Anil Biswas: Communist Extraordinaire

Sujoy Dhar, Kolkata, India Abroad News Service

For the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in West Bengal, the death of Anil Biswas Sunday leaves a void hard to fill.

Ever since the party's main strategist in Bengal was admitted to a private nursing home after suffering a cerebral stroke March 18, the question mark on the party's campaign in the run-up to the April-May assembly polls grew pronounced.

The death of Biswas, 62, has come as a big jolt to the CPI-M in West Bengal because, in effect, he held the reins of the party.

Biswas, known for his organisational skills, used to record details of the party's organisation in the districts. He would often visit the districts and motivate the party's grassroots members, including in the Maoist districts of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore in south Bengal.

With elections approaching, Biswas's workload had increased and the day he fell ill he had almost gone without food before leaving for campaigning in a north Bengal district.

A man credited with the gradual liberalisation of the party in West Bengal, his death is also a personal loss for industry-friendly West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.

It was Biswas who endorsed the liberal economic policies pursued by Bhattacharya, especially during the recent controversy within the party when Bhattacharya decided to hand over farmlands to the Salim group of Indonesia for township.

Biswas was a member of the party's powerful politburo since 1998. He became the state secretary of CPI-M the same year.

A follower of late communist leader Promod Dasgupta, Biswas was the former editor of the party mouthpiece in Bengali - Ganashakti. As its editor, Biwas made Ganashakti a powerful tool of the party and increased the circulation of the paper manifold.

Born on March 1, 1944 in the south Bengal district of Nadia, Biswas majored in political science from the Krishnanagore Government College in 1964 and did his masters in the same subject from the Calcutta University in 1966.

He was seriously injured in 1963 when the police fired on a student demonstration at Krishnanagar in Nadia district.

In 1969 Biswas became a fulltime member of the CPI-M and since then went underground several times besides languishing behind bars for his political beliefs.

It was in 1985 that he was elected to the Central Committee of the CPI-M while his induction in the state committee was in 1978, a year after the communists captured power in West Bengal. He became the editor of Ganashakti in 1983.

Biswas was elected to the Calcutta University Senate three times and has authored several books in English and Bengali.

He has travelled widely having visited China, erstwhile Soviet Union, Democratic Korea, Japan, Bangladesh and the US and Britain.

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