Buddhadeb's vision vs Basu's caution: The debate that shaped Bengal's future

The 30th anniversary celebrations of Left Front rule in Bengal had just concluded at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata around June 2007. CPI(M) veteran Jyoti Basu, who was in his 90s, had already delivered his speech but remained on stage even as supporters began to leave the crowded venue. This was unusual given his declining health and infrequent public appearances. Shortly after, Basu was seen in an intense discussion with then-chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, his frown visible from a distance. Biman Bose, then Left Front chairman and party state unit secretary, soon joined what appeared to be more of a debate than a conversation. This was highly unusual since Basu's public demeanor was typically calm, and the party rarely aired its differences outside its Alimuddin Street headquarters.

The divide was clear by then: it was Basu against Bhattacharjee and Bose, who clearly agreed to disagree. Soon, Roopchand Pal, the now-deceased Hooghly district leader and former MP, was called on stage. Minutes later, when Basu left the stage looking more troubled than before, a group of journalists and lower-ranked Left comrades surrounded Pal backstage for information.

“The old man isn’t thinking straight. This is about those villagers in Singur’s Bajemelia who resisted the Tata officials during their site visit in Singur, showing them brooms and chappals. He watched that on TV at home and is very worried. He thinks things are spiraling out of control. Buddha-da called me to convince him otherwise, and I told him that our panchayat and peasant fronts are so strong in that region that this tiny spark would be extinguished before it even begins. There is no danger to the small car factory in Singur,” Pal boasted.

A year and a quarter later, when Ratan Tata announced his decision to move the Nano project out of Bengal, the memory of that day at Netaji Indoor Stadium surely haunted the few journalists present, shadowed by the defeated look on Bhattacharjee’s face. Many struggled to understand how a leader of a time-tested Left alliance, who had been voted to power with an overwhelming majority of 235 seats in a 294-member Assembly just two years earlier, could so quickly lose touch with the grassroots and fail to recognize the growing disillusionment with the ruling political establishment of over three decades. This, despite an ailing nonagenarian leader confined to his residence, sounding the alarm well in advance.

While the rest, as they say, is history, Bhattacharjee certainly cemented his place in Bengal’s political landscape as a leader whose visions for industrializing the state were thwarted by the problematic dynamics of land acquisition. Bhattacharjee called the political and violent resistance to land acquisition at both Nandigram and Singur “blips” on the inevitable path to industrializing the state, a conviction he is believed to have pursued doggedly both within his party and outside.

What most would remember, however, is the cruel irony of that conviction ultimately becoming the downfall for him and the party he led at the time. Perhaps the last of the quintessential 'Bhadralok' politicians of the state, whose trademark crisp white dhoti-kurta and Kohlapuri chappal perfectly matched his grey hair and unblemished political career, Bhattacharjee’s love for literature, films, cricket, afternoon naps, black coffee, and cigarettes embodied the varied interests of the decadent Bengali intelligentsia that millennials might relate to.

Sadly, his inability to bridge the gap between his government’s plans to secure the state’s future and the ground reality of people’s aspirations, fueled by opposing political forces, is likely a regret Bhattacharjee harbored until his last breath.