The 1969 article in The Guardian

University College London (UCL), in response to a request from The Telegraph, has been able to track down Jyoti Basu’s entry form when he first came to London from Calcutta as a student in 1935.

It solves a number of mysteries. Basu, who was 21 when he set foot in Britain around Puja, must have found London very cold after the warmth of Calcutta when he signed his entry form at UCL in October 1935. The war drums were starting to roll because Europe was four years away from the start of the Second World War.

Should anyone ever consider putting up an English Heritage Blue Plaque to mark Basu’s stay in London, the form locates exactly where he lived.

He first stayed at 54 Albert Street, London NW1, which means he was a short walk away from Camden Town or Mornington Crescent underground stations — which would have been quite handy for lectures at UCL.

Then he moved to the west of London to 24 Charleville Road, West Kensington, between Barons Court and West Kensington tube stations. But probably that did not suit him very much, for he returned to north London and took lodgings at 5 Belsize Park Gardens, just on the other side of Haverstock Hill and within a few minutes walk from Belsize Park underground.

Jyoti Basu’s entry forms to University of London

The post code here is NW3, the same as that for Hampstead, which remains one of the most sought after residential areas of London with a “village” atmosphere. Property prices in Hampstead have gone through the roof but they are very high in Belsize Park, too. In the 1960s and 1970s, Belsize Park was a sort of “Bengali para” — even today, one of the biggest Pujas in London is held just up the road in Camden.

Journalist Manab Mazumdar, who lives in Belsize Park — “5 Belsize Park Gardens, is very close to me” — remembers meeting Basu in the 1980s when the chief minister was pleased to gossip with two men who had been students with him — K.S. Shelvanker and Iqbal Singh. At a reception given for Basu at the India Club in the Strand, someone nipped out and bought half a bottle of Remy Martin Champagne Cognac at vast expense from a pub.

Mazumdar recalls Basu telling him: “‘Glashta ektu garam korey dao (just warm the glass a little)’ — he knew (good cognac).”

Basu’s first year at UCL ended in July 1936, and he signed a second entry form for the period October 1936 to July 1937. Unlike today’s students, who would probably return home for the vacation, it is almost certain he stayed in London in the summer of 1936.

What is unusual, certainly by today’s procedures, is that while he was registered at UCL, he was able also to attend lectures at the London School of Economics — which explains why the LSE counts Basu among its distinguished Indian alumni.

While he did British history and general economics at UCL, he would nip over to the LSE for lectures on political organisation, constitutional law and anthropology. He began but discontinued lectures in political theory and psychology. He also attended some lectures on international law at the LSE.

Such flexibility may not be possible today.

In his second year at UCL, he carried on with British history and anthropology and with international law at the LSE. But he also took “present day English” at UCL, which might explain why he was always comfortable with the language of the Raj. Some British journalists would later complain that in interviews, Basu’s answers were terse and he would sum up in 10 words whereas Ajoy Mukherjee, his chief minister when he was the deputy, would be very Bengali and hold forth for 15 minutes on one answer.

In his first year, his fees came to £39 and in the second, £15 and 15 shillings.

Years later, someone at UCL, possibly a librarian, must have realised that Basu was making a name for himself and clipped out an article from The Guardian on April 7, 1969, by Geoffrey Moorhouse, on one of its old boys. The piece is called Calcutta’s Ire, with an accompanying photograph of “Basu: The bossman”.

Reading the piece leaves the impression that not much has changed in Calcutta in 40 years but there is an insightful observation on Basu, the CPM man.

Moorhouse says that “it had better be recorded that relations between Jyoti Basu and Peking are a shade on the cool side at present. Chairman Mao doesn’t like his lads forming coalitions with bourgeois politicians like Ajoy Mukherjee; and Basu, who is a Bengali even before he is a Communist, has told the Chairman to drop dead.”

May be that remark — “a Bengali even before he is a Communist” — wasn’t so far off the mark.