Talk:Jyoti Basu

Untitled
There must be all the statements and actions taken by him as a chief minister for degrading West Bengal to the lowest status of all the states in India.

Soman's reversion
User: Ashis Ray Soman, you must stop bhandalising pages. We are supposed to write only Communist propaganda, not facts.

Soman, I do not understand your reversion. Jyoti Basu's full name is in fact Jyotirmoy Basu. The MoS clearly says that his full name should be introduced in the lead section and all subsequent references should be only to the surname. That is what I was trying to follow. &mdash; Ravikiran 10:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * In that case, it shoyld be mentioned in the lead. However, it should not be used in the rest of the article (as he is more commonly known as just Jyoti Basu). A.K. Gopalan's full name was Ayillyath Kuttiari Gopalan Nambiar, but in article text the short, more commonly used naming is used. --Soman 10:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry. My fault. Jyotirmoy Basu was another CPI(M) leader, unrelated to Jyoti. &mdash; Ravikiran 10:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[ [ User : Ashis Ray ]Jyoti Basu's full name is Jyotikiran Basu. Jyotirmoy Basu was a different man and ex-MP, Lok Sabha, from Diamond Harbour Constituency in West Bengal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.180.150.18 (talk) 06:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup
As Ragib, Peripatetic and an anon user have all pointed out in edit summaries, per WP:BLP and WP:OR, this article is in a dreadful state. Unless a ton of fairly NPOV statements are sourced pretty soon, I'll be removing them. Hornplease 23:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've already removed unreferenced information and personal commentry/libel from the "Background" section, per WP:BLP. --Ragib 23:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Hindu college was established on 1855......it was renamed presidency college,calcutta on 1955

Suspected copyvio
The change by User:59.93.240.49 at 16:39, 17 January 2010 appears to be from here. As per wp:copyvio I've revered it. CS Miller (talk) 17:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It would appear that the user added the copyvio again; it was removed by user:Ganeshk. CS Miller (talk) 17:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

who has deleted the brief life sketch of jyoti basu?
who had deleted the brief life sketch of jyoti basu? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.240.49 (talk) 17:16, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It was removed by Ganeshk as it was a copyright violation of Basu's website. Please do not add it again unless you can prove you have the website's permission to do so. CS Miller (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

The condolence messages of politburo and of cm is quoted....and not copied......why are you deleting them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.240.49 (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not remove them. To see who did click on the "view history" link near the top of the page. Click on the date of any change to see what was changed. You csn then use the "prev" and "next" links to see the previous and later changes. CS Miller (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

okays........sorry for blaming you........Anshuva (user:59.93.240.49) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anshuva Sanyal (talk • contribs) 17:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
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Outrageous Assessments of Importance
This article clearly needs some work to tidy it up and to rectify the fulsomeness of tone. On the other hand, the importance assigned to it by some of the projects is shocking and a clear sign of ethnocentric bias. How can a man who ruled one of India's most important states for 23 years and was a founder of the CPI(M) count as of low importance to the Socialism project? It would be just as plausible to argue that Basu was the most important and successful Marxist politician anywhere in the world in the second half of 20th century.Sjwells53 (talk) 19:10, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Jyoti Basu a leader who oversaw his state's industrial decline.
I'm surprised that the edit on Jyoti Basu presiding over the state's industrial decline is being removed. I find it surprising that someone even disagrees with this well established fact. A simple Google search points us to articles which illustrate the point.

I share a few of the links here:

http://cpasindia.org/articles/mg-05-03-17-industrial-decline-west-bengal.html

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2691567

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/basu-presided-over-bengals-industrial-decline/108880-37.html

Notacommunist (talk) 06:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * If you add sources for your statements (without synthesis), no one is going to revert you. So, add sources to content, or it will be removed. - Spaceman  Spiff  06:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Added the references, not original research and well established facts. Notacommunist (talk) 07:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Industrial decline under his leadership
The industrial decline of West Bengal under communist rule from 1977 to present has to be noted. As a leader of the alliance which is ruling West Bengal, Jyoti Basu bears responsibility to it.

Facts: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/2005/04/01/stories/2005040100090900.htm

"West Bengal's performance is comparable to that of Maharashtra where the comparable decline from 1977-78 to 1999-2000 was 55.28 per cent to 25.02 per cent or a decline in incidence of 55.22 per cent. When the performance of West Bengal and Maharashtra is related, the former having fared dismally in terms of industrial expansion while the latter was a star on this account, perhaps those who influence policies in this country will be able to distinguish reality from perceptions."

''"It is not that the Communists did not have a role to play in the industrial decline of West Bengal. The Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, himself has been candid about this when he admitted at a CII gathering: "Yes, it is true that we have committed mistakes and have been irresponsible. You have heard of the word gherao, which means surrounding the management. It is now part of the English dictionary." Often these gheraos and the more traditional forms of industrial action ended up in violence resulting in a flight of capital from West Bengal.''

''Worse, this kind of militancy led to competitive militancy and now trade unions affiliated to all political parties make similar demands and use similar methods. This has made all trade unions more comfortable with state ownership with the obvious attendant benefits of assured salaries and pay increases, full tenures, and annual bonuses, without any relation to productivity and corporate health. When an industry was rendered sick, it was taken over by the government to protect jobs and not so much to contribute to the economy. Examples abound all over the country, but West Bengal typified it."''

There are many such articles, unfortunately being suppressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Notacommunist (talk • contribs) 17:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * A blog on IBN is not a good enough source for such statements, also most of the content you keep adding is synthesis. Also, the lede should be a summary of what's in the article. Stop edit warring and discuss individual statements here. - Spaceman  Spiff  17:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have also added a link to Hindu Business Line, is it not a good reference? Notacommunist (talk) 17:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree that this is an "Edit War", the facts are present in multiple articles, so I'd appreciate you not censoring them. Notacommunist (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Jyoti Basu has been criticized like many political leaders. But the inclusion of such criticism must not come in the opening paragraph. It needs to come later, perhaps in separate section. JovianEye (talk) 17:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I removed the statements attributed to the hindu article. That article is about West Bengal rather than Basu and actually concludes that the reality of West Bengal (economic progress at whatever the Indian average is) is not consonant with the myth (basket case). I think a criticism section is in order but better sources should be used. (I left in the blog because at least it is - very - critical of Basu). --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 18:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello JovianEye, I agree on the separate critics section of Jyoti Basu, although one line critique is due in the opening paragraph.
 * Hi RegentsPark, the reference to the Hindu Business Line is important, because of it being a reputable source. The article talks about the industrial performance of West Bengal during his rule. As a leader he bears responsibility to the actions his political ideology/party/government he was running. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Notacommunist (talk • contribs) 19:08, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Under the section 'Chief Minister of West Bengal' it is mentioned 'he was also a hypocrite and characterless personality' Is this intentional or a mistake? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.221.147.90 (talk) 18:12, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for Comments
There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:39, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Article development
Hi Great you are developing this article. You take help from this article; especially writing the article in a balance manner mentioning both his achievement and criticism. Also ensure providing good quality reliance sources otherwise somebody in future will remove those information. Try to provide scholarly level sources. Thanks--Amrita62 (talk) 06:22, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry? Encyclopedia Britannica is neither a scholarly source nor is it more reliable then established news publications. There is not much you can do to remove them other than by taking it to RfC and questioning their reliability which will just not go through when it comes to papers like The Hindu, The Indian Express  or The Hindustan Times. I'm also reverting your edits because the "scholarly source" you added cites to the index of a Routledge book which has no visible correspondence to the lines you added. The other also doesn't maintain source-text integrity, there's quite a semantic difference between "Basu's governance style was marked by pragmatism and corruption" and "his later style of governance was defined by pragmatism. It was also marked by concerns about corruption."  Tayi Arajakate  Talk 13:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Alright, if you're not interested to take "britannica" as source its fine. First you developed the entire article. I still cannot digest that you mention him "statesman" solely on the basis of news publication; Indian news publications are highly biased either they are inclined towards right or left; unlike western media which maintains independence to a great extend. I think some experienced editor is required in order to sort this issue. Please help can we mention Jyoti Basu as a "statesman" solely on the basis of news publications. Don't you think more strong source is required.--Amrita62 (talk) 18:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Content is being both reverted and modified here, so I'm not certain what portions are still in dispute. The sentence "Basu's governance style was marked by pragmatism and corruption" is essentially meaningless, and needs to be rewritten or removed. Both those features are things that would likely merit mention in the lead if reliable sources cover them in detail, but they need to be written about in coherent sentences. I think your assessment of Encyclopedia Britannica is incorrect. I would certainly prefer EB over most Indian newspapers, which have a marked tendency to use flowery language, among other things. Ideally, we should be using scholarly sources for the entire thing, but that's difficult to do. Finally, the word "statesman" is a meaningless term that I personally think ought to be scrubbed from the encyclopedia, but that's just my opinion. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't mind using EB for objective information but I wouldn't rely on it to provide a complete summary or for subjective judgments. It does gets things wrong from time to time and probably suffers from systemic bias which is less likely to be present in Indian media. The article on EB about Jyoti Basu itself is also likely derived from Indian newspapers. For instance the "pragmatism" attributed to Jyoti Basu is present in a plethora of Indian news media from around the late 90s and early 2000s. Indian media itself should be judged by the merits of individual publications and not a singular vague hand wavy assessment of all publications. If anyone wants to bring up questions of reliability (or bias) in individual publications that are being used here then they are free to do so. The period between 1977-2000 seem to be covered by scholarly sources to an extent but beyond that newspapers are the best there is. The lead can be fleshed out once the body has been developed. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 08:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * @Tayi Arajakate, Everybody knows Indian media outlets are biased. What Vanamonde has said go with that point. And please remove "statesman" from the lead section. You must provide scholarly source for that and for the entire article. The news source you have provided are highly left wing biased in their view.   Please fix this article.--Amrita62 (talk) 18:13, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any policy based reasoning why I shouldn't use publications which qualify as WP:NEWSORG? And no, the news sources I've used are not "highly left wing biased", not to mention bias isn't even equivalent to unreliability. For the descriptor of "statesman", I have used The Hindustan Times, The Hindu and NDTV, all of which are established mainstream news publications. Tayi Arajakate Talk 01:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * , I agree with you on above and as you have mentioned, I have also used The Hindustan Times which are established mainstream news publication and qualify as WP:NEWSORG about the estimation of death. Kindly stop vandalizing regarding the death toll range estimated as mentioned by reliable sources WP:RSE. Our job is not to build opinion rather being neutral WP:NPOV and edit based on sources which are reliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.26.210 (talk • contribs) 07:09, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * First of all, you need to assume good faith and learn what qualifies as vandalism. Secondly, you have misrepresented an article of The Hindustan Times which gives a very wide margin of death tolls based on personal anecdotes/accounts, that is not an estimation. Moreover when there are reliable academic sources available for something, preference should be given to them and these sources almost universally state that due to the lack of any proper investigation no reliable estimation could be made (although if I remember correctly a central commission did provide a preliminary estimation which I will add if I can find it again). Our job is indeed not to build opinion but rather present a neutral point of view which isn't done by highlighting fringe opinions or anecdotes. Please see the section on WP:WEIGHT. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 10:52, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Isn't assume good faith is mutual and for all editors? I appreciate your statement that estimate is wide but the then Govt restricted media as almost all the houses in the area were burnt and dead bodies were thrown in the river. However there are many survivors of this incident who are settled in few colonies in West Bengal and articles has been published from the survivors narration. I have mentioned reference to the The Journal of Asian Studies. There wasn't any sort of commission that were allowed to work on this till the Left Regime was there in West Bengal. It will be interesting to know if there are some as you have cited. This is the worst massacre in Independent India ever conducted and even women and children were not spared. I also agree on neutral point of view to present fact that the death count was too high but officially they reported just 2 person who tried crossing by boat and were shot dead. Media on other side has captured it and there were many witness of it. However police cordoned off the island and ran the massacre without allowing anyone to get out or come inside. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.26.210 (talk) 12:03, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've not assumed bad faith on your part, since you in fact seem to be engaging in a discussion at the least. All I have said is randomly accusing people of "vandalism" is inappropriate.
 * Coming to the actual matter, I saw the new reference you added which is of much appreciated academic standards. It states the following:
 * You have combined the above with a short article of the The Times of India which states that the Mamata Banerjee government wants to reopen the case; to present the following addition.
 * This is called synthesis which is not allowed on Wikipedia and very much not a neutral point of view. Neither article states or demonstrates that the "deaths were in thousand based on multiple sources" nor do they make any definitive statements on the "actual deaths". The article linked from the Journal of Asian Studies picks out one estimate of the death toll and provides a commentary on the entire process (from Dandakaranya to Marichjhapi to dispersion) and not just the eviction itself.
 * I don't know what happened actually there and neither do you. Therefore you don't actually know if the "death toll was too high" even if you believe it to be so. Please read the essay on verifiability, not truth. In any case, I've re-added your addition with the relevant fixes to the article which adequately states the lack of investigation led to the circulation of various other estimates as per the source. Also understand that this article isn't about a specific event but rather the biography of a person which must include events relevant to him but not sidetrack into a detailed account or discussion of specific events, which itself causes issues of undue weightage to specific aspects. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 07:44, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I am agreeable with your rationale and fine with the amendment. Closing this topic from my end. You set an example here for many others how to differ yet depict patience to hear out, being open, neutral and constructive which on many subcontinent pages are fading and gaining global criticism. Appreciate that and thanks.
 * This is called synthesis which is not allowed on Wikipedia and very much not a neutral point of view. Neither article states or demonstrates that the "deaths were in thousand based on multiple sources" nor do they make any definitive statements on the "actual deaths". The article linked from the Journal of Asian Studies picks out one estimate of the death toll and provides a commentary on the entire process (from Dandakaranya to Marichjhapi to dispersion) and not just the eviction itself.
 * I don't know what happened actually there and neither do you. Therefore you don't actually know if the "death toll was too high" even if you believe it to be so. Please read the essay on verifiability, not truth. In any case, I've re-added your addition with the relevant fixes to the article which adequately states the lack of investigation led to the circulation of various other estimates as per the source. Also understand that this article isn't about a specific event but rather the biography of a person which must include events relevant to him but not sidetrack into a detailed account or discussion of specific events, which itself causes issues of undue weightage to specific aspects. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 07:44, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I am agreeable with your rationale and fine with the amendment. Closing this topic from my end. You set an example here for many others how to differ yet depict patience to hear out, being open, neutral and constructive which on many subcontinent pages are fading and gaining global criticism. Appreciate that and thanks.
 * I am agreeable with your rationale and fine with the amendment. Closing this topic from my end. You set an example here for many others how to differ yet depict patience to hear out, being open, neutral and constructive which on many subcontinent pages are fading and gaining global criticism. Appreciate that and thanks.

Death section : Biman Bose's comments
Fail to understand why a sentence in Bengali is suddenly inserted here Biman Bose announced with tears, "জ্যোতি বাবু আমাদের ছেড়ে চলে গেছেন।" (trans. "Jyoti Babu is no more. I can't speak any more.") At any rate the translation of the Bengali sentence is - 'Jyoti Babu has left us and gone away.' The words 'gone away' here refers to death in a colloquial sense. Suggest keeping just the English sentences, which though are not exactly what he said, ref. link here youtube.com/watch?v=olWT36ATHQU It would be appropriate to perhaps take off the entire reference to Biman Bose's reaction to Jyoti Basu's death. The preceding sentence quire adequately provides the information on the date and time of Jyoti Basu's death. Fail to see what additional information(aside from an inaccurate translation) is being achieved by the sentences referring to Biman Bose. Suksane (talk) 13:13, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Any comments from anyone? I shall wait for a few more days before deleting the text in bold above unless someone interjects Suksane (talk) 12:51, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I can see that the translation has been corrected by an IP user on 9th. I still think we should remove the entire text in bold as it adds no value to the article. If someone wants to retain this text, why not add it under the sub section 'Reactions and tributes on his death', which probably is the correct place for this text anyways.
 * Waiting a few more days for consensus on this Suksane (talk) 12:06, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Navaratna of CPIM
All the members of the first polit bureau are known as navaratnas of Cpim. Jyoti Basu was a member of it. Then what's the problem ? For source https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/founders-of-cpi-m-uaw133/ https://peoplesdemocracy.in/2014/0706_pd/comrade-jyoti-basu-last-navaratnas https://vannamboodiri.com/2015/03/02/who-are-the-navaratnas-of-cpim/ Guypes26 (talk) 06:56, 24 October 2023 (UTC)