New Delhi: CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury (72) has passed away. He was undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, due to a lung infection. Yechury was admitted to the hospital on August 19 after suffering from a severe fever. He was under the care of a multidisciplinary team of doctors in the intensive care unit (ICU) at AIIMS. While there were moments of improvement, his condition worsened again.
Yechury was a leader who carried out his political and organizational responsibilities with ideological clarity, shaping Indian political and social circumstances for popular movements. He emerged as a political activist during the heated struggles of the Emergency period.
Yechury’s wife, Seema Chishti, is a prominent journalist and writer. His children are Akhila Yechury, a university professor in the UK, and the late Ashish Yechury, a journalist. Born on August 12, 1952, to parents Sarveshwara Somayaji Yechury and Kalpakam Yechury, Sitaram excelled in both academics and politics. While studying at President’s Estate School in Chennai, he topped the CBSE exam nationwide for higher secondary education. He then pursued a BA (Honors) at the prestigious St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, followed by an MA from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He started research in economics but was imprisoned during the Emergency, which interrupted his studies.
Yechury joined SFI (Students’ Federation of India) in 1974 while a student at JNU. He continued political work underground during the Emergency and was arrested in 1975. In 1977, he was elected president of the JNU Students’ Union. In 1978, he became the all-India Joint Secretary of SFI and later its president. It was during this period that SFI adopted the slogan “Study and Struggle.”
EMS Namboodiripad and P. Sundarayya recognized Yechury and Prakash Karat as the future leaders of CPI(M) due to their political and intellectual potential. Yechury became a CPI(M) member in 1975 and, in 1985, was elected to the Central Committee at the 12th Party Congress. He worked alongside senior leaders like P. Sundarayya, EMS, BTR, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Basava Punniah, and Jyoti Basu. In 1992, he was elected to the Politburo during the 14th Party Congress.
From 2005 to 2017, Yechury was a member of the Rajya Sabha, representing West Bengal. He raised many people’s issues prominently in Parliament and consistently intervened against communalism and neoliberal policies. As the chairman of standing committees on transport, tourism, and culture, he led the preparation of significant reports. Yechury played a crucial role in the formation of the United Front government in 1996 and the first UPA government in 2004.
Yechury was a member of the UPA-Left Coordination Committee and, since 2014, led campaigns and protests against the anti-democratic and communal policies of the BJP government. He was instrumental in building opposition unity against the centralizing and authoritarian tendencies of the Modi government. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he campaigned for the people’s needs and visited conflict-affected areas such as Jammu & Kashmir and Manipur to stand with the oppressed.
Yechury was elected as the General Secretary of CPI(M) in 2015, succeeding Prakash Karat at the 21st Party Congress in Visakhapatnam. He was re-elected at the subsequent party congresses in Hyderabad and Kannur. He authored books such as Left Hand Drive, What is Hindu Rashtra, Socialism in the 21st Century, and Communalism Versus Secularism, and the Hindi work Ghurna Ki Rajniti. Yechury was fluent in English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, and Bengali.
