Misplaced obituary
Vijay Prashad's obit-piece A Marxist and a Gentleman on Jyoti Basu, arguably one of the few balanced Marxists, makes for depressive reading, beginning with an artificial separation between a Marxist and a gentleman.
Prashad seems to have bantered Dr Ashok Mitra who said – when he was the finance minister of the first Left Front government in West Bengal – "I am a communist, not a bhadralok". The fashion of using 'bhadralok' or gentleman, was a borrowed from the neo-colonialist historian of Cambridge School, J H Broomfield who criticized the section of intellectuals who expressed solidarity with peasant protests against zamindars (in league with the colonial rulers) in the 19th century Bengal – as exploiters and described the British ICS officers as 'ma-baap' (parents) of natives. Marxist historian Narahari Kaviraj exposed the neo-colonial school, discovering that the word 'bhadralok' was used in anger in a report of a divisional commissioner in 1871. Those who were inciting the poor peasants are ' privileged bhadralok', the British civilian wrote.
Prashad's comment on Naxalism–"reckless Naxalites undone by their misreading of the historical moment"– is incongruent in an obituary, as are his sweeping observations about Basu's service to Communism in Bengal or for that matter for India. The moment the CPI(M)-led Left Front government in West Bengal entered into a joint sector project in 1985 with the RP Goenka group for a petrochemical venture at Haldia in West Bengal, it represented CPI(M)'s collaboration with monopoly capitalism (it must be noted that Lenin in Imperialism, the Latest Stage of Capitalism, termed monopoly capital as "the economic essence of imperialism"). In the early 1970s, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi mooted the 'joint sector', both CPI(M) and CPI vehemently criticized her for an anti-people and rightwing drift. Even then, the debate about whether the joint sector was a 'strategic retreat' or reformist-shift must be carried out elsewhere, rather than in an obituary.
Prashad's exercise is contaminated with suppression and distortion of facts in order to denigrate the opposition. He does not seem to endorse Rosa Luxemburg's perception of democratic practice "Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently". Which is why he mentions like a devout poster-boy of CPI(M) how many CPI(M) members were killed in 1970-71 but is silent about Naxalites. This writer profoundly differs with Maoism or Naxalism politically and ideologically but criticizes the killings of hundreds of Naxalites by the Congress government in the 1970s, a number at least 30 times more than the CPI(M) cadres and sympathizers, killed by the same government. This too is equally condemnable because such brutalities are a mockery of our democracy.
Our scholastic Leftist wrote that "over 200 CPM supporters have been brutally assassinated by the Maoists-TMC in the western districts of West Bengal" but is silent about the shameful killing of peaceful protesters at Nandigram on 14 March 2007, the death anniversary of Marx. Live telecasts are irrefutable proof of collusion between the police (the police minister being none other than the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, a politburo member of the CPI(M)) and CPI(M) cadres wearing police uniform and chappals. The Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi described the incident as "cold horror". A judgment by the division bench of the High Court of Calcutta indicted the state administration for killings, rape and disappearances, ordered payment of compensation which Bhattacharjee agreed to pay but resorted to calculated delay through an appeal at the Supreme Court where it has been pending for over 18 months. In November 2007, there was more brutality – over 50 killed or disappeared and dozens raped. Needless to say, CPI(M) publications make no mention of these atrocities.
It is not that Prashad erred accidentally. In an article in the American leftist newsletter Counterpunch on May 23, 2007, he and Sudhanva Deshpande wrote: "Stories were blown out of context, and allegations flew around (sexual assaults, murders) that have since been shown to be false. The most sensational was the murder of a young woman, Tapasi Malik, who had been a leader in the Singur struggle against the land acquisition. The blogs and the capitalist media blamed this death on the CPM. The Central Bureau of Investigation is now of the view that she was killed by her father and brother." The two, like typical CPI(M) cadres at home in spreading lies accused the bereaved father and brother of the victim for her murder, without attributing it to any source, and passed it off as an assessment of the CBI (unnamed CBI officials). Tapasi, daughter of a landless agricultural labourer, was gang-raped and killed and for that the CPI(M)'s zonal secretary of Singur Suhrid Dutta was jailed. Although released on bail, the criminal case is still pending.
With apologies for the digression this writer had to resort to, in order to correct certain distortions. Falsities pollute obit-articles. Basu never indulged in factionalism and hated meanness unlike others including some otherwise-revered founders of CPI(M).
~Sankar Ray is a writer based in Calcutta.