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But I decided that our support should not withdrawn, because since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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