The Left Front may win another election, but the time has come to look beyond Basu.
The communist government of West Bengal may have managed to become the longest-serving popularly elected government in the world, but if the lack of enthusiasm among the common people for its 22nd anniversary is any indication, longevity is probably the only distinction it has managed to achieve. Spontaneous celebrations were absent both in Calcutta and elsewhere in the state in the month of June which marked the completion of 22 red years in West Bengal. The festivities remained confined to receptions and get-togethers hosted by the government. The masses were left to despondently contemplate an uncertain future.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) captured power in West Bengal in 1977 heading a coalition of broadly socialist parties known as the Left Front, in the first post-Emergency elections held in India. Its performance in the intervening years has been nothing to crow about. In education, West Bengal has slid from 6th to 17th position in the country. Contrary to the government's tall claims, the state lags behind others in business and industry, occupying the 14th position in the industrial table. Investors, once driven out by the militant Left-backed trade unions, are refusing to return fear-ing a repetition of the turbulent 1960s, and this despite chief minister Jyoti Basu's all-out efforts to lure big industry into the state.
The question, however, remains as to how the communists, "tamed and co-opted" as they were by political realities and constitutional norms of behaviour, have managed to maintain their hold over West Bengal, winning election after election against an established national party like the Congress. And also how the party's helmsman, Jyoti Basu, has emerged as India's longest-serving chief minister, heading the government for five consecutive terms since 1977. The answer may lie in a deeper look at the Jyoti Basu phenomenon.