What matters is that a veteran of Basu's age has not only been reminded of a critical remark he made and forgot a couple of years ago, but told that he was making something that had the effect of an anti-party statement. This is possible only in a communist party, this kind of massive rejection of a theory propounded by a patriarch.

Patriarchs and ideologues have been admonished by the party in the past too. PC Joshi burst out cryingwhen he was reprimanded for the vacillations of the party in its approach to India's freedom movement and World War II at a particular stage. More recently, a less known thinker, P Govinda Pillai, was punished for condemning the outrage at Tiananmen Square. Basu's case is at once similar and different. Similar deviations. Different in so far as it is a case that caused Basu a political career's loss and could have radically changed the party's course.

What came Basu's way was no mean thing. India's prime ministership was being thrust on him. That was significant against the backdrop of the rabid jockeying for any position of power among all others. And that w as a tribute to the communist concern for the marginal man, which was becoming unfashionable over time. Basu naturally cannot forgive his party for standing between him and prime ministership. It is pointless to charge him with parliamentary revisionism. After it was accepted that revolution can come through parliament and that it is neitherpossible nor necessary to bring through armed insurrection, it is no sinister anti-party urge to aspire to enter parliament and gain its control.

That is a perfectly normal urge in parliamentary democracy. It may be unhealthy to suppress that urge just as it may be unrealistic to lower parliamentary aspiration to the level of evil. Harkishan Singh Surjeet realised it in his late years and hoped to see a government led by a communist chosen by non-communists. Many other comrades, including of course most of CPI comrades, favoured it. But that was not to be. As Basu saw it, it was a "historic blunder." Others who saw Basu's statement as an anti-party move did not dare demand instant action against him. Nor was action demanded in the party congress held two years later in Calcutta. Even comrades affected by acute dogmatism would not have wanted any disciplinary move that would put the party's seniormost leader in the dock. Basu has also proved that he is by far the most durable chief minister in India. Itwould be foolhardy to unsettle the political arrangement guided by him, whether in the name of parliamentary revisionism or party discipline.

Perhaps, those disapproved of Basu's statement had something more than an ideological reason to press for a formal, though delayed, discussion and rejection of that statement. Theoretically, it has been the party's position that it should not join, let alone lead, any coalition which cannot be run as the party wants to run it. EK Nayanar is known to have been running a coalition whose partners have on occasion even insisted that the chief minister is no chief but only one among equals. That kind of compromise has indeed not reversed or reduced the pace of revolution. The disapproval of Basu's blunder statement should be analysed in the context of history as well as geography. The geography of Indian communism is highly restrictive. Which is perhaps an esoteric way of saying that the party has not been able to expand its base beyond two and a quarter states of India,the quarter state being Tripura. And these are states where the main enemy has been the Congress. It is only recently that the new main enemy, the BJP, has been able to find a foothold in West Bengal. In Kerala, it remains as far away from power as ever. The history of Indian communism has been largely a history of anti-congressism. One patriarch, EMS Namboodiripad, even said that he would align with anyone, if need be Satan himself, to destroy the Congress. And it has been a constant refrain of his frequent encyclicals that it is time to disband the Congress. Something like that happened even without Congressmen being in no mood to oblige him. The Congress looked like withering away, but not giving the communist party primacy except in those two-and-a-quarter states. If Basu's urge for prime ministership, even in alliance with Congressmen, is granted, if his old blunder statement is not rejected outright, it would appear that those historically pitted against each other in West Bengal, Kerala andTripura would be constrained to close ranks and behave as friends. Communism is usually moved by enmity, not friendship. In other words, CPM comrades are suffering from what may be called a Mama complex. Mamata Banerjee's quarrel with her party is that it is not doing everything necessary to make life difficult for Basu and his party in West Bengal. She can, as she has already proved, team up with anyone but not Basu's party. She has not had anything common with the BJP, but she is quite at home in its company because anti-communism is what keeps her ticking. Take it away and she will be left with nothing to fight. The comrades who berated Basu in Calcutta knew that they would not have Basu turned out of the party.

They would even want him to keep leading it, no matter how wrong his line be. But he should not force them to work hand in hand with Congressmen in West Bengal and Kerala. That will be the effect of Basu becoming prime minister with the help of Congressmen or the party backing theCongress to capture power in Delhi. Who does not know that the road to revolution in the current phase of Indian politics is paved with anti-Congressism. In West Bengal and Kerala, that is.