Sitaram Yechury: The Communist, the pragmatist — and a Comrade to all
One of the youngest to be accepted at CPI(M) high table, to one of the leading faces of the anti-Congress Opposition, to a key coalition-builder at the national stage, the CPI(M) general secretary spanned politics
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. (Express Archive Photo) The divide between pragmatism versus dogmatism, real on many occasions, imagined and sometimes exaggerated, perhaps captures the last two decades of the CPI(M)’s journey. And Sitaram Yechury, the affable, soft-spoken and popular Communist leader who passed away Thursday after brief hospitalisation, represented one vital pole in that battle.
He was 72. He is survived by his wife Seema Chishti, editor of The Wire; his daughter Akhila and son Daanish.
A Marxist theoretician, Yechury was a believer when it came to the Communist ideology but showed the rare willingness to test the limitations of its hard boundaries for the imperatives of democractic — and practical — politics.
Yechury’s political life, however, cannot be limited to the last two decades. Neither can he be framed only as a pragmatic Communist. The CPI(M) general secretary meant much more than that – from the time he emerged as a bright young spark in the party’s firmament in the 1970s, to the last nearly a decade that he headed the frontline Left party.
A firebrand student leader who fought against the Emergency in the 1970s, he joined the CPI(M) when he was a university student, and was just 32 when he was made a Central Committee member – one of the youngest to be accepted at the CPI(M) high table. From one of the leading faces of the anti-Congress Opposition, Yechury would go on to become a key face in coalition-building efforts in national politics starting from the mid-1990s, when different Janata factions came together to keep the Congress out.
The India Alliance leaders Mallikarjuna Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Arvind Kejriwal, Champai Soren, D Raja , Sitaram Yechury and others during a press statement after their alliance meeting in New Delhi. (Express Archive Photo by Tashi Tobgyal)
However, he would stand up to the leadership (along with Prakash Karat) to deny Jyoti Basu a shot at Prime Ministership in 1996 – a decision that was openly termed a historic blunder by Basu himself later.
Having showed that he could blend strong ideological grounding with adeptness at the art of politics, Yechury would go on to become virtually the face of the CPI(M) in Delhi, more so in Parliament where he was a Rajya Sabha MP from 2005 to 2017.
A warm and articulate person with a good sense of humour, Yechury’s politics benefited from his ability to have friends across party lines. He was one of the rare CPI(M) leaders who even the BJP leaders could talk to. In 2022, a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yechury laughing together at an all-party meeting had gone viral.
But this did not help Yechury arrest the electoral slide of the party which began in 2009. The party that he joined half-a-century ago now has four seats in the Lok Sabha, with a vote share of 1.76%.
Early political start
Born in united Andhra Pradesh into a Brahmin family, Yechury completed his schooling in Hyderabad but moved to Delhi for higher studies in 1969 after disruption of academic life due to the separate Telangana movement. After graduation in Economics from St Stephen’s College of Delhi University, he joined JNU for his post-graduation.
Yechury began his political life as an activist of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in 1974, while at JNU. A year later, he joined the CPI(M) and was soon involved in organising “resistance” to the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, as part of which he had to go into hiding and spend some time under arrest.
One of the lasting images of this period would be of Yechury standing next to Indira Gandhi, after having led a march of JNU students to her residence in 1977, reading out a long list of grievances against her and seeking her resignation as chancellor of JNU. Gandhi was holding on to the post after her defeat in the Lok Sabha elections held post-Emergency.
INDIA bloc leaders D Raja, TR Baalu, Salman Khursheed, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sitaram Yechury and others at Election Commission of India. (Express Archive Photo by Abhinav Saha)
After the Emergency, he was elected president of the JNU Students’ Union thrice between 1977 and 1978. In 1984, he was inducted into the Central Committee along with his JNU mate Prakash Karat. He became a member of the CPI(M) Politburo in 1992.
Once in the Central Committee, he worked closely with the legendary E M S Namboodiripad, who was then the general secretary, and M Basavapunnaiah, and later became the understudy of Harkishan Singh Surjeet. This proved crucial as Surjeet had his fingers in many pies and legs in many camps.
All three of them saw potential in Yechury and groomed him, as also Karat, for leadership roles in future. The party congress of the CPI(M) in 1992, held after the collapse of the Soviet Union, saw Yechury presenting a resolution saying the collapse of the Soviet Union and socialist countries of Eastern Europe negated neither Marxism-Leninism nor the ideals of socialism, and could not erase the fact that socialism had made a decisive contribution in uplifting the quality of human life and civilization.
The ‘coalition builder’
Yechury’s skills as a tactician came to the fore in the mid-1990s when he along with Surjeet worked behind the scenes to cobble up an alliance to make the Janata Dal’s H D Deve Gowda the Prime Minister in 1996, after the Congress could not get a majority. With P Chidambaram, then in the Tamil Maanila Congress, Yechury was a key author behind the drafting of the Common Minimum Programme for the United Front government.
After Deve Gowda’s government fell, Yechury helped install I K Gujral as his successor.
CPI(M) State Secretary MD Salim and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury during a press conference at Alimuddin Street party state in Kolkata. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)
What would be remembered of the CPI(M)’s role in this was the pushback from its ranks over a proposal to make the party’s West Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, as the consensus PM. The young guns who opposed it included Yechury and Karat, with the Central Committee finally deciding that the CPI(M) should not join or head the government.
Yechury later accompanied Basu and Surjeet to the Karnataka Bhawan to inform stunned United Front leaders about the CPI(M)’s decision.
This experience came in handy in 2004, when the Left bloc found itself in a somewhat similar situation and extended key outside support to the Congress-led UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh, again on the basis of a Common Minimum Programme.
Recent years
In the years following that, Yechury would emerge as the strongest proponent of friendly ties between the CPI(M) and Congress. While the CPI(M)-led Left backed the UPA I government in 2004, it withdrew support in 2008 over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Despite that split, Yechury was known in party circles as the one leader who constantly advocated closer cooperation with the Congress to keep the BJP out.
This led to a clear divide in the party, defined along the lines of a “pragmatic” Yechury and a “rigid” Karat. Yechury was seen to have the backing of the Bengal unit, Karat of the Kerala CPI(M) leaders – the two states being the only ones where the party still holds strong.
Yechury addressing a gathering during a party programme at Rani Rashmoni Avenue in Kolkata. (Express Archive Photo by Partha Paul)
All through Karat’s tenure as general secretary from 2005 to 2015, Yechury tacitly projected himself as the alternative voice in the party. He believed it was his turn to lead the party as the CPI(M)’s electoral slide, which began in 2009 – the first election after the Left’s withdrawal of support to the UPA government – continued. From its best-ever performance in 2004, when it won 43 seats in the Lok Sabha, the CPI(M) plunged to 16 in 2009.
In 2015, Yechury took over from Karat as general secretary, with the Kerala leadership failing in its bid to install S Ramachandran Pillai.
However, the change of guard made no difference to the CPI(M)’s electoral fortunes. In 2016, the party’s tally dipped further in the Assembly elections in West Bengal, while two years later, it lost Tripura, its citadel for 25 years, to the BJP.
In a personal setback for Yechury, in 2017, the party decided against giving its general secretary one more term in the Rajya Sabha, in line with the two-term norm in the party. The Bengal unit had wanted the central leadership to consider taking the support of the Congress to get a third term for Yechury, but the Kerala leadership opposed it.
In 2018, the CPI(M) Central Committee dealt Yechury another blow, rejecting his proposal and going along with Karat’s suggestion to not have any alliance or understanding with the Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Yechury’s draft was defeated by a 55-31 vote. He offered to resign but was asked to continue by the party.
CPIM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Left front chairman Biman Bose during rally in Kolkata. (Express Archive Photo By Partha Paul)
The CPI(M) could not improve its Lok Sabha tally either in 2019 or in 2024. From 9 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2014, its tally dropped to 3 (plus an Independent backed by it) in 2019. In 2022, Yechury was elected general secretary for a third term.
In another twist in Yechury’s political journey, in recent years, he came to be seen as close to Rahul Gandhi, even more than the Congress – despite the Nehru-Gandhi representing for many the inequities intrinsic in the existing political structure.
In 2022, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh would quip that Yechury was a two-in-one general secretary. “He is general secretary of the CPI(M) and general secretary of the Congress also. And sometimes… his influence in the Congress is more than in the CPI(M).”
As the head of the International Department of the party for a long time, Yechury also remained — till the end — the face of the Indian Left to the world.
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