"But there was no agitation over land acquisition," he continued.
"So why have Singur and Nandigram [over the building of a proposed Special Economic Zone or SEZ] turned out to be such burning issues?"
His comments followed a sustained campaign by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on behalf of those farmers who were reluctant to forego their farmlands for the project.
Basu is no more, but the question he had raised is still echoing in every nook and corner of Bengal as the state stands on the threshold of what might be a game changing assembly elections. After having won a record 233 out of the 294 seats in 2006, ruling Left Front is suddenly staring down the wrong end of the barrel!
And it is indeed ironical that the very issue of agriculture that had helped CPI (M) ensure the unquestioned allegiance of Bengal's rural poor for three decades has suddenly come to haunt the party like never before.
So why this quantum shift in balance of power?
To understand the full impact of this change, one has to go back to 1991 when Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Union finance minister, and the then prime minister, Narasimha Rao, were scripting what later turned out be an epoch-making budget and a watershed in India's economic history.
As the winds of economic liberalisation took India Inc by storm, the Basu-led CPI (M) think tank in Bengal realised the importance of synchronising the state with the rest of the country in terms of industrial growth.
As a result, in 1994, Basu's new industrial policy laid stress on rapid industrialisation, private entrepreneurs and investments from MNCs. However, owing to a debate within CPI (M) over the efficacy of this policy, it was pushed to the back burner.
Stern resistance
In 2001, with Basu having taken a sabbatical from active politics, the proposed new industrial policy found a fresh exponent in new Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Nirupam Sen was Bhattacharya's choice as the new Industries Minister.
However, Sen's initiatives for a reality check on ‘sick' public sector undertakings and his push for crop diversification and contract farming were met with stern resistance from within the Left Front.
After the 2006 assembly polls, with Left Front having won a brute majority and the opposition, namely Trinamool Congress and Congress, virtually reduced to insignificance, Bhattacharya and Sen won the confidence of the CPI (M) politburo and Left Front partners as well to go ahead with the new industrial policy.
Industrialisation was on the fast track and Bhattacharya went ahead with a plethora of new projects, chief among which was an SEZ in Nandigram.
With a Trinamool-led agitation already gathering momentum in Singur over the Tata Nano project, the government's decision to acquire agricultural land for the proposed SEZ sparked panic among the agrarian population of Nandigram.
What queered the pitch irreparably for Bhattacharya and CPI (M) was the incident of police firing on agitating farmers in Nandigram on March 14, 2007, resulting in the loss of 14 lives.
For the overwhelming majority of Bengal's rural poor, the Nandigram killings became a burning issue of might versus right. Rural Bengal, for the first time in three decades of Leftist rule, was confronted with an acute sense of loss of identity and a fear psychosis over possible loss of livelihood as well.
A sizeable section of farmers, who felt empowered by CPI (M)'s land and land reforms measures through Operation Barga in the late 1970s, suddenly started viewing the party as an enemy and the government's pro-industry stance as clear and present danger.
Muslim vote
The direct fallout of this was a tectonic shift in rural support from the Left parties to Trinamool in the 2008 panchayat elections and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
Moreover, Muslims comprise about 25 per cent of Bengal's population, of which, roughly 22 per cent is dependent on agriculture. In the post-Nandigram scenario, majority of this 22 per cent started feeling betrayed by the CPI (M).
After the Nandigram incident, the Trinamool-led agitation in Singur reached a fever pitch, finally forcing Tata to make an announcement on October 3, 2008, that the Nano plant would be moved to Gujarat.
This was seen by the rural masses of Bengal as a huge tactical victory for Trinamool and the idea that the CPI (M) monolith can be resisted through sustained agitation gained ground like never before. The immediate benefits of these were reaped by Mamata Banerjee with her pro-poor, pro-agriculture stance.
Over and above all these, corruption, nepotism, sycophancy and complacency have spread like cancer throughout the CPI (M) rank and file. Party workers and cadres in many local units are now beyond the control of the central leadership. A clear case in point being the killings of nine innocent villagers by CPI (M)-sheltered goons in Netai village on January 7.
If the CPI (M) today is in danger of being booted out of power, it has only itself to blame.
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