Basu: The Democrat Communist

Seeing Jyoti Basu wrapped in the national flag at Vidhan Sabha generated all the more mixed feelings for me. Hounded by politicians and journalists even in death I was wondering if ‘deads, could deliberate what must Jyoti Basu be going through now’.


‘The man has definitely outgrown his party’, I was thinking, ‘a belief Jyoti Basu always detested’ and stood for the greatness of his party till he lived.

It must be really difficult a decision to resist the offer of being the ‘Prime minister of a nation’, for the sake of the party ie.. for the sake of the ‘collective decision of his comrades’. He called it a ‘historical blunder’ later not for himself but for ‘the party’. He had said, ‘ Opportunity comes once’, and it is indeed ‘the party missed the opportunity of having a communist prime minister in the biggest democracy of the world’.

It was ‘a blunder’ and ‘of course it is historical’ for India and ‘for the Communist movement’ in the world. India is not a nation having one party or the two- party system. Its democracy is the biggest because it gives the opportunity to every adult Indian to vote and select their leaders. More so, it also gives the opportunity to every citizen to also lead the nation. India missed the opportunity of having a democratically elected ‘Communist Prime minister ’ and ‘the communists missed the opportunity of leading the biggest democracy’.

Jyoti Basu fought the parliamentary system of elections and won. He won to lead the state of West Bengal for twenty-three years consequently.

Indeed a leader who brought in legitimacy to the communist movement in a democratic setup. He left the post at the helm of his career without any challenge to his leadership.

Be it communist or no communist, this is a rare trait amongst politicians all over the world.

Jyoti Basu donated his body for medical research and will be used by medical students as any other body known by its allotted number. No one would know that this was the body of a national leader. He must have wanted it that way. As he had abided by his party’s belief ‘no one can outgrow the party’. An idealistic thought from a comrade, a communist and a leader.

But with the national flag wrapped around him, the comrades raising their hands saluting their leader with ‘Lal Salaam’, he did outgrow his party.

For that is what happens to ‘leaders’…to ‘path breakers’. At end for sure it was the salute to a great leader whose ‘personality’ outdid the party or again the ‘collective thought process of his comrades’.

Today Jyoti Basu made me believe ‘ that communist rule is not the dictatorship of the proletariat’ but ‘representation by, of and for the proletariat’.

So ‘Lal Salaam’, Comrade Jyoti Basu.