New Delhi: Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, a rare non-dogmatic face of the Indian Left, which continues to punch above its weight despite standing on the edge of a precipice, died Thursday at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi.
The 72-year-old leader was on respiratory support after being admitted for an acute respiratory tract infection.
Known for his friendships across the political spectrum, Yechury was serving his third term as the general secretary of the CPI(M). In April 2015, he took over the post from Prakash Karat, who was known for his doctrinaire approach that caused friction within the Left on many pivotal issues ranging from the Indo-US nuclear deal to the party’s alliance with the Congress.
Even as the Left’s footprint considerably shrank in the past decade, much of which saw Yechury steering the CPI(M) as its fifth general secretary, his prominence in the opposition camp was hardly affected. In fact, for the better part of the last two decades, Yechury was among the most recognisable Communist leaders in Delhi, admired for his political agility in a Left riven with many contradictions.
It was under him that the CPI(M), for the first time, entered into a pre-poll alliance with the Congress and other opposition parties at the national-level ahead of the 2024 general elections.
A member of the Rajya Sabha from 2005 to 2017, Yechury took charge as the CPI(M) general secretary in 2015, after a close contest with S. Ramachandran Pillai at the 21st Congress of the party held at Visakhapatnam.
His pragmatic political line had led to many expecting a resurgence of the Left under his stewardship. However, electoral success eluded the CPI(M) even under Yechury’s watch, as the party hurtled from one drubbing to another, be it in assembly polls, or the Lok Sabha elections. In the 2024 general elections, the CPI(M) managed to get only four members elected, including Amra Ram from Rajasthan.
However, he remained an influential political voice, counting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi among his closest confidants. Such was the warmth between the two leaders, that Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh quipped two years ago that Yechury was a “two-in-one general secretary.”
“He is general secretary of CPI(M) and general secretary of Congress also. And sometimes…his influence in Congress is more than in CPI(M),” Ramesh had said.
On Thursday, as condolences poured in after the veteran’s death, Rahul posted on social media platform ‘X’: “Sitaram Yechury ji was a friend. A protector of the Idea of India with a deep understanding of our country. I will miss the long discussions we used to have. My sincere condolences to his family, friends, and followers in this hour of grief.”
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From activist-student leader to top comrade
Nearly five decades ago, in 1977, Yechury, who had just been elected as the president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union, hit national headlines after he read out a letter demanding Indira Gandhi’s resignation as the JNU chancellor in front of her.
A bright student, Yechury obtained a first class in BA (Hons) Economics from St Stephen’s College, and went to complete MA in Economics from JNU, also with a first class. He had also enrolled for a PhD from JNU but had to abort it due to his arrest during the Emergency in the nation-wide crackdown on the Congress party’s political rivals.
Earlier, he had stood first nationally in the higher secondary examination having appeared in it from a school in Delhi, where he had to shift from Hyderabad due to the 1969 Telangana agitation.
He had joined the Students Federation of India (SFI), the CPI(M)’s student wing, in 1974, after enrolling as a student at JNU. A year later, Yechury joined the CPI(M), where he rose through the ranks over the subsequent decades, working in close proximity with Left stalwarts such as Jyoti Basu, with whom he travelled to Cuba to meet Fidel Castro, and Harkishan Singh Surjeet, a leader Yechury was often compared with for the ease with which both straddled political coalitions.
In 2018, when the Left found itself divided, not for the first time in its history, on the question of cooperating with the Congress, Yechury advocated the need to keep the possibility of the understanding open, resisting opposition from the Karat-led lobby. Eventually, the Karat group prevailed, with the CPI(M) central committee rejecting Yechury’s proposal by a vote of 55-31.
The duo had, on many occasions, been on the same page, most famously in 1996 to veto the proposal to make Jyoti Basu the prime minister. During that decade, Yechury was instrumental in the rise and fall of many coalition governments, including that of H.D. Devegowda and Inder Kumar Gujral.
In 2004, the CPI(M) posted its best performance in the Lok Sabha elections, winning as many as 43 seats, and decided to lend outside support to the Congress-led UPA government.
Yechury’s experience in drafting a common minimum programme along with Congress leader P. Chidambaram for the United Front proved useful then as a similar task had to be carried out once again for the government led by Manmohan Singh.
In 2008, when the Left walked out of the alliance opposing the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, Yechury did not favour the move engineered by the Karat faction with the strong backing of the CPI(M)’s Kerala unit, Manmohan Singh’s media advisor Sanjaya Baru wrote in his book, ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’.
A US diplomatic cable, leaked by WikiLeaks, had also quoted Yechury as having told the US political counsellor that the Left would not walk out of the UPA.
Yechury entered the Rajya Sabha in 2005, and went on to serve two terms till 2017, before retiring from the Upper House against his wishes as the Kerala lobby of the CPI(M) opposed any revision in the norm of not more than two terms for the general secretary.
On the day of his farewell, Yechury’s remarkable popularity across the political spectrum was on display as one MP after another heaped praises on him. Some, like Ramgopal Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, even broke down, while Ghulam Nabi Azad, then with the Congress, said why could the Left not revise its rules, terming Yechury as a “national treasure”.
The late Arun Jaitley of the Bharatiya Janata Party recounted their years as student activists—albeit in the rival organisations of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and SFI—and lauded his Communist friend for his “valuable contribution to Parliament through every debate”.
“He raised the level of every debate and others had to measure up to his standards,” Jaitley had said.
In 2018, his proposal for a working relationship with the Congress was rejected, but he got another term as the CPI(M) general secretary. In 2022, he was appointed to the post for the third term.
However, by then the usually affable and jovial Yechury, known for his quick wit, had visibly slowed down, having received a personal blow in 2021 when his elder son Ashish passed away due to Covid. Yechury is survived by his wife Seema Chishti, the editor of The Wire, son Danish, and daughter Akhila.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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