The New Nation, Bangladesh

Jyoti Basu’s legacy
Khaled

Former Chief Minister of West Bengal died on Saturday. Ideologically he was left communist but lost support of China after CPI (M) leaders Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mozumder led an abortive peasants' uprising at Naxalbari, West Bengal in 1967. Still he won the provincial assembly election in 1977 to become Chief Minister and held that office till 2000 A.D. In this regard, it is necessary to define who was left communist and who was right communist?Those, who among the communists, supported Chinese policy in international communist movement were called left communists and those who supported Soviet line of peaceful co-existence with the imperialists were branded as right communists. Again those who supported Naxanbari uprising were being called ultra-left communists. Thus, the Indian communists were divided into three lines-right communists, left communists and ultra-left communists. Jyoti Basu belonged to second group. The student's front of the communists was also divided into SF (Left) and SF (right).The wave of division did not spare former East Pakistan also as we found former East Pakistan Students Union (Menon Group) divided into two groups namely Bangla Chhatra Union and Biplobi Chhatra Union sometimes in late 1969. NAP (Bhasani) was split into three factions. The leaders of two factions killed any one whom they thought political rivals calling them 'class enemy'.But with the fall of Soviet Union and change of power in China from left to right, the communists of India and Bangladesh lost their identities and began to pursue the policy of sharing power with the Pro-American rightists.Jyoti Basu got a chance to become Prime Minister of India in 2004, which the Politburo of CPI (M) rejected. The former chief minister of West Bengal remarked: It is a historical mistake. It meant that he had desire to become PM of India sharing power with the rightwing Congress.Another thing is that Mr. Basu like other communists believed economic emancipation of people was possible if Marxian economy was implemented.. But he did not know that the basic principles of Marxian economy lie in Islami economy for which he and his followers are afraid of Islam as State power.