84 Facts About Jyoti Basu

Jyoti Basu was one of the most prominent leaders of Communist movement in India.

Jyoti Basu served as the 6th and longest serving Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000.

Jyoti Basu was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India.

Jyoti Basu was the member of Politburo of the party since its formation in 1964 till 2008.

Jyoti Basu was the member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly 11 times.

Jyoti Basu declined the post of Prime Minister after the 1996 Indian general election after the CPM refused to let him head a multi-party coalition as would not be able to implement Marxist programs and relinquished the prime ministership to Deve Gowda.

Jyoti Basu's father, Nishikanta Basu was a doctor whose hometown was the village of Barudi in Dhaka District of the Bengal Presidency while his mother Hemlata Basu was a housewife.

Jyoti Basu grew up in an Indian style joint family and was the youngest of three siblings.

One of his elder uncles, Nilinkanta Basu was a judge in the High Court.

Jyoti Basu's family retained ancestral lands in Barudi where Jyoti Basu is described to have spent part of his childhood.

The Barudi home of Jyoti Basu was later turned into a library after his death, reportedly on his wishes.

Jyoti Basu's schooling began in 1920 at Loreto School Kindergarten in Dharmatala, Calcutta.

Jyoti Basu's father shortened his name from Jyotirindra to Jyoti during the time of admission.

Jyoti Basu completed his intermediate education from St Xaviers in 1932.

Jyoti Basu had already left for India by the time he acquired his barristerial qualification which he received in absentia.

Jyoti Basu had reportedly attended the lectures of the political theorist and economist, Harold Laski and was influenced by his anti-fascism.

On returning to Calcutta, India in early 1940, Jyoti Basu enrolled as a barrister at the Calcutta High Court, and married Basanti Ghosh.

In 1941, Jyoti Basu was appointed the party secretary of the Bengal Assam Railway and tasked with organising a workers union.

The party organised "People's Food Committees" which would attempt to force hoarders into releasing their stocks for distribution; Jyoti Basu participated in the organisation of such committees in Calcutta and Midnapore.

Jyoti Basu was elected to the Bengal provincial committee of the Communist Party in the same year.

Jyoti Basu was again delegated to organise labourers working for the East Indian Railway Company in order to further the interests of the Indian workers and is described to have been instrumental in the formation of the Bengal Nagpur Railway Workers' Union of which he became the general secretary.

Jyoti Basu would be elected as the secretary of the All India Railwaymen's Federation.

In 1946, Jyoti Basu was appointed by the Communist Party to contest as the candidate for the Railway Employees' constituency in the Bengal Legislative Assembly.

Jyoti Basu is noted to have given a "soul stirring speech" on the presiding food crisis in the Bengal Assembly; according to him the only means of solving the issue was to completely dismantle the Zamindari system and the Permanent Settlement agreement, and to drive out the British with haste.

Jyoti Basu had organised a continuous railway strike in support of the 1946 Royal Indian Navy ratings revolt, and later secured the release of various political prisoners on 24 July 1946.

The bill was inordinately criticised and opposed by Jyoti Basu who declared that "it seeks to perpetuate ".

In 1949, Jyoti Basu had remained as the vice-president of the All India Railwaymen's Federation.

The strike notice was however withdraw by the socialist leadership of the federation to whom the government had shown a reconciliatory attitude but the communist members under the leadership of Jyoti Basu insisted on proceeding with the strike which resulted in disciplinary action being taken against the communists.

In same year, the Bengali daily organ Swadhinata of the Communist Party was resumed and Jyoti Basu appointed as the president of its editorial board.

The ensuing period in West Bengal was marked with the rise of a number of anti-establishment mass movements, in which Jyoti Basu is described to have played a key role.

In January 1954, the Communist party held its third congress in Madurai and Jyoti Basu was elected as the new Central Committee member during the congress.

In February, Jyoti Basu became involved in the 1954 teachers' agitation in West Bengal.

The government as a result decided to crack down on the leaders of the agitation but Jyoti Basu escaped custody and took refuge in the West Bengal Legislature.

Jyoti Basu is noted to have opposed the proposal from both within and outside the assembly, he presided over the mass meeting at Wellington Square in opposition to the proposal and severely criticised the governor's position in support of the proposal.

Jyoti Basu presented the idea of the proposal as a poll issue for the by-elections of the year, supporting the candidacy of Mohit Mitra who the Central Committee's secretary for linguistic reorganisation and declared that the results should reflect the people's mandate.

Jyoti Basu became one of the formative leaders of the committee.

The agitators held an open mass meeting near the Chief Minister's residence where Jyoti Basu was present among the speakers alongside Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Tridib Chaudhuri and Bankim Mukherjee, who demanded that the government should meet the conditions presented by the PIFRC or resign, otherwise they would organise a mass civil disobedience movement.

The movement however continued with civil disobedience, continuous general strikes and mass demonstrations while Jyoti Basu was able to evade arrest.

The opposition leaders including Jyoti Basu accused the government of having turned "authoritarian and ruthless" and reasoned that there was no space for the continuation of a democratic mass movement.

Jyoti Basu belonging to the latter advocated for radical change to supplant the domination of big landlords, capitalists and monopolists in the Indian polity and opposed any conditional support for Nehruvian policies while denouncing the "revisionist position" taken by the former to support Jawaharlal Nehru on certain issues.

Jyoti Basu reportedly received the news of his father's death during this time in prison.

On 11 April 1964, in a landmark incident, 32 members from the "Leftist faction" in the CPI national council including Jyoti Basu walked out of a meeting in Delhi with the stated intent of forming the "real communist party".

Jyoti Basu was elected to the first politburo of the new party being one of the nine founding members commonly referred to as the Navaratnas.

On 27 June 1965, Jyoti Basu became the founding editor of the English language organ of the new party called People's Democracy.

Under terms of the agreement, if the alliance were to attain a majority then Mukherjee would become the chief minister while Jyoti Basu would become the deputy chief minister.

The CPI-M stood as the sole opposition party and Jyoti Basu became the leader of opposition.

Jyoti Basu refused to accept the results and declared that the new assembly was an "assembly of frauds".

Jyoti Basu published an open editorial to the "world press" regarding terming the incidents of violence to be "semi-fascist terror".

Several of the leaders of the CPI-M were influenced by JP with Jyoti Basu noted to be one of his prominent admirers having worked under him in the All India Railwaymen's Federation during the 1940s.

JP and Jyoti Basu eventually agreed that the CPI-M would not formally join the Janata Party as it would weaken the movement.

The results of the election was a surprising sweep for the Left Front winning 230 seats out of 290 with the CPI-M winning an absolute majority on its own, Jyoti Basu became the chief minister of West Bengal for the next 23 years until his retirement in 2000.

Jyoti Basu was repeatedly elected as the representative of the Satgachhia constituency from 1977 to 2001.

Between 1977 and 1980, Jyoti Basu oversaw the identification of nearly 1 million acres of ceiling surplus land and its subsequent redistribution.

The Jyoti Basu government began the process of "democratic decentralisation" in West Bengal by amending and implementing the provisions of the Panchayat Act.

The demand for a formal investigation into the eviction was however denied by the government with Jyoti Basu convinced that it was greatly exaggerated by the media; in the end the official figure put the deaths at 2 but the lack of an investigation led to various other estimates to circulate on the killing years afterwards.

Jyoti Basu's front won 174 seats in 1982 West Bengal Elections defeating the Congress - Congress coalition He was one of the most powerful personality of the Left front after becoming the Chief Minister of West Bengal and was known to be the Chief artist of the Communist politics not only in West Bengal, but in the whole India.

In 1986, Finance Minister Ashok Mitra resigned from the Cabinet, citing differences with Jyoti Basu, which was a big blow to his government.

In 1987 West Bengal Election in West Bengal, Jyoti Basu held the office for the third time as the Chief ministers of West Bengal after the win of CPM and their allies.

The star campaigner was himself Chief Minister Jyoti Basu who had pledged to visit all constituencies where CPI had fielded candidates.

Jyoti Basu's party made the third win by securing a complete majority for third time in Bengal's history, and the Left front secured 187 in the election and defeating Indian National Congress and made his mark to Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

In 1989, Jyoti Basu led Left government in a controversial decision, halting the teaching of English language for Primary schools.

On 28 November 1991, Jyoti Basu superseded Bidhan Chandra Roy's 14 - year tenure to become the longest serving Chief Minister of West Bengal, a record which he has held ever since at 23 years, 144 days.

Jyoti Basu seemed all set to be the consensus leader of the United Front for the post of Prime Minister of India but the CPI's highest decision making body refused to endorse Jyoti Basu's prime-ministerial ambitions.

Jyoti Basu resigned in the year 2000 leaving a legacy as the longest serving Chief Minister of any Indian state, until Pawan Kumar Chamling surpassed his record in 2018.

Jyoti Basu denied all allegations and questioned the veracity of the report.

Jyoti Basu was personally shocked at the victory of state Bharatiya Janata Party president Tapan Sikdar from Dumdum constituency in the 1998 general elections, defeating 3 time CPI MP Nirmal Kanti Chatterjee.

Jyoti Basu once proposed to make Bengali compulsory for any government job exams under state government, but this faced criticisms from Atal Bihari Vajpayee lead National Democratic Alliance at the centre, who called it unconstitutional and a harm to the linguistic minority groups of West Bengal.

Jyoti Basu was proposed for the post of prime minister four times.

Again Rajiv Gandhi sent a proposal to Jyoti Basu, which was declined by the party for second time.

Jyoti Basu suggested that Basu should be made the Prime Minister of the United Front government.

Sitaram Yechury was among the leaders who were against Jyoti Basu being the Prime Minister.

Moopanar and DMK chief M Karunanidhi came over but Basu suggested H D Deve Gowda for the top post citing his experience as a minister first and Chief Minister of Karnataka and Janata Dal accepted the offer and he was elected as the Prime Minister of India.

Later when asked about the decision of the CPI, Jyoti Basu stated that as a "historic blunder".

On 13 September 2006, his request for retirement due to age was turned down by the CPI, the general secretary Prakash Karat stated that the party wanted that Jyoti Basu should continue till at least the 2008 congress.

Jyoti Basu was granted the designation of Special Invitee to the Politburo, a form of emeritus status within the CPI.

On 1 January 2010, Jyoti Basu was admitted to AMRI hospital after he was diagnosed with pneumonia.

Jyoti Basu is survived by his son Chandan, daughter-in-law Rakhi, grand daughters Payel, Doyel and Koyel, offspring of his first daughter-in-law Dolly, and grand son Subhojyoti, offspring of daughter-in-law Rakhi.

Jyoti Basu's body was kept at 'Peace Haven' for those who wanted to pay their respects.

Jyoti Basu's death was reacted with grief across the country and in international.

Jyoti Basu was Chief Minister of West Bengal consecutively five times and every time he was Member of Legislative Assembly from the Satgachhia.

Jyoti Basu was selected to be honoured with Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India, in 2008.

Jyoti Basu was given Civilian award in Calcutta Municipal Town Hall on 15 July 2005, but he refused to take it.

In 1948, he married Basanti's sister Kamala Jyoti Basu, who died on 1 October 2003.

An admirer of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Karl Marx, Jyoti Basu is regarded as one of the most successful politicians in India.