13

Sep

A True Mass leader Sitram Yechury is no more

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Dr Satish Misra

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New Delhi | Friday | 13 September 2024

In the death of CP-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury yesterday  the nation has lost a true people’s leader who always led from the front and stood for the poor oppressed and needy. 

Sita, as he was popularly known to friends , remained committed to the progressive cause didn’t waiver from the set path and worked hard to build consensus among non-BJP parties.

While his death is a serious setback to defenders of the Constitution and liberal democracy, to me it is a personal loss as he was a friend and a valuable source of credible information during my active days in journalism.         

The CPM and hospital sources confirmed his demise,

Sitaram, 72, has been in critical condition in AIIMS since 19 August and was on respiratory support.

He was in the intensive care unit of AIIMS, New Delhi, and was being treated for an acute respiratory tract infection.

One of the most prominent opposition stalwarts, Yechury has long been known for his anti-BJP stance, both inside and outside Parliament.

His clout in the Left Front was evident because he had been a member of the CPM's central committee since 1984 and politburo since 1992.

 

Article at a Glance
The nation mourns the loss of Sitaram Yechury, a true people's leader and General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Yechury, 72, passed away after a prolonged illness.
He was a champion of the poor, downtrodden, and needy, and worked tirelessly to build consensus among non-BJP parties. A prominent opposition stalwart, Yechury was known for his anti-BJP stance and was a coherent, articulate, and knowledgeable speaker.
He was a close advisor to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and played a key role in the opposition INDIA alliance. Yechury's commitment to the progressive cause and his leadership will be deeply missed.
His demise is a personal loss to many, including the author, who remembers him as a humble and kind friend.

 

The Kerala lobby’s vehement opposition to giving him another term in the Rajya Sabha was a severe blow to all liberal democratic forces as he was a coherent, articulate, knowledgeable speaker who could speak on complex issues with tremendous ease in a language that was understood by the common man on the street.   

Yechury's term in the Rajya Sabha ended in 2020 when the CPM’s Kerala faction led by Prakash Karat and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan prevailed on the party to deny a re-nomination to the party general secretary on grounds that as a rule, no one is nominated beyond two terms.

The Kerala lobby’s vehement opposition to giving another term to Sitaram was a severe blow to a leader who was articulate on knowledgeable and complex issues in Parliament.    

Had the CPM decided to nominate Yechury he would have won from West Bengal where the Congress was willing to back him.

Yechury is also famous in political circles as a close advisor to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and was largely considered one of the key figures behind the opposition INDIA alliance which was conceived by JDU's Nitish Kumar.

He was one of the few Indians who sacrificed a secure middle-class life to serve the nation.

Born on August 12, 1952, in Chennai, Yechury hailed from a Telugu-speaking family. His father, Sarveswara Somayajula Yechury, was an engineer in the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, and his mother, Kalpakam Yechury, was a government officer. Yechury grew up in Hyderabad and studied at All Saints High School until his tenth standard. The Telangana agitation of 1969 brought him to Delhi, where he joined the President's Estate School and achieved the All-India first rank in the Central Board of Secondary Education Higher Secondary Examination.

Yechury then studied BA (Hons) in Economics at St Stephen’s College in Delhi, and an MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), achieving first-class honours in both. He joined JNU for a PhD in Economics but was forced to abandon his studies due to his arrest during the Emergency.

Yechury joined the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the student front of CPM, in 1974. He was arrested in 1975 during the Emergency while still a student at JNU. After the Emergency, he was elected as the president of JNUSU. Yechury, along with Prakash Karat, played a crucial role in creating a solid leftist bastion at JNU.

In 1978, Yechury was elected as All-India Joint Secretary of SFI and later became All-India President of SFI, the first president from outside Kerala or Bengal. In 1984, he was elected to the central committee of CPM. In 1985, the party constitution was modified, and a five-man central secretariat was elected, consisting of younger stalwarts, including Yechury, Prakash Karat, Sunil Moitra, P Ramachandran, and S Ramachandran Pillai to work under the direction and control of the politburo.

Yechury was elected to Politburo at the Fourteenth Congress of CPM in 1992 and as the fifth General Secretary of CPM at the party’s 21st party Congress in Visakhapatnam on April 19, 2015. He succeeded Prakash Karat, who had held the post for three consecutive terms from 2005 to 2015. Yechury was re-elected as General Secretary of CPM at the 22nd Party Congress held in Hyderabad from April 18 to 22, 2018, and again at the 23rd Party Congress held in Kannur, Kerala, in April 2022.

Yechury was known for following the coalition-building legacy of former general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet. He worked with P Chidambaram to draft the common minimum program for the United Front government in 1996 and actively pursued coalition-building during the formation of the United Progressive Alliance government in 2004. Yechury headed the party’s international department and was often deputed as a fraternal delegate to socialist countries’ party conferences.

Yechury was married to journalist Seema Chisti, formerly with BBC. He had a daughter and a son from his previous marriage to Indrani Mazumdar. His daughter, Akhila Yechury, teaches in the UK. His son, Ashish Yechury, passed away in 2021 due to Covid at the age of 34.

Sita’s JNU background brought the two of us closer as he came to me while walking at the CPM office on Ashok Road where I had gone to meet Prakash Karat for an informal conversation. Sitaram, who had joined the JNU years after I had left the University for my post-graduation studies to Humboldt University in the then East Germany. Sita saw me coming out of Karat’s room and walked up to me saying hello and introduced himself as a fellow JNUite. His humility and camaraderie touched me and we became friends thereafter. My tearful homage to him.

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