JYOTI BASU believed that “it is man and man alone who creates history. Despite many crests and thrusts people will finally emerge victorious and go in freedom in a classless society free from exploitation of any form.”
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20101105
CPI(M) planning Basu museum in Rajarhat
Debashis Konar, TNN, Oct 11, 2010, 06.27am IST
KOLKATA: With Rajarhat being rechristened Jyoti Basu Nagar last week, CPI(M) leaders are planning to set up a museum in the township in memory of the departed leader.
Two CPI(M) leaders, Rabin Deb and Avik Dutta, went to Basu's residence, Indira Bhawan in Salt Lake, and collected some of his belongings on Sunday. Basu had lived there for the last few years of his life.
The word coming out is that CPI(M) leaders, being apprehensive about the outcome of the 2011 Assembly polls after a spate of election drubbings, are not eager on the museum coming up at Indira Bhawan, a government property. If the government changes next year, a museum there might lead to unnecessary complications. The idea is to set it up on a private property in Rajarhat, though no location has been finalised yet, a senior leader said.
Party insiders said that Deb and Dutta went to Indira Bhawan to go through the late leader's belongings and decide on which ones would be displayed in the museum.
Both the leaders were tightlipped about the issue, but party insiders said that Deb, a state secretariat member, had picked up some of Basu's belongings, which would be handed over to party functionaries at Alimuddin Street.
A life-size wax statue of the Marxist leader standing at Indira Bhawan will be shifted to the museum. Even the chair on which Basu used to sit is likely to be among the exhibits. The memorial will have a photo gallery featuring important moments from the leader's life. Party leaders are on the lookout for rare photographs of Basu. Copies of these will also be sold to visitors.
Documentaries on Basu, news clippings and films showcasing the leader will also be there for the visitors and specially the new generation to know about the legendary Marxist chief-minister.
Some of Basu's favourite books will also be on display at the museum and along with books on Basu. Speeches and the writings of Basu will be a major attraction for the visitors.
The party leaders also have plans to sell all compilations of Basu's lectures. There will be an audio-video section at the museum where speeches of Basu as CM and CPM leader will be aired. These cassettes and CDs will also be in the purchase section.
However, Basu's former aide Joykrishna Ghosh, who holds office in Indira Bhawan, denied that any item belonging to the leader was taken out by Deb and Dutta on Sunday. He said that all the belongings of Basu were intact at Indira Bhawan.
Rajarhat-Newton rechristened 'Jyoti Basu Nagar'
Kolkata, Oct 7th, 2010: The Rajarhat-Newtown, located on the city's North-Eastern fringe and sprawled over a land area of 3,080 hectares, was today named after CPI(M) patriarch late Jyoti Basu, who breathed his last in January this year.
Addressing a huge crowd that stood in the rain for hours to be present at the occasion, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said that the town was a result of years of planning by the State government and Jyoti Basu had also been closely involved during the initial stages. Chief Minister pointed out that “those who gave their land for the project have not been forgotten and that most of them will find jobs and homes within Jyoti Basu Nagar.” It was in the year 1995, the township was envisaged by Basu, the Chief Minister recalled.
Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee was also present, sharing the dais with Mr. Bhattacharjee and senior leaders of several political parties.Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and other party leaders, however, stayed away.
Comparing the naming of the town after Jyoti Basu with that of the nearby Salt Lake area after another political stalwart of the State, Bidhan Chandra Roy, also a former Chief Minister, Mr. Chatterjee said that “the process of urbanisation cannot be stopped in the State.” People are continuously pouring into cities from villages in quest of a better life, he said.
Speaking about the vision for Jyoti Basu Nagar, Mr. Bhattacharjee said that once the town was fully developed, ten lakh people will live there permanently and another five lakh will find employment in the various offices and knowledge-based industry that will be set up there. Besides, a Rabindranath Tagore campus, housing the works of the poet, would come up in the township.
“For historical reasons, Kolkata has remained the only major city in the State. But, 70 lakh people live in Kolkata and the pressure on the city is far too much,” he added.
"It is remarkable that such a huge project with so many roads and houses had been implemented without any government-money,” Mr. Bhattacharjee said, appreciating the efforts of cabinet colleague and Minister for Housing, Gautam Deb.
Mr. Bhattacharjee also pointed out that about 50 percent of the town's housing facilities had been set aside for people from the lower and middle classes. Around 50 per cent of the township would comprise human habitation, including water bodies, and an art gallery be set up on a land area of ten cottahs, Mr Bhattacharjee added. The Chief Minister also unveiled the plaque for a children's park in the area.
''The statelite town will ease the pressure borne by Kolkata. People hailing from both rich and middle classes would reside in the township that will also house a financial hub armed with banking facilities,'' Mr Bhattacharjee informed and said facities for opening embassies would also be provided.
Addressing the gathering, state Minister for Housing Gautam Deb said the township had so far witnessed an investment of Rs 13,000 crore, adding altogether 20,000 IT personnel were working in various units across the area.
Somnath sets up health centre, names it after Jyoti Basu
Press Trust of India
Posted online: Mon Oct 04 2010, 04:02 hrs
Santiniketan (WB) : Announcing his decision to do social work after retirement from politics, former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has set up a health centre for the poor and named it after his ‘mentor’ Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu.
“My age does not suit active politics anymore. Before my retirement from politics I had planned to do social work. I want to do something for the common man through social service,” the former CPI(M) leader said after inaugurating ‘Jyoti Basu Seva Kendra’ here on Saturday.
Run by Niramal Chandra Binapani Trust, set up by Chatterjee and named after his late parents, the ‘seva kendra’ would provide medical help to the poor and needy.
“I have named it after Basu, as it was he who had influenced and inspired me most in my life,” Chatterjee said during the inauguration on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. PTI
20100922
JYOTI BASU MEMORIAL
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Time’s work A young Jyoti Basu (second from left) in a family photo in Nagapada Bangladesh plans a memorial at Jyoti Basu’s ancestral village
We drive 10 km down the Dhaka-Chittagong highway and swing into the interiors, only to crawl along the narrow road meandering under a canopy of banana and palm leaves. Strewn on either side are white shipla or water lilies, Bangladesh’s national flower. Beyond the road, as far as the eye can see, farmers in quaint hand-made boats are fishing in water-logged paddy fields. After about 10 km, we come upon, and stare bewitched at, the Meghna river—a tributary of the Brahmaputra but just as mighty and expansive. Here the road turns a bend, suddenly bringing into view Chowdhury Para, a hamlet in Barodi pargana of the Sonargaon subdivision. In this nondescript village is located the ancestral house of Jyoti Basu, the late Marxist leader, one who shaped the redoubtable election-winning CPI(M) regime in West Bengal and dominated Bengal politics for three decades.
Chowdhury Para has acquired fame here in recent weeks, courtesy the Bangladesh government’s decision to convert Basu’s ancestral house, called Nagapada, into a library-cum-tourist complex. This could well inaugurate a new chapter in Indo-Bangladesh relations, often marked by suspicion, animosity and, occasionally, armed skirmishes along the porous border. It could—who knows—even become a symbol of common civilisational links between the two countries, torn asunder so cruelly six decades ago.
It isn’t difficult for us to locate Nagapada, a two-storeyed structure squatting, rather gloomily, on 2.04 acres. This was the residence of Jyoti Basu’s father, Nishikanta Bose, who later took on the other variant spelling of Bose—Basu. Though the East Pakistan government impounded much of what Nishikanta owned as enemy property after Partition, Nagapada’s relatively small size suggest a modest land-holding. On the ground floor are two rooms and a public meeting place; a staircase leads to another two rooms and a drawing room upstairs.
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Shahidul and family at the house (Photographs by Rakib Ahmed)
Time hasn’t spared Nagapada—the paint has peeled off, the driveway linking the entrance to the rear is overgrown with weeds. Yet, miraculously, a piece of the past survives here, not only through the framed, sepia-faded family photos that still hang on the walls, or the odd surviving armchair or bedstead. It is nurtured by the memory of 80-year-old Mohammmed Shahidul, the owner and caretaker of Basu’s ancestral house.
The government’s decision to convert Nagapada into a tourist complex should have enthused Shahidul, render light as it would his task of preserving the zamindari abode of Nishikanta. Instead, he is inconsolable at its very mention. Subjected to the whims of history—two partitions and torn homes—he fears the project would blight his last days. “It will be painful, very, very painful if I am asked to leave, at this stage in life,” he laments amid loud sobs. You can’t but empathise—four generations of his family, starting with his mother Ayatonissa, have lived in Nagapada. This is his home; he has nowhere to go.
After he recovers, he talks of olden days, about the zamindari. From Shahidul’s account, it seems Nishikanta came from Bikrampur, and married Sharatchandra Das’s only daughter, Hemlata Das, Jyoti Basu’s mother. He settled in this village, but in another house, which hasn’t survived. When Shahidul was 15, the Boses or Basus left Chowdhury Para for good. Shahidul’s mother Ayatonissa, a family retainer, got Nagapada; the other building where Nishikanta Bose had stayed was gifted to her brother Abdul Ghaffar. The property transfer was executed through power of attorney.
The ambiguities of history notwithstanding, most here fondly remember Dr Nishikanta Bose, a doctor who attended poor patients for free. “And when times were bad and crops failed, the Boses would waive the land revenue of the sharecroppers,” says Shahidul. Agrees another older denizen, Zakir, “Bose was a public-spirited doctor who would visit his patients at home, particularly those who were in serious condition.” In those days, it was considered unthinkable for the zamindar to visit a ryot’s home—and many in the village wonder at what we today consider an ordinary gesture. The family’s zamindari was also benign, even benevolent, in comparison to other estates. As Rahmatullah recalls, “Zamindar Nishikanta Bose was unlike other zamindars who often perpetrated atrocities on tenants.”
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Basu’s ancestral house in Bangladesh (Photographs by Rakib Ahmed)
Memory’s Last Stand
- Nagapada is Jyoti Basu’s ancestral house. It’s located in Chowdhury Para of Sonargaon subdivision, 20 km from Dhaka
- It’s a two-storeyed house, built on 2.04 acres
- The government plans to convert it into a library-cum-tourist complex, and a memorial. Expected to be complete in 2012.
- Those living in Nagapada for four generations fear eviction
***
Jyoti Basu, too, never forgot the caretakers of Nagapada. Dates don’t come to him easily at this age, but Shahidul recalls meeting Basu in Writer’s Building and in the Basu household in Calcutta. He says the leader would affectionately address him as ‘Kaka’ and ‘Baboo’. For his part, Basu could visit Chowdhury Para only twice—in January 1987 and November 1999.
Gen Ershad was in power in 1987. Senior journalist Rahman Jahangir recalls that Basu landed in Chowdhury Para in a helicopter and addressed an impromptu gathering of locals. The one single memory of that speech which stands out, says Jahangir, was Basu’s repeated reference to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as ‘Mujib’, a near-blasphemy in these parts, where even the leader’s bitterest detractors would address him as Bangabandhu. The two leaders became friends during the Awami League’s government-in-exile that operated out of Calcutta, spearheading the fight against Pakistan. “The Communists played a key part in hosting nearly 10 million Bangladeshi refugees, which neither Mujib nor his daughter Sheikh Hasina ever forgot,” says Jahangir.
Basu next visited Bangladesh in 1999, at the invitation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who perhaps wanted to show her appreciation of the salutary role he played in India ratifying the treaty that assured supply of the Ganga waters to Bangladesh for 30 years. “No Bangladeshi leader, not even Sheikh Mujib, had managed what his daughter achieved. Jyoti Basu helped brighten Hasina’s image as the leader who had almost achieved the impossible for Bangladesh,” adds Jahangir.
No wonder then that Hasina has put her formidable weight behind the idea of converting Nagapada into a library-cum-tourist complex. Says Awami League leader Obaidul Qader, who has been entrusted to oversee the project, “The PM has also cleared my proposal for the construction of a memorial. It will be completed by 2012.” A pause later, he adds, “He is a great leader of the subcontinent. And he was from Bangladesh. So he was a Bangladeshi as well. The people here love him.”
http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?266972
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20100826
Jyoti Basu Nagar beckons Rajarhat New Town
TNN, Aug 26, 2010, 12.58am IST
KOLKATA: Come October, Rajarhat New Town will be rechristened Jyoti Basu Nagar. The children's park here will also be named after the country's longest-serving chief minister. Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) plans to celebrate the naming ceremony of the township -- close to Salt Lake aka Bidhannagar named after Basu's senior and former CM Bidhan Chandra Roy -- with various cultural programmes through the month.
"We will install a statue of Jyoti Basu at the new township. Chief minister Buddadeb Bhattacharjee will be present on the occasion," said state housing minister Gautam Deb, who has reportedly sent an invite to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with a request to lay the foundation stone of the business hub, Dalhousie.
"We want the PM to lay the foundation stone for the project. Many senior central government officials will be present on the occasion," said Deb, who also planned to invite railway minister Mamata Banerjee even as she had stayed away from a similar programme at New Town earlier.
Announcing Rs 250 crore for Metro to share the cost of setting up a tube network up to Rajarhat, the minister added, "We will give land for free and also inform Banerjee about it."
Upbeat about Infosys chairman NR Narayana Murthy seeking a presence at New Town, Deb said, "Murthy had positive talks with the
CM and state IT minister Debes Das. Infosys officials saw the land and wanted to know how much floor area ratio (FAR) they could get. We will give them the best deal because the CM too is keen on having Infosys in the state," Deb said.
With plans of a government school, college and hospital in the new township, he added, "We have allotted 20 acre to SSKM hospital for setting up its new campus. We will also try and get a hospital here along the lines of AIIMS with the help of Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad."
With 20,000 flats reportedly ready for an inauguration on September 6, the minister said, "We have requested Banerjee to hand over the keys to the occupants, but a reply from her is still awaited. We had also invited Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, but he conveyed his inability to come." This apart, there will be 10,000 new flats for the lower income group, of which 5,000 flats will be reserved for landlosers.
Deb took the opportunity to clear the controversy over distribution of plots to individuals under Hidco chairman and special quotas.
"We have so far distributed 296 plots to individuals and cooperatives under the chairman's quota and 184 plots under the special quota. Transparency has been maintained in the entire process," the minister added.
20100819
Jyoti Basu’s house in Bangladesh being converted into a tourist centre
| By Rahman Jahangir Dhaka, Aug 17 (APP)- Bangladesh is going to honour veteran Indian Communist leader and former West Bengal Chief Minister late Jyoti Basu by setting up a library and a tourist centre at his ancestral house in Chowdhury Para, Barodi, under Sanargaon sub-district, about 20 km from the capital. Following a directive from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to this effect, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs finalised the decision in a recent meeting with its Secretary Hedayetullah al Mamun. The tourism ministry has also given consent to the proposal. Since the government is now waiting to get a nod from his family members living in Kolkata, the foreign ministry has asked the Bangladesh’s Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata to obtain the permission from his family members, as Bangladesh wants to preserve the house having memories of the veteran Bengali leader.
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