Twenty-four years ago, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was appointed successor to Jyoti Basu, the longest-serving chief minister of West Bengal. Bhattacharya faced the formidable task of filling Basu’s shoes.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) had been in power since 1977, a period marked by a significant stifling of dissent and industrial growth. Between 1991 and 2000, West Bengal’s industrial sector’s net value addition grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of mere 4.82%. In contrast, Tamil Nadu’s industrial growth was 11.68 per cent, Karnataka’s was 10.35 per cent, and Maharashtra’s soared to 12.46 per cent.
Bhattacharya, who became chief minister in 2000, sought to revitalise West Bengal’s economy by moving away from trade unionism that had previously dominated state policies. His administration introduced a new Information Technology policy that attracted major companies such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS.
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Under his leadership, the IT sector in West Bengal grew by 70% between 2001 and 2005, earning him the title of ‘Best Chief Minister’ from IT czar Azim Premji. The state also saw investments from Indonesia’s Salim Group and Japan’s Mitsubishi.
Born in 1944 into a Bengali Brahmin family in North Kolkata (then Calcutta), Bhattacharya rose through the ranks of the Communist Party. In 1993 he resigned abruptly from Jyoti Basu’s cabinet over disagreements and publicly criticised it as a “council of thieves”. Despite this, he was soon reinstated.
Bhattacharya was also a poet and playwright. His oeuvre was deeply political.
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Bhattacharya’s tenure was shaped by rising discontent with leftist ideologies. His administration faced significant opposition, particularly from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress. Protests against land acquisition in Nandigram in 2007 and Tata’s Nano project in 2008 underscored the rising unrest against Left’s rule.
Although he never achieved the cult status of his predecessor Basu, Bhattacharya’s tenure was a significant chapter in West Bengal’s political and economic history. His approach, focused on creating wealth before redistribution, marked a crucial shift in the state’s governance priorities and left a lasting impact.
Bhattacharya's legacy echoes the shadow of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader. To some puritan Marxists, he is the “Gorbachev of West Bengal”, accused of bending to capitalism and straying from the Marxist path. Yet, others see him as a pragmatic visionary who valued economic progress and the creation of wealth over rigid ideology. He recognised that in the face of a changing world, ideology alone could not nourish the state’s needs.
