In the passing away of Sitaram Yechury, 72, the Indian Left has lost its most effective and pragmatist influencer in the mainstream political space. Yechury died in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi following a month-long respiratory ailment on Thursday afternoon. In the time-honoured tradition of the publicly-committed athiest that Yechury was, his body has been donated to AIIMS for teaching and research purposes.

Yechury will be remembered for his moderate voice in India’s left-of-the-centre politics where his lifelong commitment to Marxism-Leninism as professed by the CPI(M) was tempered by an astute grasp of contemporary political realities. As a disciplined comrade, he would not openly defy the party line with which he sometimes disagreed, like in 2012 when the CPI(M)‘s 20th Congress said it would fight both the Congress and the BJP. Yechury was of the firm opinion that the BJP was the bigger threat and alliances should be made with the Congress. He was a stark contrast to his predecessor Prakash Karat, a firm ideologue who advocated equidistance from the Congress and the BJP.

Not toeing party line

But it was Karat who managed to steer the party line in the crucial years that the CPI(M) was supporting the Manmohan Singh government. From the beginning in 2004, when the CPI(M) with 43 Lok Sabha seats emerged as kingmaker for the Congress-led UPA, it was Karat who guided the decision to not join the government. In the days that this decision was being firmed up, a few supporters and friends of the CPI(M) staged a demonstration outside the party office in Delhi to demand that it join the government. When Yechury came out to talk to the demonstrators, one of them held his hand and coaxed, “Comrade, only you can save Galileo from the Pope”. “But the Pope prevails even if Galileo is right,” he said, laughing. Even on the issue of withdrawing support from the UPA on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, Yechury did not agree with the party. He later acknowledged publicly that the CPI(M) failed to make the nuclear deal an election issue.

Strong bonds

Yechury made strong bonds not just with the Congress’ top leadership — gifting books to Sonia Gandhi and coaching Rahul on tactical matters – but across the political spectrum. Even among the MPs of the BJP to which he was most staunchly opposed, Yechury had friendly ties. “You talk about Ram, I have both Sita and Ram in my first name,” he would joke with the BJP MPs in the Rajya Sabha.

Yechury’s was an innate urbane sophistication shaped by years in Delhi campuses where he was a top-class student, graduating from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, with a first class degree in Economics. He did his Masters from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) where the students movement against the Emergency disrupted his pursuance of a PhD. As a member of the Students Federation of India, the student wing of the CPI(M), he was arrested during the Emergency. After the Emergency and his incarceration, Yechury was elected president of JNU’s prestigious students union three times. From there to the Central Committee and the Polit Bureau, it was a a journey shaped by the party elders P Sundarayya and Harkishan Singh Surjeet.

Yechury was a moderate communist who understood BJP as the real danger to secular, liberal politics in India. “A viable, Left-Congress alliance is the only alternative to polarising forces,” he told this correspondent in an interview. His demise leaves a big vacuum at a time when the Left is struggling to find relevance in the face of a dominant BJP.

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