Architect of Bengal’s Left

Born in 1914 in colonial Calcutta, Jyoti Basu emerged from privilege but committed his life to dismantling it. Educated in law at the University of London, Basu joined the India League in 1937 and returned home to join

the Communist Party of India in 1940.

Over the next four decades, he became a tireless trade unionist and parliamentarian, before assuming office as West Bengal’s Chief Minister on June 21, 1977—a post he would hold for an unprecedented 23 years, winning five successive elections.

Basu’s leadership marked a turning point in Indian statecraft. His government’s Operation Barga (1979-80) registered over 1.7 million sharecroppers, granting tenancy rights and boosting agricultural productivity. West Bengal’s farm output surged from 0.6 per cent annual growth in the 1970s to over 7 per cent in the 1980s, making it India’s top rice producer. Equally transformative was his deepening of Panchayati Raj—political parties contested in the

panchayat elections for the first time, and with enhanced reservation for women and marginalised communities.

Under Basu, industrial ambitions took form in projects like Salt Lake Electronics Complex and Haldia Petrochemicals. Yet, the Left’s ambivalence toward capitalism—seeking investment while demonising it—hobbled true industrial rejuvenation. His later years were shadowed by bureaucratic inertia, internal dissent and allegations of patronage politics.

Despite these limitations, Basu embodied the constructive core of Indian communism. He kept West Bengal largely free of communal tensions and decentralised power in ways few Indian leaders had attempted.

He steered the state through the turbulence of the Naxalite insurgency, the Mandal moment and the Ayodhya movement, upholding secularism and constitutionalism.

In 1996, Basu was offered prime ministership by a coalition of centrist and left parties. His own party, CPI(M), famously refused, a decision Basu called a “historic blunder”. He, however, remained loyal, serving in the Rajya Sabha from 2000 to 2006.

Basu died on January 17, 2010, aged 95. His legacy remains a study in contrasts—he was not the most fiery or ideological of communists, but perhaps the most enduring. In him, the Indian Left found its high watermark.

Lovneet Bhatt

Features