Kolkata, January 17, 2010 (HT): Former West Bengal Chief Minister and veteran communist leader of India, Jyoti Basu, died on Sunday morning after battling death for 17 days in a Kolkata hospital.

The 95-year-old leader was admitted at a private hospital on January 1 with mildly severe pneumonia. He is survived by a son, Chandan, three granddaughters and one grandson.

Basu’s body will be kept at Peace Haven, a mortuary till Tuesday morning. On Tuesday, it will be taken to Writers’ buildings, the seat of Basu’s government for 23 years and then to the assembly where Basu has spent more than five decades.

Then it will be taken to Bengal CPI(M) headquarters at Alimuddin Street. The next stop will be SSKM hospital, where Basu’s body will be donated for medical study and research.

Personnel of an eye bank had come to take his eye on Sunday noon itself.

Read More at ~ Hindustan Times

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BIOGRAPHY OF JYOTI BASU

Jyoti Basu (8 July 1914 – 17 January 2010) was an Indian politician belonging to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from West Bengal, India. He served as the Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000, making him India’s longest-serving Chief Minister as of 2010[update] of any Indian state. He was a member of the CPI(M) Politburo from the time of the party’s founding in 1964 until 2008. Since 2008 till his death in 2010 he remained a permanent invitee to the central committee of the party. On his death, the last of the founding Politburo members of Communist Party of India (Marxist) passed away.

Entry into politics

Basu’s first track in politics was his efforts to organize the Indian students studying in United Kingdom, mostly for the cause of Indian Independence[citation needed]. While studying in England, Basu subsequently joined India League and London Majlis, both the organizations being communities of overseas Indian students. Basu was given the responsibility for arranging a meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru during Nehru’s visit to London in 1938. The same was done after Subhas Chandra Bose went to England. As a member of London Majlis, Basu introduced the visiting Indian political figures to the leaders of Labour Party.

Basu was introduced to the Communist Party of Great Britain by another communist leader and Basu’s friend in England Bhupesh Gupta. It’s told Basu showed interest to join CPGB but the then Secretary General Harry Pollitt suggested him to not do so, possibly because CPGB was then banned in India and Pollitt speculated Basu could have difficulties in returning to India as a member of CPGB.

However Basu returned to India in 1940 and immediately contacted the Party leaders. Though he enrolled himself as a barrister in Calcutta High Court, he never practiced simply because he was determined to become a wholetimer of the Party.

Basu became the secretary of Friends of Soviet Union and Anti-Fascist Writers’ Association in Kolkata. As member of the Party, the initial task of Basu was to maintain liaison with underground Party leaders. He was entrusted responsibilities in the trade union front from 1944. In that year, Bengal Assam Railroad Workers’ Union was formed and Basu became its first secretary. Basu was elected to Bengal Provincial Assembly in 1946 from the Railway Workers constituency. Ratanlal Bramhan and Rupnarayan Roy were the other two Communists who were elected. From that day on, Basu became one of the most popular and influential legislators for decades to come. He showed how the Communists can use the legislative forums for strengthening struggles.

Basu played a very active role in stormy days of 1946-47 when Bengal witnessed the Tebhaga movement, workers strikes and even communal riots. Everywhere the struggling people got Basu by their side.

Jyoti Basu was the secretary of the West Bengal Provincial Committee of the Party from 1953 to January 1961. He was elected to Central Committee of the Party in 1951. He was a member of the Polit Bureau from 1964 onwards. He was elected as a special invitee to PB in 19th Congress of the Party in 2008.

After the country gained independence, he was elected to the assembly from Baranagar in 1952. He was elected to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1991 and 1996. Though an elected member, Basu was arrested several times during the 1950s and 60s and for certain periods he went underground to evade arrest by the police.

In 1962, Jyoti Basu was one amongst the 32 members of the National Council who walked out of the meeting. When the CPI(M) was formed in 1964 as a result of the ideological struggle within the Communist movement, Basu became a member of the Polit Bureau. He was, in fact, the last surviving member of the “Navaratnas”, the nine members of the first Polit Bureau.

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