The kindest thing the mainstream press could say about outgoing General secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Harkishen Singh Surjeet was to refer to him as a "Chanakya". This was because of Surjeet's legendary ability to be able to take along a rainbow coalition of Left and Left-inclined political parties. Arguably, it is this multi-tasking done by Surjeet for the Left that has brought the CPI (M) to this point in Indian politics -- closer than it has ever been to being in power at the Centre.
Will new General Secretary Prakash Karat be able to display the same dexterity? It is too early to say whether Surjeet's role of a political facilitator will be lived through by his colleague Sitaram Yechury or Karat, or if the proverbial shoes of the fishermen prove to be too big for the duo.
However, Karat has been designated to play the parts of the organisational man, the intellectual, the ideator and the visionary.
Assiduous, methodical and thorough, Karat has become the most important man in the Left Front after Surjeet. Fifty-six year-old Karat has always been something of an academic sensation.
He lost his father early in life, and then his sister to a tetanus infection. He was born in Burma (now Myanmar), where his father worked for the British railways, but went to school and college in Chennai.
He studied at the Madras Christian College School and had a senior whom he looked up to then: N Ram, the editor of The Hindu. Ram recalls Karat as something of a "serious character" who took a keen interest in cricket, though he did not play the game much.
The reputation of being "serious" has stuck, though people who know him say he has a self-deprecating sense of humour. A reporter tried to check with him recently about rumours that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa would be meeting him to discuss the formation of a third front. Karat replied: "Are you threatening me? Why would you wish danger on me?"
From Madras, Karat went to Edinbrough University in the UK to study political science. During his stay there, he was expelled for the University for participating in the anti-apartheid agitation but his place was restored later on grounds of good behaviour.
After Karat was brought to the central party office in the mid-1980s, he was responsible for strategising the party's ideological direction in an era of coalition politics and liberalisation.
Karat modelled himself politically on P Sundaraiah, who was the CPI (M) general secretary between 1967 and 1977. It was Sundaraiah who suggested that he marry Brinda Basu, then an upcoming women's right's activist in the party. The party- arranged marriage took place during the emergency years.
Karat's influence with the current leadership of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) leaders is unquestionable. He can pick up the phone and talk to Sonia Gandhi whenever he wants to. He was the one who arranged the dinner meeting between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Gandhi.
