Indian media has been awash last couple of days with the news of Mr. Jyoti Basu’s demise, undoubtedly the most famous face of Indian communism. But this is neither his obituary nor a life-and-times kinda post. A lot is being spoken in the media about his legacy – good and bad. Having been born in the state that he ruled over as Chief Minister for 23 years (1977-2000) and having lived outside it for the past decade and a half, I have the benefit of a unique viewpoint on Jyoti Basu’s contribution to the state or on Indian communism, at a macro level. BTW, did I say contribution? What contribution?
The fact that Jyoti Basu is a man of utmost personal integrity cannot be argued. The fact that he was a leader of the masses cannot be denied. The fact that the brand of communism that was practiced in West Bengal during his tenure as CM has harmed the state, forced companies to relocate, led youth to seek opportunities outside cannot be refuted either! Think about this – can you compare Bengal when he assumed office to the Bengal of today? Does Bengal feature in any discussion on progress, industrial or otherwise, in the country? Given a choice between Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata - how many people from outside Bengal would choose to live and work in Kolkata? Let me guess – how about zero?! And guess what – the others on the list are not even metros!
Why is it that a state that had serious advantages to begin with half a century ago, that was considered ”the place” to be, is not even on the discussion table today? We have to thank the Communist Party of which Mr. Basu was the head, for this feat!
I don’t have anything against Communism per se. I’m not even very well versed in their ideology. I see with my eyes and let my mind make its own judgments. I have to admit that the brand of Communism we have in our country absolutely sucks! Comparing with China is a favorite pre-occupation of this nation. I recently read an interesting bit of news that China had overtaken United States as the leading auto manufacturer of the world. Yes, you heard it right. China produced a little over 13 million vehicles in 2009 compared to the US at around 10 million. Guess where India is? We’re at 1.4 million! And what is even more astonishing is that in the year 2000, both China and India had vehicle production of 0.6 million units. Need I say more?
I am an engineer and cannot ignore the story that numbers can tell! I consider the proliferation of automobiles in a country as a metric of progress, as a sign of development. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, Nissan, Ford Motor Co and Honda Motor Co are running their Chinese factories at full capacity, 24 X 7, overtime and weekend shifts, and still can’t deliver enough cars to meet their demand!
China is a communist country but is still growing at this pace because it has been sensible enough not to treat communism and development / industrialization as mutually exclusive. It has shown to the world that you can have a communist grip over the nation and still prosper – and how!
I condole Mr. Basu’s death but that cannot be the reason to sugar-coat everything and not be critical of him or what he stood for. It is a time for introspection – of trying to bridge the gap between what could-have-been and what is. Communists have to realize that the youth of the country (altho’ I’m hardly ‘young’ at 33!) do not care about ideology if it is detached from progress and prosperity – I certainly don’t! It is time to make amends of screw-ups of the past. Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, are you listening in?
Disclaimer: This post is completely a personal viewpoint. It does not imply my affiliation to any political party or ideology.
Jyoti babu’s reign in WB as supreme and uncontested as it was, persisted only because he was able to tap into something very emotional core of the Bengali, the romanticization of poverty and passionate support for perceived underdogs. He changed the face of poverty to “badge of honor” and corporations avoided WB as Bengalis will never put up with their exploitive shit. That’s why the Bengali always clapped when Basu’s speeches concerned Cuba, US imperialistic designs, CIA plots to destabilize country. Basu was able to rule a state for 23 years without any democratic opponents with help of goons, force and his so-called educated and classy appearance resulting in a paralyzed state .
There are couple of points in your post which I would like to discuss.
1. “The fact that Jyoti Basu is a man of utmost personal integrity cannot be argued.” – Keeping in mind that the definition of personal integrity is very individualistic however, Jyoti babu’s contribution to the prosperity of Chandan Basu will fail in any integrity barometer. There are other well documented examples as well.
2. “Given a choice between Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata – how many people from outside Bengal would choose to live and work in Kolkata?” – Depends on which demographic section you have in your mind. There are millions of “People”, if the term is used in a generic way, who migrated from different parts of India and different countries choose to live and work in Kolkata. Many of them actually prefer to live in Kolkata for various reasons. Also, CPIm ‘s love for Bangladeshi migrants cannot be or should not be forgotten. Aah..poor people after all.
3. “China is a communist country but is still growing at this pace because it has been sensible enough not to treat communism and development / industrialization as mutually exclusive. ” – Sensible enough? With no property rights, not an iota of human rights I would say there is no sign of sensitiveness. I would also argue that the number of cars produces cannot be a sign of the progress of a country, rather the well-beingness of it’s people which can be easily quantified. Whether China’s growth is sustainable can be argued till the cows come home, however, using it an example may not be appropriate.
@Avijit
1. Given that we live in an age where one term as CM can earn you as much as 4000 crores (the honor goes to Madhu Koda if you haven’t guessed it already), I think Jyoti Basu comes out ‘relatively’ clean. Lets face it – 23 years at the helm, uncontested, he could’ve died a lot richer.
2. If I haven’t made it obvious, my judgment and viewpoint obviously does not represent migrant workers or people in the unorganized sector etc. I speak for working professionals like myself who value pragmatism over “Kolkatar alada charm”. Ask around among your non-Bengali colleagues and friends and let me know how many of them choose Kolkata over the other cities I have mentioned. We could discuss this forever, but I think you’re smart enough to get my point.
3. Aw c’mon. You’re sounding just like ‘em. Maybe you’re drinking “Red” wine lately;-) Maybe you should be a part of the Politburo, if you aren’t already. All the talk about the Indian democracy’s “measured and balanced” growth as opposed to the “insensitive” Chinese is a ton of crap. I know its a lot easy for me to comment on this, maybe because my land is not being grabbed by the Chinese government for a Ford factory. But then you know what, maybe I drink out of the capitalist fountain too much. The last time I checked, human rights couldn’t buy shit for me! All of us talk about China’s unsustainable growth, but I think its more wishful thinking and trying to pass excuses for our own slow-ass progress! After China showcased its power and economic progress to the world at the Olympics, I heard more voices in astonishment of its success than in disgust for the way they achieved it. You’re right, a debate about China and India always is open-ended, but then IMHO, there hardly is a reason to debate. In as much as we might want to, we are light years away from where China is. As far as I’m concerned, we’re not even on the same field – forget winning the game with them. “Well-beingness” of people sounds profound – the capitalist in me found an easier metric in cars. And in case you didn’t know the percentage of rural China buying cars is growing at a VERY rapid pace. Isn’t that a sign of well-beingness? Or are we still going to cry hoarse about human rights?
1. His personal integrity was shattered when he refused the mass to learn ‘English’ and his own grand children were sent to Missionary Schools to pick up best of what they could get access to. And this being not monetary benefit and purely evil action against mass in general, this is just a veggie version of crime against humanity.
2. People don’t want to come to Cal, fullstop. I had personal experience of interacting with a large number of fine engineers whom we asked to move to Cal. Before coming most were told how great and economical it is to live in Calcutta. Guess what, it’s as expensive as any other place and we still get shitty service/product for that. And don’t even get me started on the road conditions situation.
3. BTW, even though I envy the growth in China, I don’t envy their people’s situation. Communism there has taken a whole different shape that’s purely based on misuse of power, corrupt politburo and quite a large scale of brain washing of people in general to fuel the concept of how great China is.
At the same time, it needs to be recognized that in spite of all the speech, human exploitation, poverty and corruption remains quite large in India as well.
@You Know Who…
1. I see your point on the personal integrity issue but as Avijit says in an earlier comment, this is relative. I used a certain yardstick to form my opinion, and you and Avijit used yours. All of us, we’ll agree, have valid points.
2. Absolutely! Thats my whole point. No amount of haranguing and trying-to-prove-a-point discussions can refute this fact. I am a living example of this. I left the state 15 years ago and see no reason to go back except for the fact that I have family living there.
3. Don’t get me wrong. I empathize with the condition of the people but then I believe in outcome-based thinking. If the outcome is good – and China’s growth is certainly a sign of positive outsome – IMO, its worth it.
“purely based on misuse of power, corrupt politburo and quite a large scale of brain washing of people in general to fuel the concept of how great China is.” – you’ve already answered this. Lets not take a moral high ground on issues like corruption, high-handedness, human exploitation – in India, things are not very different you’ll agree.
3. Was taking moral high ground ’cause in spite of the broken system, we do have some mechanism left or some are coming up that probably can reverse some of this wrong doing. Or there’s a voice of moderation that can help express different POV.
Yesterday CNN IBN & NDTV gave prime time media coverage claiming that PAKI players were wrongly snubbed in IPL. There default position was not that, it’s quite possible that on Indian Premier League, viewers didn’t want players from a terrorist state which not so long ago created havoc and killed our own people.
China is the largest exporter towards North Korea. Last month a plane was captured in Thailand, that was carrying one of the largest weapon cache from North Korea headed to Sri Lanka. Considering all that I would assume China is surely exporting little more than just Food Grains and Cloths to North Korea [in spite of sanctions]. There are similar other large scale violation exist inside China itself, but their press goes silent. In fact in some cases it reverses the story and yet again uses this as a mechanism to brainwash people.
Now that’s a very significant difference in my opinion. Continued misuse of information medium can create a whole new version of truth and have a whole bunch of generation of people who only believe something that’s entirely government created.
Hope you caught the CNN piece on Taliban classrooms. They were painted with Afgan household placed in Flower Valley like landscapes running river of Honey and other good stuff – this was taught as Jannat and the students were told, those who take part in Jihad go to Jannat along with “72 virgins” [last part in quote was not there as original quote, but my creative addition
]
In India the manipulation remains in following form,
Kerala Text Books teach Communism in India as part of History Lesson
BJP tried to push some hindu mythology in North Indian books
Congress used CBI to put a lid on Bofors
Mayawati immortalizes herself with public money
I rest my case
@ You Know who…
thanks for giving it so much thought. much appreciated. i guess the takeaway from this is that no country’s perfect. its up to each of us to decide for ourselves what works for us. for me, the end holds more value than the means. so yes, i still will continue drinking the China kool-aid. but yes, i still enjoy the freedom of speech that my country provides. would i have been able to post something like this in china? hell, no. so, lets drink to India, to China,..who cares? lets drink anyway;-)