Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: Man with literary interests and simple tastes
The Statesman | 9 August 2024
Erstwhile Left Front chief minister and veteran communist leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, a man of rare integrity in politics, lived through both dreams and disillusionments. Dressed in traditional dhoti, kurta and Kolhapuri sandals, he epitomized the quintessential Bengali gentleman. He served as the chief minister for 11 years. He passed away on Thursday.
Born on 1 March, 1944, in north Kolkata, Bhattacharjee’s roots go back to present-day Bangladesh. He graduated from Shailendra Sircar Vidyalaya and later pursued Bengali Honours at Presidency College. Though related to poet Sukanta Bhattacharya, he was not deeply involved in student politics, initially. A sports enthusiast, he had to give up cricket due to eye problems but maintained his romanticism for the game, sharing a bond with Sourav Ganguly, over their mutual love for cricket. Bhattacharjee grew up in a leftist family, which significantly influenced him. After the India-China war in 1962 and the subsequent split of CPI in 1964, he joined CPM in 1966. Initially, he focused on editing and writing for party publications.
Amid internal conflicts in leftist student politics, his rise began as an organizer of the youth movement, eventually becoming the state secretary of DYFI’s West Bengal committee. In the late 1960s, Bhattacharjee participated in the food movement and actively campaigned against the US during the Vietnam War. By the early 1970s, he strengthened his organization in Kolkata, maintaining close ties with leftist intellectuals. He became a state committee member of CPM and won his first election from the Kashipur constituency in 1977, serving as minister of information and public relations, later known as the information and culture department.
In 1982, he lost his Assembly seat but returned in 1987 from Jadavpur, where he served until his political defeat in 2011. During the 1990s, he resigned from Jyoti Basu’s cabinet due to a conflict with a secretary, allegedly stating he wouldn’t stay in a “cabinet of thieves,” although this was never confirmed. He returned to the cabinet and continued his work, even writing a play, “Shomoy, Oshomoy, Dushomoy.”
Bhattacharjee also handled the home department. He joined CPM’s central committee in 1984 and became a Politburo member in 2000. After Jyoti Basu retired, Bhattacharjee became chief minister in November 2000. In the 2001 elections, despite strong opposition, the Left Front, under his leadership retained power. In 2006, they won 235 out of 294 seats, and Bhattacharjee announced the Tata car factory project in Singur.
However, facing strong opposition from villagers and political opponents, the project failed. His industrialization efforts led to significant unrest, especially in Nandigram, where police firing resulted in 14 deaths. The political turmoil from Singur and Nandigram, led to setbacks in subsequent elections. By the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Left Front lost 27 out of 42 seats, indicating a loss of control. This decline culminated in the 2011 Assembly elections, where the Left Front was defeated by Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress, ending over 34 years of Left rule. Post-defeat, Bhattacharjee maintained that his government’s industrial policies were correct, viewing incidents like Singur and Nandigram as exceptions. He acknowledged administrative mistakes and sought to learn from them.
The Nandigram incident deeply affected him, and he publicly took responsibility. In 2013, he expressed regret for the police firing. His writings on land acquisition and the exceptions in Singur and Nandigram emphasized the need for industrial land despite inevitable challenges.
Bhattacharjee’s industrial vision was not accepted by the people, leading to his political isolation. His call for internal changes within CPM faced resistance from within the party.
After 2011, Bhattacharjee’s health deteriorated, leading to his gradual withdrawal from active politics. Despite declining health, he continued to visit the party office for reading until he could no longer do so. Suffering from COPD, he couldn’t travel by air and required constant oxygen support. His last public appearance was at a Left Front rally in 2019, though he couldn’t leave his car due to health issues. He remained in his modest two-room government flat on Palm Avenue, refusing to move even during his tenure as chief minister. As his eyesight worsened, he couldn’t write and had his final book transcribed by someone else. A literary enthusiast, he wrote numerous plays and essays, translating works of foreign authors and criticizing modern Chinese policies in his book “Swarger Nichey Mahabiswrangsha.” Veteran Communist leader Bhattacharjee was fond of quoting a phrase from Charles Dickens’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” It was a phrase he repeated at almost every public event he attended as CM for his two terms, 2001 to 2011.
This was not only because he understood the importance of the hope and aspirations of the people of his state, particularly the young generation. As the world settled into the first decade of the new millennium, he became the chief minister in 2000 when he was 66 years old. He moved quickly to initiate changes as he dreamt of changing the status quo, and to deliver the people of West Bengal from the stagnation they were in.
Bhattacharjee had personal ties with many cultural figures and leaders across political parties. In 2022, he declined the Padma Bhushan award. Despite controversies, Bhattacharjee’s straightforward life and simple living earned him respect beyond the Left’s base. He will be remembered as a central figure during critical junctures in Bengal’s politics.