Why I Mourn Sitaram Yechury

There are few leaders in the Opposition line up who can claim a path to party leadership like Sitaram Yechury and certainly, very few who blended that ascent through student politics with awareness about non-elite real India, urban India and liberal politics, as he did, notes Shyam G Menon.

On September 10, 2024, when news appeared of Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury hospitalised in a critical condition, it was a bolt from the blue and a reason to feel sad.

I have never met Yechury; never had the opportunity to speak to him.

But for a sense of existence like mine -- I was born in the 1960s into a family curious about the world and loving its music, art, cinema and literature and grew up influenced by the political trends and popular culture of the 1960s, 70s and 80s -- the likes of him represented the willingness to break free of longstanding molds.

It is what has kept me leaning to the political Left in my own unique way.

I didn't join any political party (including Left parties) because I felt that organisations -- any organisation -- are necessary evils we cope with despite their tendency to restrict individuality through an excessive celebration of strength in numbers.

I wished for a secular, compassionate and tolerant living space. One that let the individual be.

That made me like the Congress and the Left parties more than India's political Right-Wing, which seemed steeped in religion, conservatism and majoritarianism.

The former two (the Congress and the Left) signified to me, a journey into the unknown replete with the willingness to question and correct accrued social prejudices and try out new things in a democratic ambiance.

The latter (the political Right), in my experience, attracted people avowed to keep old social traditions alive and whose idea of future was largely composed of technological advancement, infrastructure development, rote nationalism and variations of a military mindset.

To me, it was a bit bizarre. For in their future by technology and nationalism, the Right-Wing sought to have a society cast on old lines.

This was rather dangerous given the resemblance the resultant concoction had to fascism.

It also quickly betrayed the whole brew as essentially a cover for furthering a patriarchal, traditionalist, ritualist India.

In practical life, I have found a slight tilt to the political Left, its secular credentials and the class of people it cares for, useful as reference point and the sanity of middle ground, it affords.

This doesn't mean that the Left was free of excesses and mistakes in India.

They had and continue to have their share of it. Like the Right-Wing, the Left too tends to be regimented.

Which is why, one stayed off organisational membership of any sort, stayed off indoctrination and book-led perspective, and elected instead to sail on the strength of a personal ideology that drew from the best of what one saw and learnt from various parties.

Strangely, this buffet style assembling of a palatable personal politics, always led me to a liberal politics, a bit slanted to the Left, evading induction into organisations, generally accepting of the free market, secular as described in India's Constitution and above all believing in a society where people are approachable, may be spoken to and don't resort to violence as means to have their way.

How does one know who among India's large collection of politicians subscribes to such politics? It's difficult to gauge.

When one is a common person not rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous, one's opinion is guided by perception from a distance and a very general sizing up of character.

For some reason, in my mind, Yechury was among those I thought, came close to ticking the earlier mentioned boxes.

Does such an assessment from far count?

Most people, I imagine, think not, because it lacks sophistication and certainly the sophistication expected of an article worth reading.

But I think such an assessment counts even if it be the view from a distance.

After all, tell me, how many of India's elected representatives earned their post because the electorate knew them very closely right down to their merits and demerits in the minute?

No, what helped them ease into the high office they occupied was a general perception; one that has unfortunately been progressively subverted and reverse-engineered for success till we have the folly we suffer today of believing in images and dispatching undeserving people to high political office.

Currently, fatigue graces the image of those who rose through such image manipulation.

As a key actor in Left politics, which was already a marginal presence in India by the second decade of the twenty first century, Yechury didn't require the mechanics of manipulation for a good image.

He could be himself in public and still be marketable.

To the extent I liked that straightforward, relaxed image and the approachability and liberal politics it promised, I saw Yechury's demise of September 12, as a definite loss.

I think Yechury's departure has an impact on the current political Opposition at the national level and its leadership.

Besides the immediate sorrow over what happened to Yechury, the other concern for many wishing for the growth of a liberal politics in India, would have been what the CPI-M leader's demise meant for the national Opposition just when they seemed to be getting their act together.

There are few leaders in the Opposition line up who can claim a path to party leadership like Yechury and certainly, very few who blended that ascent through student politics with awareness about non-elite real India, urban India and liberal politics, as he did.

For someone observing from far, he was a bridge between backdrops and a bridge between political parties.

In era of coalition governments, he was among those with a broad-spectrum political appeal, a face to be found wherever people and parties came together.

For the CPI-M, Yechury's exit may be a turning point given the party finds itself saddled with a leadership that ranges from people who are quite senior in age, to those with very poor public appeal and those too hawkish and sunk in a bookish interpretation of Marxism to be realistic, practical and connected to public sentiment.

In that milieu, Yechury's was a remarkably different presence (I have heard some say that he should have been in the Congress), one that connected with younger age groups and liberal, progressive minds.

Simply put, the CPI-M has lost its only charismatic leader, a person with a political appeal, wherever he went in the country, however small the party he represented.

For a party shrunk to Kerala as regards its participation in government and present only in small pockets elsewhere, that charisma mattered.

Like the Left's presence in the opposition line-up, Yechury's presence in the CPI-M was a critical ingredient. Now it's gone.

He will be missed. Including as in my case of being just an observer; from far.

Shyam G Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com