As many Congressmen, including many in West Bengal, have later found out, there is nothing wrong in inviting Basu to speak on Nehru, or Basu accepting the invitation. Basu knew Nehru. He had regard for Nehru's world view.

Nehru's left-of-centre approach was indeed less unacceptable than a possible right-of-right formation. It would seem that what was hailed as Nehruvian socialism is espoused more by Basu's party than Nehru's own outfit in these days of liberalisation. Congressmen have no longer any use for slogans about poverty and socialjustice.

Basu knew Sonia's mother-in-law better than her grandfather-in-law about whom he spoke eloquently. Basu's party had, in fact, seen revolutionary elan in a greater degree in her than in Nehru. Nehru never needed Basu's party's support to survive. Indu, as Basu could call Indira Gandhi, did need it when she rose to head a minority government, weathering a rightist storm of opposition from within her party as well as outside. It was Basu's party which saved her in that period of crisis when she was working hard to uphold the principles of socialism.

It suited her designs, perhaps, even her convictions. Indu took on, Basu may recall, a visage far more revolutionary than Nehru. Whether or not she was influenced by those like Haksar and Kumaramangalam (father of the gentleman who has thoughtfully joined BJP for convenience and benefit), Indira Gandhi did several things which simply pleased Basu's men. Even when she lapsed into an acutely authoritarian phase, many of them were not entirelydisenchanted.

One communist group stood by her solidly. Basu's group was sore even as it felt that those emergency measures were largely directed against the rightist machinations to seize power in New Delhi.

So, it would seem that there was an absolute stand-off between Basu's men and Congressmen in New Delhi only for a short spell between 1977 and 1979. When Morarji Desai's government was falling, preparing the path for the eventual rise of Indira Gandhi again to power, Basu's party did nothing to prevent it. In fact, it backed a rickety and ridiculously unlikely alternative led by Charan Singh, who was pathetically dependent on Indira Gandhi. There was something odd about backing an outfit whose life-support system was manned by Congressmen.

But then there was that beautiful exercise in sophistry encapsulated in EMS Namboodiripad's famous dictum that it is no political taboo to touch someone who touches a political untouchable.

The subsequent years were to witness an inexorable march towardscommunist-Congress collaboration, notwithstanding all kinds of incessant disclaimers and even protestations by their leaders. Basu's men did contribute their mite to felling Soniaji's husband, but soon after his death, they realised that they were playing a counterproductive game. Narasimha Rao, who followed him, and who presided over everything associated with liberalisation that was always anathema to Basu's men though not himself, won their vital support whenever he was in need of it. Whenever he looked like faltering, they helped him out.

And then Namboodirpad's dictum was played out faithfully, gleefully. Janata Dal was precariously dependent on Congressmen, but it was tactically right for Basu's men to prop it up. Deve Gowda and Inder Gujral were the beneficiaries of that communist approach. There was some half-heartedness about that phase of Congress-Communist collaboration. The wages of half-heartedness came in the form of the rise of the main enemy to power, though on crutches.

Soniaji hasfinally realised it. So has Basu. But not all his men. Basu had pushed through several measures embarrassing many of his comrades and flouting certain tenets of communist scriptures. But not one comrade who disapproved of his ways was strong or bold enough to demand his ouster. Another comrade would have long been hounded out of the hallowed salons of revolution, but Basu is made of different stuff. He has shown that he is by far the most durable political commodity in the market of Indian leadership.

It may yet be a long way before Basu's men in his province and Kerala are persuaded to coin slogans about the virtue of being Basu and about the glory of everything he does. Before they do so, they have to unlearn the lessons of anti-Congressism taught to them in the two states where they matter. Basu knows that sooner or later they will learn to perform such ideological somersaults. There is no other way. Which is why he made eloquent references to the things "as Soniaji rightly put."