Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: The common man's CM who lost touch with the masses

Buddhadeb Bhattacharya passed away on Thursday after battling prolonged illness. (PTI file photo)

A simple life, and a frugal lifestyle marked out Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as different from other politicians. He loved literature and art more than the rough and tumble of politics. He was a people's favourite, eager to change the lives of ordinary men and women for the better. But in the pursuit of his dreams for change, he lost touch with the very people he was trying to help. As Chief Minister of West Bengal, his attempts at industrialisation for the sake of generating jobs in Bengal came through to the rural folks as forcible dispossession of their land.

What happened in Singur (Hooghly district) and Nandigram (Purba Medinipur district) is a sad tail end to his political career, as he failed to convince the people of his plan. The biggest hurdle to his vision of the future was land acquisition for setting up industries. Buddhadeb, who died at the age of 80 on Thursday, had himself wondered later if he had made a mistake in the process of land acquisition. He could not connect with the people and underestimated their anger. The political furore that followed, with the Trinamool Congress taking the utmost advantage of the situation, not only ended three decades of CPI(M) rule in West Bengal, but also ended industrialisation in the state.

Contrary to the image of the man set by these two incidents, was a person who was a film buff with a flair for intellectual films and literature. He was a regular visitor to Nandan, the West Bengal government-run film and cultural centre, since its inauguration in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s, as the information and culture minister, he introduced the International Film Festival to Kolkata. Even after he became the Chief Minister, Buddhadeb visited Nandan, a film complex for film-makers' adda.

Those who visited Nandan regularly, would find Buddhadeb, clad in dhoti-kurta, in the evening, after office hours, reading books or watching films. In 1993, when Buddhadeb resigned from the Jyoti Basu cabinet revolting against corruption among some of his cabinet colleagues, he spent more time in Nandan, writing his play Dushshamoy (bad times). If anyone in the CPI(M) was asked anything to do with cultural activities, he/she would be directed to Buddhadeb. In 1994, he was coaxed back into the Basu cabinet.

It was following the Singur and Nandigram incidents and also some electoral defects that Buddhadeb stopped frequenting Nandan and went straight to the party office from Writers’ Building (state secretariat). There were frequent meetings as Buddhadeb wanted to figure out what the problem was with the party.

As a writer, he wrote many plays and translated works of popular writers, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He was involved in the making of Nandan, a book publishing organisation - Bangla Academy and he also set up Rabindra Bhavans in all districts.

A Bengali littereti, Buddhadeb was the bhadrolok who was known for his integrity. He lived in a two-room government flat with his wife and daughter, even as a Chief Minister and until his death.

His failure at the fag end of his political career had its roots in the success he enjoyed in his younger days: he thought it was enough to be honest and try and do good for a vast majority of the people. He forgot he had to take along the people he wanted to help.