Jyoti Basu died today. He was one of the worst guys in Indian politics and leaves behing legacy of goondaism, corruption and dirty politics. May his soul rest in hell (he left behind hell for people of WB and India). He ranks 4th after Nehru V.P. Singh and Indira for India's backwardness and lost soul. Atleast 4 generations of India suffered pain and deprivation of these rascals.

Kanchan Gupta has written a very nice article in Pioneer which is reproduced below.

Link: http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/2010/01/destroyer-of-west-bengal.html


Agent Provocateur

Kanchan Gupta
Journalist & Writer

Had it been Jyoti Banerjee lying unattended in a filthy general ward of SSKM Hospital in Kolkata and not Jyoti Basu in the state-of-the-art ICCU of AMRI Hospital, among the swankiest and most expensive super-speciality healthcare facilities in West Bengal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would not have bothered to arrange for a video-conference for top doctors at AIIMS to compare notes with those attending on the former Chief Minister of West Bengal.

Jyoti Banerjee, like most of us, spent his working life paying taxes to the Government. Jyoti Basu spent the better part of his life living off tax-payers’ money — the conscience of the veteran Marxist was never pricked by the fact that he appropriated for himself a lifestyle shunned by his comrades and denied to the people of a State whose fate he presided over for a quarter century. Kalachand Roy laid what we know today as Odisha to waste in the 16th century; Jyoti Basu was the 20th century’s Kala Pahad who led West Bengal from despair to darkness, literally and metaphorically.

Uncharitable as it may sound, but there really is no reason to nurse fond memories of Jyoti Basu. In fact, there are no fond memories to recall of those days when hopelessness permeated the present and the future appeared bleak. Entire generations of educated middle-class Bengalis were forced to seek refuge in other States or migrate to America as Jyoti Basu worked overtime to first destroy West Bengal’s economy, chase out Bengali talent and then hand over a disinherited State to Burrabazar traders and wholesale merchants who overnight became ‘industrialists’ with a passion for asset-stripping and investing their ‘profits’ elsewhere. A State that was earlier referred to as ‘Sheffield of the East’ was rendered by Jyoti Basu into a vast stretch of wasteland; the Oxford English Dictionary would have been poorer by a word had he not made ‘gherao’ into an officially-sanctioned instrument of coercion; ‘load-shedding’ would have never entered into our popular lexicon had he not made it a part of daily life in West Bengal though he ensured Hindustan Park, where he stayed, was spared power cuts. It would have been churlish to grudge him the good life had he not exerted to deny it to others, except of course his son Chandan Basu who was last in the news for cheating on taxes that should have been paid on his imported fancy car.

Let it be said, and said bluntly, that Jyoti Basu’s record in office, first as Deputy Chief Minister in two successive United Front Governments beginning 1967 (for all practical purposes he was the de facto Chief Minister with a hapless Ajoy Mukherjee reduced to indulging in Gandhigiri to make his presence felt) and later as Chief Minister for nearly 25 years at the head of the Left Front Government which has been in power for 32 years now, the “longest elected Communist Government” as party commissars untiringly point out to the naïve and the novitiate, is a terrible tale of calculated destruction of West Bengal in the name of ideology. It’s easy to criticise the CPI(M) for politicising the police force and converting it into a goons brigade, but it was Jyoti Basu who initiated the process. It was he who instructed them, as Deputy Chief Minister during the disastrous UF regime, to play the role of foot soldiers of the CPI(M), first by not acting against party cadre on the rampage, and then by playing an unabashedly partisan role in industrial and agrarian disputes.

The fulsome praise that is heaped on Jyoti Basu today — he is variously described by party loyalists and those enamoured of bhadralok Marxists as a ‘humane administrator’ and ‘farsighted leader’ — is entirely misleading if not undeserving. Within the first seven months of the United Front coming to power, 43,947 workers were laid off and thousands more rendered jobless as factories were shut down following gheraos and strikes instigated and endorsed by him. The flight of capital in those initial days of emergent Marxist power amounted to Rs 2,500 million. In 1967, there were 438 ‘industrial disputes’ involving 165,000 workers and resulting in the loss of five million man hours. By 1969, there were 710 ‘industrial disputes’ involving 645,000 workers and a loss of 8.5 million man hours. That was a taste of things to come in the following decades. By the time Jyoti Basu demitted office, West Bengal had nothing to boast of except closed mills and shuttered factories; every institution and agency of the State had been subverted under his tutelage; and, the civil administration had been converted into an extension counter of the CPI(M) with babus happy to be used as doormats.

After every outrage, every criminal misdeed committed by Marxist goons or the police while he was Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu would crudely respond with a brusque “Emon to hoyei thaakey” (or, as Donald Rumsfeld would famously say, “Stuff happens!”). He did not brook any criticism of the Marich Jhapi massacre by his police in 1979 when refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan were shot dead in cold blood. Till date, nobody knows for sure how many died in that slaughter for Jyoti Basu never allowed an independent inquiry. Neither did the man whose heart bled so profusely for the lost souls of Nandigram hesitate to justify the butchery of April 30, 1982 when 16 monks and a nun of the Ananda Marg order were set ablaze in south Kolkata by a mob of Marxist thugs. The man who led that murderous lot was known for his proximity to Jyoti Basu, a fact that the CPI(M) would now hasten to deny. Nor did Jyoti Basu wince when the police shot dead 13 Congress activists a short distance from Writers’ Building on July 21, 1993; he later justified the police action, saying it was necessary to enforce the writ of the state. Yet, he wouldn’t allow the police to act every time Muslims ran riot, most infamously after Mohammedan Sporting Club lost a football match.

Did Jyoti Basu, who never smiled in public lest he was accused of displaying human emotions, ever spare a thought for those who suffered terribly during his rule? Was he sensitive to the plight of those who were robbed of their lives, limbs and dignity by the lumpen proletariat which kept him in power? Did his heart cry out when women health workers were gang-raped and then two of them murdered by his party cadre on May 17, 1990 at Bantala on the eastern margins of Kolkata? Or when office-bearers of the Kolkata Police Association, set up under his patronage, raped Nehar Banu, a poor pavement dweller, at Phulbagan police station in 1992? “Emon to hoyei thaakey,” the revered Marxist would say, and then go on to slyly insinuate that the victims deserved what they got.

As a Bengali, I grieve for the wasted decades but for which West Bengal, with its huge pool of talent, could have led India from the front. I feel nothing for Jyoti Basu.

[This article originally appeared as my Sunday column, Coffee Break, in The Pioneer.]

There is something with these old politicians.

We need to mummify and study the bodies of these guys of they tend to live such long lives.

We need to check out Karunanidhi Head, N.D.Tiwari's ...........You Know What and the list goes on.

Look at the guys who talk about that the Indian youth have to be given a chance ruling in power till 85 and that is 25 years beyond retirement from government service. When will the younger guys get a chance to make a change.

The current guy Buddhadev is also up there.

It is said that P.V.Narasimha Rao had poor health before he was about to sent into oblivion before being made the PM of India. That guys health turned around and was ticking like a 20 year old.

Look at our Happy Singh. The guy goes through triple bypass and is back in action with in a week.

There is something to the KURSI.

Kissa kursika!.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sunny Leone a true Canadian DESI now back in India !.

IMO, it is not in a good taste to laugh at somebody's death, although 95 is not a too young age to die.

Whether in Canada or in India, we live in a system called democracy, and we have all the powers to remove the people whom we think are old, from the office. It is called VOTING. But yes, they do tend to sneak in through back doors in the form of Senate/Rajyasabha or become governor.

But yes, I like Canadian political system, where people tend to retire after reaching 60-70. I wish Indian politicians like Advani, Vajpayee, Manmohan, Sharad Pawar, Arjun Singh took their clue from their foreign counterparts.

Would be interesting to see a "younger" Indian PM - just like Harper or Obama.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by meghal
But yes, I like Canadian political system, where people tend to retire after reaching 60-70. I wish Indian politicians like Advani, Vajpayee, Manmohan, Sharad Pawar, Arjun Singh took their clue from their foreign counterparts.

Would be interesting to see a "younger" Indian PM - just like Harper or Obama.

---

Kerala Congress stalwart K.Karunakaran in hospital with chest infection.
Hope he kicks the bucket soon.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sunny Leone a true Canadian DESI now back in India !.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Vandematram

Kerala Congress stalwart K.Karunakaran in hospital with chest infection.
Hope he kicks the bucket soon.

---

It may not be the greatest thing to wish that our 80 and 90 something politicians leave this planet. That said, politics and especially the 70-80-90 something politicians, the personality cult around them, their goons, corruption and the lack of principles is what keeps India illiterate, poor, and sick.

You do not have to take the state of health, education and prosperity literally. There is no health-care worth it's name, education is a birthright for the rich, and there is a steep divide between those who can spend a thousand rupees on a meal, and those who can not afford two slices of bread. We sit on a AIDS time bomb waiting to explode (and pretend that no such thing exists). We have over 2 million child prostitutes, and 2,00,000 children go blind in India, every year, due to malnutrition.

Just in case what co-relation we can find between these issues - just sit back and think of the virtual divide between the real problems and the efforts to eulogize a politician like Jyoti Basu, who contributed nothing to India, thanks to his bloated ego, arrogance, and lack of principles. The Hindu with a avowed communist in its editor N. Ram carried a zozen articles praising Jyoti Basu, on the day he passed away. Agreed we can not ignore the passing of someone who vehemently opposed Mrs Indira Gandhi and her coterie, when she declared emergency in 1975 (this was conveniently ignored by the Hindu). But a dozen news items? That is the height (o should I say \"lows\" to which we in India can travel, to worship our rulers.

Kanchan gupta is right when she says that there is nothing to eulogize Jyoti basu. He and his band of communists converted the once prosperous West Bengal, into a waste land. The average investor has lost the confidence and faith in both West Bengal, and Kerala, where successive communist governments have played havoc with the common man, under the guise of \"socialism\".

What should surprise and shame an average Indian is this - while the last vestiges of firebrand communism or \"socialism\" as we know it are almost about t disappear. Russia, the birth place of this political system is looking to embrace capitalism with open arms. Once the Castro era is gone, Cuba will see new-found prosperity from capitalism. Hugo Chavez may be a great hit in Venezuela, but once his time has passed on, no one will remember him. In short, communism or \"socialism\", whatever you call it, is almost gone, but we still venerate our communist leaders who have brought nothing but misery, goondaism, corruption, and personality cult in India............ What is their relevance? why can't these 80 or 90 something communist leaders just retire, leaving the country to prosper?

As for how great a man Jyoti Basu was - hear this. The man who stood and opposed Indira Gandhi for imposing internal emergency, had no qualms about supporting the same party to \"keep communal forces\" from coming to power. So much for his \"principles\"! !

It might sound like wishful thinking, but I hope some day, we have selfless 30 or 40 something leaders who can steer us from imminent disaster, in India. I hope to see a day when we can be proud of our leaders..........

I believe in miracles, as much as they don't happen often!