The Rediff Special/Surabhi Banerjee

'The view the majority held was wrong. It was a historical blunder'

Basu himself is quite articulate on this 'gross political mistake' as he would prefer to call it. 'Why did the party take such a stubborn stand against your becoming prime minister and the party joining the government?' this writer asked him.

'Apparently it was the lack of proper political understanding, I would say, which stood in their way of reacting positively to the situation. The view the majority held was wrong,' Basu replied. 'It was a historical blunder.' The episode lingers painfully in his mind. That the party could not realise the worth of his stand on the vital decision is an affront to his reading of the situation.

'The people would always blame us as they had blamed us for not supporting Morarji Desai's government,' Basu says. 'I was in Bucharest on a holiday. I was on the beach when I had a phone call from Prime Minister Morarji Desai. He said that I was immediately wanted in India for his government was in crisis. I hate being dragged into home affairs, unless it is imperative, when I am abroad. But I decided that our support should not withdrawn, because since Morarji did not have the majority, in any case his government would have to fall. There was no necessity of withdrawing our support. But before I had returned to India, the party had already taken the decision of not supporting him and had made the blunder. But I was in a minority... '

'Even Indira,' says Basu, 'who had no scruples when it came to politics, gave the government support, and our party was blamed for the fall of the Morarji government and later it facilitated Indira's comeback. It was a mistake, but perhaps not as great as the one in mid-May 1996,' he says sadly.

The decision to abstain from government and prevent Jyoti Basu from becoming prime minister was obviously not wholly an ideological one. A Central Committee member said, 'The Washington Post had headlines calling Jyoti Basu the future prime minister of India and so did The New York Times. Why was the American press playing it up? Wasn't this all international? It's a matter of grave concern.'

Another member said. 'He's old enough to look after the state and here we have a number of competent administrators who help him in his work. He is not going to get the same sort of support at the Centre. The people in our state who supported his proposed prime ministership have, of course, their own views.' Basu dismisses their logic and their arguments, theoretical or ideological, as 'absurd'.

He has an unequalled record of running a Communist government for two decades now, heading a coalition which often pulls in different directions. No wonder he aroused the curiosity of the media and the question inevitably arose as to what would be his stand if he were offered the post of prime minister. This writer's impression in the course of interacting with him has always been that he would be genuinely reluctant to accept it. He has never been an aspirant for premiership. But his agreeing to have his name put forward for prime minister had little to do with personal ambition.

When The Guardian of London interviewed him immediately before the election, he said an unequivocal no to the possibility. The reporter from The Guardian later said to this writer, 'Everybody usually says no to such questions, but I think you're right, I also feel that he really meant it. He was absolutely honest.' Basu never tires of saying why he decided to accept if his name were proposed: it would be for the good of the nation.

Many people felt that his vast experience in leading coalition governments to power, in running a government and in party politics would have benefited the party and the country. As one political analyst said: 'This was going to be a watershed date in the history of the CPI-M. It was also described as a sign of the party's growing up, coming of age, because if Basu became the prime minister, the CPI-M would grow from a regional party to a party of national calibre, in the real sense of the word. Its policy would be dictated by what it perceived to be in the interest of India, not of West Bengal and Kerala alone.'

Excerpted from Jyoti Basu, by Surabhi Banerjee, Viking, 1997, Rs 400, with the publisher's permission.

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