Indira Gandhi's Emergency to right-wing communal forces: Comrade Sitaram Yechury was a fighter to remember

Fifty years of his political life -- which started with him joining the SFI in 1974 while pursuing MA in economics in JNU where he was Students Union President thrice, has been one of uncompromising ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism, starting with the fight against the Indira Gandhi-imposed Emergency and now ending with a fight against right-wing communal forces.

New Delhi: When life said a final ‘Lal Salaam’ (Red Salute) to Sitaram Yechury, the country’s leading communist had already dedicated five decades to an ‘inquilab’ (revolution) for the working class and a secular India.

‘Sitaram’ -- to young and old -- and ‘Sita’ to friends of all hues, the 72-year-old CPI(M) General Secretary donned several roles elegantly before leaving a legacy of being an anti-fascist Parliamentarian and a coalition builder who was instrumental in drafting Common Minimum Programmes that defined two governments.

In 1984, at the age of 32, when he was chosen as a Special Invitee to CPI(M) Central Committee, he was doubtful whether he was mature enough to handle a bigger responsibility but then-party General Secretary E M S Namboodiripad did not have any doubts about the young comrade, who had grabbed the first rank in CBSE exams and was a university-level tennis player.

Eight years later, the son of an engineer-father and government employee-mother from Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada became the youngest politburo member and remained among active players who determined where the country was headed to for years before rising to the party’s top post.

The Telangana agitation of 1969 had brought Yechury to Delhi for studies but the heady political days sent him underground during the Emergency – forcing him to leave his PhD midway. He was later arrested. It was following a protest led by Yechury in 1978 that Indira Gandhi resigned as Jawaharlal Nehru University Chancellor – an iconic photo of Indira listening to Yechury when he read out a chargesheet against her marked the event.

Fifty years of his political life -- which started with him joining the SFI in 1974 while pursuing MA in economics at JNU where he was Students Union President thrice, has been one of uncompromising ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism, starting with the fight against the Indira Gandhi-imposed Emergency and now ending with a fight against right-wing communal forces.

At a time some of his comrades found it difficult to even smile, his jovial nature and refusal to be dogmatic was misinterpreted as ‘compromising’ with the ‘bourgeoisie’. Some called him opportunist while others described him as a pragmatist with a negative tinge, but Yechury was convinced that his ‘ism’ was Marxism and not opportunism or pragmatism.

Yechury was undeterred as he employed the Leninist dictum of “concrete analysis of concrete situations is the living essence of dialectics” while understanding and confronting Indian realities. That even put him at loggerheads with his old friend and comrade Prakash Karat over questions, including ones on the character of the Modi regime and whether it could do business with Congress to take on RSS-BJP.

His detractors would not have found fault with his analysis of the Indian situation if they had not forgotten the role played by Yechury in the early 2000s to bring Maoist leaders in Nepal to the political mainstream, which led to the end of monarchy there and helped the neighbouring country change from a Hindu kingdom to a secular nation.

While Karat and his followers felt Indian conditions could be described as authoritarian and wanted to keep Congress away in the fight, Yechury was clear that the Modi regime was showing “fascistic” tendencies and to defeat such a force, all secular and democratic forces should collaborate.

While the majority of party’s central leaders did not find merit in the ‘Yechury Line’, he took his arguments to the Party Congress where delegates from the grassroots stood behind him. He also managed to have an understanding between Congress in West Bengal but did not succeed.

Delegates’ pressure ensured that he became CPI(M) General Secretary, first in 2015 and then in 2018 and 2022. With their support, he also ensured that the party was allowed to enter into an electoral understanding with secular parties, including Congress, to defeat the BJP.

His elevation did not stop the decline of CPI(M) but his towering presence ensured that the Indian Left got a say in designing the secular politics of the country, much to the discomfort of some regional satraps. He could not rejuvenate the party even as he attempted to reinvent it.

Scouting for allies in the fight against the RSS-BJP, he noticed the resentment among the youth, especially students and Dalits, over rising economic and social inequalities. He advocated ‘Neel Salaam, Lal Salaam’ – to unite Dalits and communists while avoiding the danger of identity politics. He too prepared the ground for intellectuals coming together for ‘award wapsi’ to target the Modi government.

With the same vigour, he tried to stitch an overarching Opposition alliance for 2019 polls and was moving towards a moderate success but the Pulwama terror strike and Balakot surgical strike changed the poll dynamics. He had his apprenticeship on coalition building under Harkishen Surjeet who had midwived the National Front, United Front, and UPA experiments.

As Modi returned to power, Yechury continued his efforts and along with other leaders prepared the groundwork for I.N.D.I.A. Mentored by veteran Marxists like P Sundarayya, M Basavapunnaiah and Surjeet, he used all his experience to navigate the competing interests to midwife the alliance that would diminish Modi’s clout after 2024 polls.

He never allowed the BJP to breathe easy in Rajya Sabha. Non-Left MPs rallied behind him when their own party leaders appeared soft on the government.

In a rare instance in 2015, his political manoeuvring got the Opposition come together to pass an amendment to the President’s Speech, the fourth such instance then. He also revived an otherwise dying Opposition protest when he insisted on the FIR being filed against the communal speech by a Union minister after Prime Minister Modi expressed regret, which he insisted was an admission of guilt.

He got a rare second term as Rajya Sabha MP and his retirement saw leaders across party lines asking CPI(M) to change its convention of not sending MPs to Upper House for more than one term. The country’s Constitution is amended, and why not CPI(M)’s, was a query from a leader.

Samajwadi Party’s Ramgopal Yadav, who shared the front row seat with Yechury, broke down in Rajya Sabha during his farewell speech for Yechury.

CPI(M) refused to send him again to Parliament, which a section still argues deprived the Indian Left of a powerful voice against the Sangh.

It did not mean that he was soft on the Congress when the grand old party was in power. He was one of the key Left negotiators along with Karat on the Indo-US nuclear deal. He was one of the first to hold a press conference on 2G spectrum allocation irregularities.

Incidentally, both Congress and CPI(M) leaders were unhappy with Yehcury for the influence he wielded in both the parties with Rahul Gandhi calling him “chief” and Congress functionaries complaining that their leader listened to the Left leader a lot.

Proficient in English, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali and Tamil, Yechury was committed to the idea of India as a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic”. It was Yechury who initiated the 'Constitution in danger' campaign soon after 2014 elections and voters started finding some merit in it ten years later. His party did not benefit much but secular forces did.