Panchali,” Roy said.

Pather Panchali, an NGO run by Ramola Chakraborty, widow of former transport minister Subhash Chakraborty, had decided to set up a museum like the one of Madam Tussauds in London and had asked Roy, who trained in sculpture in Calcutta, to make 100 wax idols of well-known personalities — for the proposed museum in Salt Lake.

The proposal came to naught after Subhash Chakraborty’s death.

Roy, a former employee of the Indian Museum, completed 18 wax idols. “among them are Basu, Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Kazi Nazrul, Kishore Kumar, Manna De, Uttam Kumar, Sourav Ganguly, Amitabh Bachchan, Maradona, Kapil Dev, M. Karunanidhi and Sachin Tendulkar,” he said.

He took care to include props to signify what each celebrity did. So, Sachin is seen holding aloft a bat and Sailen Manna, though old and bald, kicking a football. Mithun has a mike in his hand.

Amitabh Bachchan’s wax model was the first one that Roy made. It was commissioned by a fan club.

For some of the stars and politicians, Roy got a chance to take measurements. Madame Tussauds, too, takes measurements of celebrities which become much-photographed events leading to the opening of the statue at the museum.

For those whom Roy could not meet, “I had to make to with pictures,” he said.

Asked about the quantity of wax he need for each statue, Roy gave an example: “It took around 50kg of wax to make Subhash Chakraborty.”

Roy said the idea of making life-size wax models was prompted by a popular Nazrul song Momer putul (doll of wax).

Roy said he first makes the stuffing. “For that several kilos of cotton and paper are required. The wax is used after that.”

Also, all the statues are foldable to allow transporting convenience.

A finished sculpture could cost anywhere between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh. Some of the statues he made were sold to clubs of Bollywood fans.

Roy himself takes care of the statues, cleaning them every day in the air-conditioned room where they have to be kept. He runs a school near his house where he teaches children to sculpt wax idols.

After Basu’s death, the leader’s aide Joy Krishna Ghosh had called up Roy and requested him to take the statue back.

Roy got the statue back to his Asansol home in September 2011.

“I discussed the matter with Bimanbabu (Left Front chairman Biman Bose) and called up Sushanta Roy who had gifted the idol to our beloved Jyotibabu. I requested him to take it back for its better preservation,” Ghosh told Metro over phone.

On Basu’s birth anniversary on July 8, around 20 to 25 friends and neighbours of Roy gathered on the ground floor of his house to celebrate.

A two-pound cake was cut and lunch was served to the statue. “Basu’s favourites — pabda and tengra machher jhaal, flavoured rice, muger dal and payesh were served,” Roy said. There was also raj bhog, mihidana and sitabhog, all traditional sweets of Burdwan, to round up the feast.

What will happen to this collection after Roy? The wax sculptor thinks his grandchildren “Arnab and Sanjib, two toddlers who take great interest when I work”, would keep the collection in shape. 

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Tussauds-like wax tribute in Asansol

Jyoti Basu Birth Centenary Observances Begin in Maharashtra

By Mahendra Singh

MUMBAI: ON July 8, 2013, the Mumbai committees of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) flagged off the Jyoti Basu birth centenary celebrations with a joint public commemorative meeting in Venmali Hall in Dadar (West). The hall was fully packed on the occasion. A photo of late Comrade Jyoti Basu adorned the dais, along with a photo of late Comrade Ahilyatai Rangnekar, a beloved party leader, whose birthday also falls on July 8. Mahendra Singh, the CPI (M)’s Mumbai committee secretary presided. Seated on the dais were CPI (M) Central Committee member and state secretary Dr Ashok Dhawale, Central Committee member K L Bajaj, and all-India vice president of the CITU, CPI(M) state committee member and the CITU’s all-India working committee member Sayeed Ahmed, CPI(M) state secretariat member Professor Krishna Theckedath, state committee members Dr S K Rege and Shailendra Kamble, and CITU Mumbai secretary Dr Vivek Monterio. Dr Ashok Dhawale and K L Bajaj garlanded the photo of Jyoti Basu and Ahilyatai Rangnekar respectively. While Dr Dhawale, K L Bajaj, Sayeed Ahmed and Vivek Monterio highlighted Comrade Jyoti Basu’s outstanding contribution, they also dwelt on the purpose of the meeting. Shailendra Kamble conducted the proceedings.

The CPI (M) state committee’s organ, Jeevan Marg (Marathi weekly), had published a special issue to commemorate the Jyoti Birth centenary. K L Bajaj released the new issue at the meeting.

In his introductory remarks, Sayeed Ahmed praised the invaluable contribution of Jyoti Basu to the Indian working class movement and to the work done by the Left Front government of West Bengal in the interest of the toiling masses and common people including the workers, peasants and agricultural workers, under his chief ministerial tenure. K L Bajaj dwelt on the important role played by Jyoti Basu in founding and building the CITU. He also highlighted the stellar contribution of Jyoti Basu in the Indian working class and communist movements. Addressing the audience, Dr Vivek Monterio pointed to the 50 years long membership of Jyoti Basu of the West Bengal legislative assembly; he said Comrade Basu’s ideal style of functioning in it as a communist is a guide for communists for all the time to come. Dr Ashoke Dhawale, in his detailed speech, threw light on various aspects of the outstanding personality of Comrade Jyoti Basu and his invaluable contribution in the Indian communist movement and in building of the CPI(M). He referred to the police lathi blows faced by Jyoti Basu as a school student while participating in a public meeting addressed by Netaji Subhash Chandra; his participation in the activities of India League and London Majlis while studying in London; his stellar performance as a legislator, opposition leader, deputy chief minister, home minister and chief minister; the pro-people activities of the first Left led government of West Bengal under his stewardship; his immense contribution in strengthening the Left politics in India and raising the issue of restructuring of centre-state relations; his unique party loyalty and adherence to party discipline; his firm belief in Marxism-Leninism; his daily visit to the party’s state committee office even when he was discharging onerous responsibilities as the chief minister; his unshakeable faith in the toiling masses; and his exhortation to the party members to increasingly strengthen contacts with the masses. In his speech Mahendra Singh urged upon the audience to plan various programmes during the year long observance to take the message of Comrade Jyoti Basu to the wider masses and to take pledge to advance the cause for which Jyoti Basu worked for almost seven decades.

All the speakers also paid tributes to Comrade Ahilyatai Rangnekar.

The meeting ended with slogans like “Jyoti Basu Lal Salaam,” “Comrade Jyoti Basu Amar Rahe” and “Long Live Marxism-Leninism!”

Social media users pledges allegiance to Jyoti Basu's politics

IANS; Updated: Tuesday, July 9, 2013, 12:55 [IST]

Kolkata, July 9: Hundreds of social media loyalists of Jyoti Basu renewed their allegiance to the late Marxist patriarch's ideologies Monday - the launch of the former West Bengal chief minister's centenary celebrations.

Legions of loyalists paid tribute to their celebrated "Comrade" through comments and poems on the social networking site Facebook.

Pledging support to Basu's philosophy, many dubbed the "leader of masses" as an inspiration.

A post said: "Aj amader priyo jononeta Comrade Jyoti Basu er Jonmo Sotoborsho....Tumi aj o acho amader majhe Onuprerona hoye...Tomar dekhano poth e amra chilam, achi & thakbo ei sopoth nilam...(Today is our beloved people's leader's birth centenary...you live among us an inspiration..we are and always will be on the path that you have shown us..)".

Some vowed to undo the "deviation from the ideologies of Comrade".

"Comrade Jyoti Basu'r jonmosotobarshiki upolokkhe 1ti bishoye protiggabodho hoya khub joruri,,seta holo adorso-goto jetuku bicchuti hoyeche, setak sudre naoya..setai hobe COMRADE sothik sroddha janano (On the centenary celebrations of Comrade Jyoti Basu we have to pledge our return to the ideologies of Basu.. from which we have deviated..that will be the true way to to pay respect to him)".

The Communist Party of India-Marxist has lined up year-long programmes throughout the state, highlighting his life and philosophy to mark the centenary celebrations.

Born July 8, 1914, Basu joined the Communist Party of India in 1940 and began his work in the railway trade union movement. In 1946, he was elected to the Bengal legislative assembly from the Railway constituency.

He played a key role in the development of the communist party in India and was the secretary of the CPI's provincial committee from 1954 to 1960. He became a member of its central committee of in 1951. When the CPI-M was formed, he became one of the founder politburo and central committee members.