Sitaram Yechury Passes Away

Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), an outstanding leader of the Left movement and a well-known Marxist ideologue passed away on September 12, 2024, after battling a severe lung infection at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He was aged 72 years.

Sitaram Yechury joined the left student movement in Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1974 and became a leader of the Students Federation of India. He was thrice elected as President of the JNU Students Union within a span of two years. He was the All India President of the Students Federation of India from 1984 to 1986 and played an important role in developing the student organisation as an all-India force. 

He joined the CPI(M) in 1975. He was elected to the Central Committee of the party in 1985. He was elected to the party’s Polit Bureau in 1992. In 2015, he was elected as the General Secretary of the CPI(M), a position he continued until now.  As part of leadership team at the Party Centre for over three decades, he played an important role in formulating the political positions of the Party from time to time.

Sitaram Yechury played a distinctive role in defining the ideological positions of the CPI(M), according to a statement issued by the Party’s Polit Bureau.  At the 14th Party Congress in 1992, he presented the resolution ‘On Certain Ideological Issues’, which formulated the ideological positions of the Party consequent to the setbacks to socialism. Subsequently, at the 20th Congress of the Party in 2012, he moved the resolution which updated the ideological positions. His other main contribution in the ideological field was his critique of Hindutva, which was published in his books – What is this `Hindu Rashtra’? and Communalism vs Secularism. He was the Editor of the Party’s weekly paper, People’s Democracy, for over two decades. He was also a prolific writer. 

As head of the International Department of the Central Committee, he participated in various international forums of Communist and progressive forces and strengthened relations with socialist countries and solidarity with anti-imperialist movements.

Sitaram Yechury was a member of the Rajya Sabha for two terms from 2005 to 2017. He served as the leader of the CPI(M) group and was an effective parliamentarian. He was given the best parliamentarian award in 2017.
In the recent period, Sitaram Yechury devoted a lot of his time and energy towards forging a broad unity of the secular opposition parties, which took the shape of the INDIA bloc, the CPI(M) statement said.  In both the period of the United Front government and later the UPA government, Sitaram was one of the key interlocutors for the CPI(M), which was supporting these coalitions.

Given his amiable temperament, he had a wide circle of friends across the political spectrum and in all walks of life. He was respected by all for his political integrity and commitment.