CASKET OF POWER, CASCADE OF PEOPLE

- Unceasing flow to pay homage, followed by crack of rifles

The last journey of Jyoti Basu

MANINI CHATTERJEE

Calcutta, Jan. 19: There was no hysterical outpouring of raw grief, no unruly outburst of manufactured emotion, no orchestrated display of organisational might.

Today’s moving and fitting tribute to Jyoti Basu — Bengal’s most enduring icon and among the foremost national leaders of post-Independence India — came not from the three-volley rifle salute nor the galaxy of leaders and VVIPs who thronged the bedecked stage in the Assembly before a huge battery of television cameras.

It came, instead, from lakhs and lakhs of ordinary people — men and women from the city and its suburbs, from distant villages and far-flung districts — who stood patiently in serpentine queues and lined every inch of the roads his last journey meandered through, having gathered in silent clusters along the entire route.

Most of them had come on their own, not shepherded by local party bosses as to a Maidan rally; some of them had never voted for the CPM in their lives, and many had ceased to vote Red in recent years. Yet they came, in an unceasing flow from early morning till journey’s end at 4.40 in the evening, to pay a homage that was spontaneous yet sombre, heartfelt but restrained and entirely in keeping with the persona of the man they had come to say goodbye to.

An era had come to an end, they knew, and they had come to make their tryst with history.

For the CPM, Basu was the last of the nine-member politburo that formed the party back in 1964 and who, more than any other, became the best known communist in the annals of the movement in this country. The party, therefore, pulled out all the stops in giving him a befitting send-off — the entire extant politburo and several central committee members gathering at the party’s state headquarters at Alimuddin Street early this morning to offer Basu their Red salute.
For the Left Front government and alliance, Basu was their longest-serving chief minister who gave the state an enviable stability for decades (before it turned into the now vilified stagnation) and made Bengal the byword for land reforms and decentralisation of power. So the cortege made a brief but obligatory stop outside Writers’ Buildings where chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee placed a wreath on Basu’s body.

But long before he assumed the office of chief minister, Basu had been a central figure in the politics of Bengal — among the handful of political activists who combined mass work, trade unionism and legislative responsibilities with equal ease, entering the Assembly as far back as 1946.

Much more than being India’s longest-serving chief minister, Basu was the only Indian leader who spanned seven decades of active politics — starting before Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister and living to see his great-grandson enter the arena. That long and rich innings ensured that Basu would never be just a communist leader confined to just one state of the country but a towering personality with an appeal that transcended both party lines and provincial boundaries. His party may have blundered in not letting him be Prime Minister in 1996.

But today the CPM brass could not stop basking in Basu’s reflected national glory as leaders from across the political spectrum — Sonia Gandhi and L.K. Advani, Deve Gowda and Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad and Chandrababu Naidu and others big and small — flew down to Calcutta to personally pay their respects.

The presence of Sheikh Hasina from Bangladesh, and many Bangladesh Opposition leaders too confirmed that the Basu magic seeped beyond borders.

Yet, all the pomp and show, the rituals and honours bestowed on a frail old man who epitomised the cliché of being a legend in his lifetime faded before the humbling spectacle offered by the crowds — from jeans-clad youngsters to rural women in crumpled cotton saris, middle-class professionals to elderly peasants — who came out in their lakhs today.

It only deepened the inexplicable mystery of what made Basu the most formidable leader of the masses, though he resolutely refused to be a mass leader in the usual sense of the term. Basu never played to the gallery, he did not indulge in rhetorical flourishes or make fiery promises — in or out of power. He never lost his upper-class bearing and acquired some quintessentially English traits — spry and dapper in demeanour, wry and laconic in speech — that he did not shed long after he returned from London on New Year’s Day in 1940.

Despite this seeming lack of “mass leader” characteristics, or more likely because of it, he evoked a sense of awe and admiration among generations of Bengalis (and many non-Bengalis, too) who may not have supported his party or ideology.

Standing far behind in the queue outside the Assembly gates, Naren Chandra from Madhyamgram finds it difficult to articulate quite why he is here. He finally says: “Jyoti Basu was a good man. He was a straight man. He had no duplicity, no hypocrisy.”

Sadek Ali, a policeman from Howrah who has bunked work, says: “Jyoti Basu made us feel proud — everyone knows Bengal because of him.”

For others like Samir Ghatak of Serampore and Basudeb Maiti from a South 24-Parganas village, who hail from Left families and have gradually got disillusioned with the “rot” that has set in within the CPM, Basu brings back memories of the Left’s heyday — and they are paying homage not just to him but to their own erstwhile idealism and youth too.

Just as for Mira Banerjee from Jadavpur, bidding goodbye to Basu is to reaffirm her shaky faith in the future of the CPM. And 40-year-old Anindya, speaking for a generation that had little sympathy with the Left Front’s record of governance, says wistfully: “We grew up with the legend of Jyoti Basu long before we knew who he was. When I was a little kid, I believed that two entities would never die —Phantom and Jyoti Basu….”

Basu’s body was handed over to SSKM Hospital at the end of the day’s journey. Neuroscientists are keen to scan his brain. But neither medical science nor political analysis can quite explain the peculiar alchemy that enabled the no-nonsense pragmatist exercise such a mesmerising hold over his people — that came out in all its splendour today in the course of the patriarch’s last journey.

The turnoutAt Assembly and elsewhere
10 lakh

The moment3 granddaughters break down

8.26am

The last glimpseCortege leaves for SSKM Hospital
4.40pm

THE TELEGRAPH,

Issue Date: Wednesday , January 20 , 2010

Thousands throng to have a last glimpse of Basu

Kolkata, January 19, 2010: A sea of humanity bid a tearful farewell to Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu Tuesday with his comrades giving the last salute to the veteran leader, whose flower-bedecked body traversed the streets of Kolkata on its final journey.

Basu's reputation as a mass leader was reinforced as thousands of people lined the route of the procession and frantically tried to catch a last glimpse of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader, who had a 23-year stint as West Bengal chief minister from 1977 to 2000 -- the longest in India till now.

The scenes of public adulation were replayed at all the spots -- funeral parlour Peace Haven, the CPI-M state headquarters at Alimuddin Street, state secretariat Writer's Buildings, then the assembly. People peeked from windows and balconies, tried to break barricades and seemed to have literally taken over the streets of the city.

Touching scenes were witnessed as the hearse carrying Basu's body, draped in the party's red flag, reached the CPI-M headquarters Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan on Alimuddin Street, as all members of the politburo came out, their fists clenched in traditional communist salutes.With tears streaming down, party general secretary Prakash Karat, his colleague Sitaram Yechury, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, his Kerala and Tripura counterparts V.S. Achutananadan and Manik Sarkar as well as other leaders carried the body of the last surviving member of the party's founding politburo on their shoulders to place it on a makeshift platform built on the portico.

Former politburo member Samar Mukherjee, a year senior to the 95-year-old departed leader, looked quiet and sombre as he was the first to garland the body before taking a long last look at his comrade. With small photos of Basu pinned on their chests, the politburo members then gave floral tributes, followed by those of the party's central committee and the state committee.The granddaughters of the Marxist patriarch - Koel, Doel and Payel - broke down as they garlanded Basu, who died at a private city hospital Jan 17 after a long battle for life.

Senior party leaders and other partners of the Left Front looked grim, some of them sobbing, as they filed past the body. The entire stretch of Alimuddin Street was covered with red flags, festoons and banners with slogans and excerpts of Rabindranath Tagore's compositions like 'tomari houk joy' (may victory be yours) printed on them, as common people and cadres formed human chains on both sides of the road. After an hour-long stay, the cortege moved on, as Basu's body was placed in an open truck for better viewing.

At the next stop Writers' Buildings, Bhattacharjee paid floral tributes to his predecessor, as thousands of government employees and office-goers gathered to see the mass leader for the last time.Basu had stepped down as chief minister due to ill health and passed on the baton to his then deputy Bhattacharjee. CPI-M cadres in the procession sang The International, carried 96 flags at half mast and held aloft posters saying 'Jyoti Babu lal salaam'.

The next stop was the assembly, of which Basu was a member for 50 years between 1946 and 2001.With Basu slated to be honoured by the nation, four army men draped his body in ther Indian tricolour over the red flag at the assembly as senior political leaders and people paid their last respects. Basu's last journey had started from the funeral parlour Peace Haven - where the body had been kept since Sunday. Kolkata Police sergeants and three pilot cars were the vanguards of the cortege, with four other sergeants providing side cover - fitted with transparent fibre glass to enable people to have a last glimpse. Six red flags flew on the hearse at half mast.

Jyoti Basu's final journey begins

Kolkata,January 19, 2010: The body of veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu was taken in a hearse here this morning from a funeral parlour where it had been preserved since his death on January 17.

The hearse led by a pilot car of the Kolkata Police drove slowly to the CPI(M) party headquarters at Alimuddin Street, a distance of two km, where a large crowd had already gathered behind barricades on both sides of the A J C Bose Road. CPI(M) volunteers, dressed in white, stood in attention with lowered party flags in hand. The body took over half an hour to reach the party office as crowds swelled on roads inspite of the morning chill. When the hearse, decorated with white flowers and red party flags, reached Alimuddin Street, senior CPI(M) leaders greeted it with clenched fist salutes.

The body was taken down from the hearse by CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Left Front chairman Biman Bose, Industry minister Nirupam Sen and other senior leaders and placed on a platform. All senior CPI(M) leaders sported a white paper badge with 'Comrade Jyoti Basu Lal Salam' inscribed on it on their chests. After the body was placed on the platform, senior-most member of the CPI(M) in West Bengal, 97-year-old Samar Mukherjee was the first to place a wreath. He was followed by Karat, Yechury, S R Pillai, M K Pandhe, Brinda Karat and then by central committee members of the party.

Basu's body will be later taken to the state secretariat, Writers' Buildings, and then to the Assembly, from where it would set out on its final jouney to the SSKM hospital in the afternoon. Since Basu had donated his body there will be no funeral and it will be handed over to the state-run hospital. The veteran will be given a guard of honour before the body is handed over.