Kolkata: Communist patriarch Jyoti Basu was conferred the honorary Doctorate of Law by the Calcutta University (CU) Thursday.

The 94-year-old leader and former West Bengal chief minister received the honour from state Governor and CU Chancellor Gopal Krishna Gandhi at the Senate Hall of its College Street campus.

"If there is anything called next life then I would request you to come back to this university," Gandhi said, as he described the leader a pragmatist and wished him a longer life.

Basu in his speech urged for making Calcutta University one of the leading universities of the country by upgrading its academic standards.

However, the decision to confer the award to Basu was not without protest.

A day before, ex-Trinamool Congress MLA (member of legislative assembly) and former information secretary to the state government Dipak Ghosh went to the varsity with the intention of returning his degrees in protest against the university's decision to confer the honour to a politician like Basu.

Born on July 8, 1914, in Kolkata, Jyoti Basu, the son of a judge, got his schooling at St. Xavier's School. He graduated from the prestigious Presidency College in Kolkata with an honours degree from the Arts Faculty in 1935 and then traveled to London to study law.

Basu was introduced to the Communist Party of Great Britain and became involved in leftist circles of Indian students in England.

On his return to India, Basu became a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and soon (in 1944) became involved in trade union activities.

When the CPI split in 1964 in a culmination of a rift brewing since 1962 over the Sino-Indian war, Basu became a prominent leader of the breakaway group called the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

He became the chief minister of West Bengal in 1977 when the CPI-M-led Left Front government came to power and remained the longest serving chief minister in the country till he stepped aside for health reasons in 2000. (IANS)