Basu’s Middle Path
Experiments in Indian Politics
Jyoti Malhotra
Jyoti Malhotra
20 January 2010
Russia’s recently-returned ambassador to India Vyacheslav Trubnikov tells a wonderful story about the Indian genius of political opponents maintaining private friendships, with starring roles played by Communist party patriarch Jyoti Basu, who died in Kolkata on Sunday and Atal Behari Vajpayee, Hindu nationalist leader and the right-wing hero of our times, now in the autumn of his own life, pretty much silenced by a stroke.
The story relates to the 1960s, when both Basu and Vajpayee were members of Parliament in Delhi and Trubnikov was a correspondent with TASS, the Soviet news agency. This is when the latter was witness to a particularly debilitating exchange of views between Basu and Vajpayee inside the House. Some time later after the debate was done, Trubnikov strolled outside the House to the cafeteria, where he found — to his utmost surprise! — Basu and Vajpayee having a cup of tea together. What happened, asked a somewhat agitated Trubnikov of the two gentlemen, wondering if he had fallen prey to an especially duplicitous vision, or, perhaps, he was just seeing things?
Not at all, reassured Vajpayee, seating Trubnikov down. You see, unlike in the Soviet Union, we don’t have a Gulag in India to which we can send dissenters. Here, we can agree to disagree, but we can’t do it too violently!
Basu, one of the greatest authors of the Indian way of life known as the Middle Path, died in his beloved Kolkata on Sunday, the subject of much adulation as well as criticism.
Vajpayee, a leader of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who led his party to electoral victory twice, has been similarly accused of several ideological flip-flops in public life, but has also been feted for his ability to step out of the circle of his own beliefs and reach out to the opposition.
Jyoti Basu’s greatest achievements and defeats have been extensively chronicled in the Indian media, especially the morning after his demise, but perhaps his greatest attribute was his ability to draw people of widely conflicted beliefs together and broker a compromise.
Basu was the inheritor of the quintessential ‘Bengali bhadralok,’ a genteel, petty-bourgeois tradition which continues to revere both god and family values, and although Basu dispensed with the former — he willed that his body be given up to medical research, something neither Lenin, nor Deng Xiaoping, Stalin or Ho Chi Minh did — he was too well brought-up to reject the latter.
Bengal, the bedrock of the mother goddess cult, adopted Basu as one of its own. The Communist understood the power of religion and never denigrated it — a key difference from Communists the world over, whether in China or in the erstwhile Soviet Union.
Unlike Stalin, however, Basu was able to forge lasting coalitions with people of his own ilk, especially other Leftists. While Stalin hunted down his adversaries, including Trotsky, Basu persuaded the small Left Front parties to participate in a Left Front coalition that has not only been a formidable force in hometown Bengal for over 30 years, but also shaped several governments in Delhi.
Unlike Deng Xiaoping, meanwhile, Basu was never able to rise above the Party line to nationalise Bengal’s Communist experiment, reinforced by its path-breaking agrarian reform. (He acknowledged later that it was a “historic blunder” that could have changed the course of Indian politics.) But when Deng cracked down on the 1989 students movements at Tiananmen square and large parts of Communist India applauded, Basu was horrified.
Basu’s place in Indian history is assured for several reasons, but perhaps his most important contribution was his ability to straddle the golden mean so that Left politics was always relevant to the people.
After the 1962 border conflict with China and the 1965 war with Pakistan, Basu felt India should initiate dialogue with both nations because it was the chauvinist elites, not the people responsible for the wars in the first place. This burning desire, to remain relevant to the ever-changing political landscape, allowed him to adapt constantly. Basu tried to persuade his unrepentant comrades in the Party not to oppose Manmohan Singh government’s decision to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal, even if the US was the proverbial red rag to the Communist bull.
The Left parties rejected Basu’s advice. The consequent drubbing they received in the elections last year has meant that today, they are a pale shadow of their former selves, toothless and torn, unable to deal or bargain or strike a chord with mainstream India. That’s why Jyoti Basu’s passing is a milestone in India’s history His life was yet another manifestation of the middle path experiment that makes this country just a little bit different. Question is, whether the Left is willing to learn from it.
Russia’s recently-returned ambassador to India Vyacheslav Trubnikov tells a wonderful story about the Indian genius of political opponents maintaining private friendships, with starring roles played by Communist party patriarch Jyoti Basu, who died in Kolkata on Sunday and Atal Behari Vajpayee, Hindu nationalist leader and the right-wing hero of our times, now in the autumn of his own life, pretty much silenced by a stroke.
The story relates to the 1960s, when both Basu and Vajpayee were members of Parliament in Delhi and Trubnikov was a correspondent with TASS, the Soviet news agency. This is when the latter was witness to a particularly debilitating exchange of views between Basu and Vajpayee inside the House. Some time later after the debate was done, Trubnikov strolled outside the House to the cafeteria, where he found — to his utmost surprise! — Basu and Vajpayee having a cup of tea together. What happened, asked a somewhat agitated Trubnikov of the two gentlemen, wondering if he had fallen prey to an especially duplicitous vision, or, perhaps, he was just seeing things?
Not at all, reassured Vajpayee, seating Trubnikov down. You see, unlike in the Soviet Union, we don’t have a Gulag in India to which we can send dissenters. Here, we can agree to disagree, but we can’t do it too violently!
Basu, one of the greatest authors of the Indian way of life known as the Middle Path, died in his beloved Kolkata on Sunday, the subject of much adulation as well as criticism.
Vajpayee, a leader of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who led his party to electoral victory twice, has been similarly accused of several ideological flip-flops in public life, but has also been feted for his ability to step out of the circle of his own beliefs and reach out to the opposition.
Jyoti Basu’s greatest achievements and defeats have been extensively chronicled in the Indian media, especially the morning after his demise, but perhaps his greatest attribute was his ability to draw people of widely conflicted beliefs together and broker a compromise.
Basu was the inheritor of the quintessential ‘Bengali bhadralok,’ a genteel, petty-bourgeois tradition which continues to revere both god and family values, and although Basu dispensed with the former — he willed that his body be given up to medical research, something neither Lenin, nor Deng Xiaoping, Stalin or Ho Chi Minh did — he was too well brought-up to reject the latter.
Bengal, the bedrock of the mother goddess cult, adopted Basu as one of its own. The Communist understood the power of religion and never denigrated it — a key difference from Communists the world over, whether in China or in the erstwhile Soviet Union.
Unlike Stalin, however, Basu was able to forge lasting coalitions with people of his own ilk, especially other Leftists. While Stalin hunted down his adversaries, including Trotsky, Basu persuaded the small Left Front parties to participate in a Left Front coalition that has not only been a formidable force in hometown Bengal for over 30 years, but also shaped several governments in Delhi.
Unlike Deng Xiaoping, meanwhile, Basu was never able to rise above the Party line to nationalise Bengal’s Communist experiment, reinforced by its path-breaking agrarian reform. (He acknowledged later that it was a “historic blunder” that could have changed the course of Indian politics.) But when Deng cracked down on the 1989 students movements at Tiananmen square and large parts of Communist India applauded, Basu was horrified.
Basu’s place in Indian history is assured for several reasons, but perhaps his most important contribution was his ability to straddle the golden mean so that Left politics was always relevant to the people.
After the 1962 border conflict with China and the 1965 war with Pakistan, Basu felt India should initiate dialogue with both nations because it was the chauvinist elites, not the people responsible for the wars in the first place. This burning desire, to remain relevant to the ever-changing political landscape, allowed him to adapt constantly. Basu tried to persuade his unrepentant comrades in the Party not to oppose Manmohan Singh government’s decision to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal, even if the US was the proverbial red rag to the Communist bull.
The Left parties rejected Basu’s advice. The consequent drubbing they received in the elections last year has meant that today, they are a pale shadow of their former selves, toothless and torn, unable to deal or bargain or strike a chord with mainstream India. That’s why Jyoti Basu’s passing is a milestone in India’s history His life was yet another manifestation of the middle path experiment that makes this country just a little bit different. Question is, whether the Left is willing to learn from it.
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