Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: The life and times of the communist stalwart

Bhattacharjee is born in north Calcutta on March 1, 1944. Belongs to a religious family. Father is a publisher, grandfather, a Sanskrit scholar and author of Purohit Darpan, an omnibus of sorts of priestly rites in Bengal.

The cultured politician

• Is a voracious reader right from the start; a habit he keeps up. Besides political literature, reads Tagore, Jibanananda Das, Manik Bandopadhyay, Camus, Kafka, Havel. Later in life, when he is a sidelined minister, he translates Mayakovsky and Marquez into Bengali. Takes time off from ministerial work to write poetry. His own collection of poems is titled Chena Phuler Gondho.

• In 1964, graduates with Bengali honours from Presidency College; enrols for the master’s programme but does not complete it as by then he is already a member of the CPM.

• Finds time to follow films — Italian and Spanish classics — and plays. Reveres Satyajit Ray and Utpal Dutta. Is a sports enthusiast too — a Mohun Bagan fan and a cricket buff; he used to be “a keen gymnast” during his school days.

• In the late 1960s after the split in the Communist Party of India, he is one of those few handpicked by no less than Promode Dasgupta, the first Marxist leader of the Bengal unit of the CPM.

• Is part of the protests over hike in tram fares, the food movement, and the solidarity movement for Vietnam. Is considered a good organiser and a good public speaker and is appointed state secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation, the student wing of the CPM.

• Moves up the party organisation steadily — member of the state committee, the state secretariat, the central committee.

• In 1967, adapts Clifford Odets’s play Waiting for Lefty, which is staged by Muhurta at Muktangan. Poka, his take on Kafka’s Metamorphosis, is staged many times. All of this and the fact that he is a relation of the rebel poet Sukanta Bhattacharjee earns him a certain reputation of being formidably cultured for a politician.

Political graph

• In 1970, resigns from his teacher’s job to join politics full time. It is not long before he becomes a name to reckon with in the party and in 1977 is fielded in the Assembly elections, wins and is made a minister. The 30-something Bhattacharjee is given the information and culture portfolio — it used to be called public relations but he renames it.

• Marries Meera Bhattacharjee who serves as a librarian with a private company and they have a son, Suchetan.

• In 1982, loses elections from Cossipore. In the next Assembly elections, he wins from Jadavpur, a seat he retains till 2011.

• The first half of the 1990s he becomes somewhat of an enfant terrible. Dissolves the Behrampore municipality; reportedly orchestrates a propaganda war against the shooting of City of Joy by Roland Joffe; dismantles the press corner of Writers’ Building.

• Newspapers routinely note that he has a say in every department except finance though his portfolio is that of culture minister. They also repeatedly highlight certain facets of his nature — that he is arrogant, aloof, “rash and out of touch with reality” in comparison with the mature and popular Jyoti Basu and his “inability to work with others as a team”. But his reputation of being an honest man remains intact. And his exercises in culture continue — he sets up the Bangla Akademi, the Natya Akademi, the Sangeet Akademi, Nandan

• On August 15, 1993, Bhattacharjee’s play Dusshamay is staged on Independence Day. The play is set in a riot-torn town, involves a Hindu family and a Muslim man they offer shelter to. It is full of references to corrupt officials and cops and the nexus between politicians and promoters. The man himself admits that the inspiration for it is the Ayodhya crisis from the year before. At the first show at Rabindra Sadan, chief minister Basu is present and so are other party colleagues.

• A month later, resigns from the cabinet without informing the party. All that he lets on is that he does not want to belong to a “cabinet of thieves”. Many believe this is the end of the road for him.

Comeback avatar

• In 1994, is persuaded to return to government and thereafter begins a new innings, a fresh ascent.

• In this avatar, he is more media-friendly, has a much more liberal view of the world, and Basu depends on him more. In 1999, he becomes the deputy chief minister, elected unanimously by the Left Front committee in keeping with Basu’s request.

• On November 6, 2000, becomes chief minister of the sixth Left Front government in Bengal. Takes oath in Bengali.

• The CPM wins the Assembly elections in 2001 and 2006 under his leadership. By this time he is a different version of his own self. Pro-market, pro-reform, determined to attract foreign direct investment to Bengal. Writes to BMW when he hears the company is scouting around for a manufacturing base in India, apologises for bandhs.

• In the meantime, his health suffers. A heavy smoker, he suffers from COPD, reports also suggest he is depressed, stays away from Calcutta for long stretches, does not get along with his cabinet colleagues.

• And then come the “twin disasters”.

• Singur and Nandigram entered the national lexicon as bywords for thwarted industrialisation, of the power of organised peasantry defeating the might of capital, writes Manini Chatterjee in The Telegraph in 2013. The script, experts say, might have worked out differently if he had the backing of his party or its mass organisations. The Left comes undone in Bengal. In the 2011 elections, the CPM gets only 40 seats. Bhattacharjee loses Jadavpur.

• In 2015, Bhattacharjee is relieved from his posts in the politburo and the central committee after repeated requests. In 2018, because of his continued ill-health, steps down from the state committee and the state secretariat.

• In 2022, there is an announcement that he has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, but he refuses to accept it.

• Last seen in 2024, in the run-up to the general election, in his AI avatar on his party’s social media handles.