Started from student politics, then became the biggest face of the left in the country… Know who was Comrade Sitaram Yechury

CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury died on Thursday, September 12. The 72-year-old leader was admitted to the ICU of Delhi AIIMS. He was admitted to AIIMS on August 19 due to acute respiratory tract infection. According to AIIMS sources, he died due to lung infection and multi-organ failure. Yechury was one of the top leftist leaders in India. He led the Communist Party of India at a time when the dominance of this party in Indian politics has decreased. However, Comrade Sitaram Yechury used to say that even though the representation of CPM in Parliament and Assembly has decreased, CPM still has an important role in setting the agenda of the country.

Talking about the early life of Sitaram Yechury, he was born on 12 August 1952 in a Telugu Brahmin family in the then Madras. His father SS Yechury was an engineer in the transport department of Andhra Pradesh and mother Kalpakam Yechury was a government officer. Sitaram Yechury did his early education in Hyderabad. In 1969, he came to Delhi and here he took admission in President’s Estate School, New Delhi. Yechury was a topper in his student life. He topped the Higher Secondary examination in the whole of India.

After this, he did BA (Hons) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi and in 1975, he completed his postgraduate studies with first class in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University. After doing MA, Yechury started doing PhD in JNU itself. This was the period of 1975. During this time, emergency was imposed in the country. Then Yechury was also arrested and his studies were interrupted.

Yechury’s personal life

Sitaram Yechury married BBC’s flamboyant journalist Seema Chishti. This was Yechury’s second marriage. Yechury’s first marriage was with the daughter of leftist activist and feminist Dr. Veena Majumdar. He has a son and a daughter from this marriage.

Political Career

While studying in college, Sitaram Yechury was influenced by leftist ideas and joined the Student Federation of India in 1974. A year later he joined the CPM. He was arrested during the Emergency. During this time his struggle for the restoration of democracy in the country continued. In 1977-78 he became the president of the JNU Students Union. During this time the ideology of the left got a chance to flourish in this university campus. With the help of Prakash Karat, who is among the second big names of the left in the country, he made JNU a big center for the study and presentation of leftist ideas.

In 1978, Sitaram Yechury became the All India Joint Secretary of the Student Federation of India. Later he also became its president. In 1984, Yechury was invited to the Central Committee of the CPI(M). Yechury left the SFI in 1986. Yechury continued to climb the ladder of success in the party on the basis of his organizational ability and efficiency. In 1992, he was elected to the Politburo in the Fourteenth Congress of the CPM.

On 19 April 2015, Sitaram Yechury was elected the fifth general secretary of the party at the 21st Congress of the party in Visakhapatnam. Yechury took over the reins of the party from Prakash Karat, who had been the party’s general secretary for three consecutive terms (2005-15). On 18 April 2018, Sitaram Yechury once again became the general secretary of the party at the 22nd Congress of the CPM.

Journey into politics

Sitaram Yechury continued to convince his opponents with his oratory skills and factual speech style in the Upper House of Parliament. In 2005, he became a member of Rajya Sabha from West Bengal for the first time. He remained in Rajya Sabha till 18 August 2017. During this time, he raised many issues of public interest in Parliament.

In July 2008, when the civil nuclear agreement was signed between India and America during the tenure of Manmohan Singh government, Sitaram Yechury was in news. Manmohan Singh agreed to accept many conditions of CPM regarding this deal, but the then CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat agreed. On 8 July 2008, Prakash Karat announced withdrawal of support from Manmohan government.

Sitaram Yechury was a politician as well as a social worker, economist, journalist and writer. His opinion is considered paramount in preparing political documents. Along with Congress leader P Chidambaram, he prepared the Common Minimum Program for the United Front Government in 1996. He had been writing columns in newspapers for a long time. He also wrote many books, including ‘Left Hand Drive’, ‘Yeh Hindu Rashtra Kya Hai’, ‘Ghreena Ki Rajneeti’ (in Hindi), ’21st Century Socialism’. He also edited ‘Diary of Freedom Movement’, ‘The Great Revolt: A Left Appraisal’ and ‘Global Economic Crisis – A Marxist Perspective’.