SUMAN   CHATTOPADHYAY 

My Date with History by Suman Chattopadhyay ; Published by Rupa ; Pages 283 ; Price Rs.395/-

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Suman Chattopadhyay is the “Enfant Terrible” of Bengali journalism. He edited for nine long years the Anandabazar Patrika. He played a major role in the most popular TV Channel Star Ananda. Presently he edits Ei Samay,a Times daily.

Suman ,in the book under review , captures the   three eventful  political decades India witnessed  since 1983, as perceived through his journalistic assignments. As in a Sidney Sheldon novel the scene shifts from place to place—Calcutta, Delhi, Kabul, Jaffna, Moscow and Washington.  

The book begins with a placid account of village life ---as part of a middle class family--in what became Bangladesh and shifts to his days in Presidency College. He climbed the  grand staircase of the College   earlier climbed by Subhas Chandra Bose,  Swami Vivekananda, Ashutosh Mukherjee, Rajendra Prasad and Amartya Sen . These persons influenced not only the  history of Bengal but of India in the 19^th and 20 th Centuries.

 Suman was twenty years old by the time the Left Front firmly enacted  its second thumping victory in the 1983 Assembly polls and had begun his voyage in journalism.

He was always known to be the First. He was among the first handful of journalists to be in Kabul, just before the fall of the Soviet-propped regime, he was the first Indian journalist to arrive in Moscow (that too without a valid passport!) as the Soviet regime withered away, he was in Islamabad to cover the Rajiv Gandhi–Benazir Bhutto agreement, he was in the United States covering P.V. Narasimha Rao’s historic visit to that country, which finally set the seal marking the beginning of India’s economic reforms, he covered the demolition of the Babri mosque, he has covered every major Lok Sabha and Bidhan Sabha polls since 1983, across India.

He is fortunate to be counted as a close friend by a variety of leaders-- Pranab Mukherjee ( his father’s student), Jyoti Basu, Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, Mamata Banerjee and Anil Biswas, the architect of the CPI(M)’s stranglehold over Bengal.We are treated to a wealth of anecdotes of these persons.

What a phenomenal effort is called for  to establish enduring contacts with leaders of several hues , penning delicately balanced pieces and editorials .

Suman  covers  major developments which took him to Delhi, Jaffna and Moscow. He has covered extensively rise of  militancy in Punjab, Rajiv Gandhi’s rise in power , his brief encounter with LTTE Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran , the minute-by-minute account of Babri Masjid Demolition.

The CPI(M) in 1996 had some 60-odd MPs in house of 544  - when Jyoti Basu was seen and named as a prospective Prime Ministerial candidate with no single party winning a clear majority. But the CPI (M)’s central committee had then shot down that proposal and Basu had “lost the opportunity to become India’s first-ever communist Prime Minister”. Basu had  openly denounced his party’s decision as a ‘Himalayan blunder’. Basu’s loss turned into Deve Gowda’s gain  who  emerged as the consensus candidate.

 Basu defended his criticism and even  admitted his criticism of the party decision might be construed as violation of discipline while adding, “I did not challenge or oppose my party’s stand, I just aired my personal views. In our party, all contentious decisions are taken on the basis of majority and once a decision is taken even the dissenters have to fall in line. That’s the way a communist party works. That’s the way I have been all my life. Here too, I was a minority and went by what the majority wanted.”

 Basu went on tell Suman in a rare interview: “I have two objectives in mind. First, my assuming prime ministerial responsibilities would surely have bolstered the dying Left movement in places where we were once quite strong and powerful. That way the Left would have regained some of its lost grounds and political relevance.”

“Second, I would have got the first real chance to change the face of Bengal in a meaningful way by accelerating all-round economic development. As Chief Minister I have only partially succeeded, as in our country, all the real powers are vested with the Centre.” A candid Basu ,indeed !.

 Suman has laid bare the story of the succession of  Buddhadev Bhatacharjee and how he floundered in the face of Singur and Nandigram mass movements  years later.He is able to present  the story in his typical colourful and logical perspective, the hallmark of the powerful regional language press in Bengal, and later shows how it led to rise of Mamata Banerjee.

The second major item relates to the  militancy in Punjab and  the Rajiv-Longowal accord in 1984. Suman writes eloquently of his ding-dong battle  with Mrs Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister when Rajiv Gandhi was being groomed as the next Congress leader,  Rajiv’s frequent  trips to Bengal in a bid to wrest power from the CPI(M) in the run-up to the 1987 Assembly polls, the dramatic rise of the Raja of Manda, V P Singh, after the 1989 Lok Sabha polls when the author dared to predict the “rout of the Congress” in the Hindi heartland of U.P.

 One fascinating item is Suman’s  brief tete-e-tete with LTTE Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran after he managed to gain entry into the rebel stronghold of Jaffna posing as a member  of the  Red Cross. Other items are official, the blow-by-blow account on  the fateful December 6, 1992, when the Babri Masjid was pulled down in Ayodhya, trailing Pranab Mukherjee as the ‘Comeback Hero’

 Suman also brings home revealing anecdotes of his seniors in the field, as in this case one narrated by Kewal Verma in Delhi about Pratap  Singh Kairon, former Chief Minister of Punjab, under whose tenure the Bhakra-Nangal dam project made possible the ‘Green Revolution’ in Punjab. When charges of corruption against Kairon “rattled Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi”, he was summoned to the capital. But before meeting the Prime Minister, he met journalists at Punjab Bhawan, where he told them in crude Punjabi, with disarming candour --  “for heaven’s sake don’t disrupt the construction of the dam”.

 Regarding the Babri Masjid demolition Suman presents a grisly picture. The zeal and fervour with which the karsevaks were taking part in the demolition job sent a chill down our spines. Those who had no tools to use were scratching away like madmen with their fingernails on the domes. A few young men tied a noose around the domes and were trying to pull them down.’

 Suman’s Memoirs  is a perfectly fascinating recount of major developments peppered with colourful anecdotes ,witty vignettes and is written quite racily. His penchant for details does not prevent him from putting things in an overall perspective which comes through very delectably. We have charming vignettes of Top-Cop K.P.S.Gill and the tearful tale of  Governor caught for his sexual peccadilloes.

P.P.Ramachandran

13/05/2018.