P Krishnaprasad
Sitaram Yechury, a towering figure in Indian politics, steadfast theoretician and General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M), passed away on September 12, 2024. His five-decade-long journey as a leader spanned student movements, agrarian struggles, and battles against Neo-liberal policies, shaped decades of political discourse in the country. From his early days challenging the Emergency to his role in uniting workers and farmers against Neo-liberalism, Sita’s- as he was called among those in closed affinity- tireless commitment to social justice and revolutionary change leaves behind a powerful legacy that continues to inspire.
Leading the Student’s Movement – Emerging as a visionary leader in the 1970s, Sitaram served as President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union, where he boldly challenged the extreme dictatorial demeanour of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency. He had contributed, of course collectively, to develop JNU campus as a source of democratic culture and modernity against patriarchy and authoritarianism that still influence the younger generations. His leadership further extended to the national stage when he became the All India President of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) from 1984 to 1986. Sitaram became a member of the Central Committee of the CPI (M), eventually rising to the position of the party’s General Secretary.
As the All India President of SFI, he played a pivotal role in creating a conducive atmosphere for sprouting it as a dominant student body in the campuses especially that in Kerala during the 1980s. The massive protests against the Emergency seeking democratic rights successfully broke the Kerala Students Union (KSU)’s campus monopoly. Sitaram became a source of pride for many activists, including myself, who were part of the student movement. He stepped down as SFI President at the 1986 conference in Vijayawada, where I was a delegate for the first time while working as the secretary of the SFI unit at Devagiri College, Kozhikode. Later, I had the privilege of working closely with Sitaram at the All India Centres of SFI and then the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS).
The early 1990s were politically turbulent, marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, and the rise of identity politics. During this period, the student front organisation faced its first membership decline. I was asked to join the centre of the student front in July 1994 thus, had the opportunity to work alongside Sitaram till 2003 to bolster the student organisation’s presence in North India.
The discussions regarding the programme of SFI during that period was marked with the criticism that although the ultimate goal remains as Socialism, it is not aligned with the current democratic phase of social change which is centred on agrarian revolution. The criticism was that this lack of clarity in the programme might reduce the SFI as a mere communist league.
At the initiative of the SFI centre, in 1997, the SFI conference in Midnapore adopted the slogan “Education for People’s Development”- thus comprehending the system of education within the larger scope of development of the productive forces and the entire people.
In continuation of this debate SFI centre took the initiative and it was decided that the programme should be renewed to align with the present era–focusing on a democratic education policy, while maintaining the long-term goal of socialism. As one of the founder leaders of SFI, Comrade Sitaram played a crucial leadership and guiding role in ensuring clarity throughout this process. This led to comprehensive discussions and updating of the programme of SFI during subsequent conferences in Chennai in 2000 and Kozhikode in 2003, culminating in final adoption of the updated programme at a special conference held in Assam in 2005.
Through the process of updation extended over nearly a decade, Sitaram’s leadership helped to reshape the student organisation’s mission to reflect the democratic revolutionary phase while staying focused on broader societal change aimed at social transformation towards socialism and unite campus activists and student communities around a democratic education policy.
In this context, the right-wing media had widely propagated that the SFI was abandoning socialism subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union. This had its influence among the activists of SFI. Sitaram played a pivotal role in convincing campus activists and the student movement regarding the significance of updating the SFI’s programme. His clarity of understanding and persuasive communication at meetings and conferences helped much in building unanimity in political understanding within the student’s movement countering such distorted campaigns.
The update was based on scientific understanding of the phase of the social transformation, the stage of development of the productive forces across India and the necessity of building massive struggles demanding an alternative policy aimed at evolving a democratic education system to challenge the corporatisation of education and for employment generation and technological advancement in both agriculture and industry including manufacturing and services. This exercise has enabled SFI to address the challenges faced by the education sector under the current Neo-liberal assault spearheaded by the corporate forces.
Involvement in this process as part of the SFI centre under the guidance of comrades Sitaram and Prakash Karat has personally helped me in developing clarity and understanding the perspective on the social change in our country and about the central role of agrarian revolution in the strategy of people’s democratic revolution. Thus, when I got relieved from SFI in 2003, I had no doubt in joining the All India Kisan Sabha as a full timer.
This clarity of understanding helped me in my work in AIKS in Wayanad, my home district where I have joined as a full timer in 2003. At that time in Wayanad, as the impact of the agrarian crisis, became a centre of the distress suicides of the coffee farmers. The clarity of vision helped us in building a united movement of all sections of the peasantry of Wayanad against the corporatisation of agriculture under the banner of Wayanad Karshaka Samara Samiti. The numerous struggles held under the banner including the Coffee Farmers’ Parliament March in 2006 demanding change in Neo-liberal policies helped the Left Democratic Front (LDF) won all the three assembly constituencies in Wayanad for the first time in history, largely due to the widespread unity of farmers achieved in response to the acute agrarian crisis that influenced the people at large. During this election, Sitaram played a key role as one of the chief campaigners. The 20026 LDF government under Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan was the first in the country to establish a Framer’s Debt-relief Commission that liberated 41,141 farmer families in Wayanad from indebtedness. Later in 2008, the first UPA government, supported by the Left, implemented a nationwide debt relief scheme amounting to ₹70,000 crore. CPI(M) and as its leader and MP, Comrade Sitaram played a pivotal role in this.
In the aftermath of the American stock market crash in 2008, it became apparent that the world capitalist system entered a prolonged systemic crisis. It was during this time that we have proposed to the then-President of the AIKS, S. Ramachandran Pillai to hold an all India seminar on agriculture in Wayanad to have an understanding on the impact of capitalist crisis on Indian agriculture and work out the strategies of developing agrarian struggles addressing the contradictions. The decision was taken to organise a National seminar jointly by the All India Kisan Sabha and the All India Agricultural Workers Union in early 2009. Leaders the then CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, S. Ramachandran Pillai, Surya Kantha Mishra and K. Varadarajan and Marxist intellectuals including Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik along with the leadership of AIKS and AIAWU participated in this crucial Seminar.
Chairing the concluding session, on ‘Neo-liberalisation and Major Contradictions in Agriculture’ he made the crucial contribution in bringing clarity in the ongoing debate in the agrarian sector on identifying the focal contradiction in the agrarian front in the current phase of neoliberalism and systemic crisis of capitalism.
Sitaram summed up the seminar clarifying the CPI (M) understanding that among the four major contradictions at the world level, though the contradiction between Imperialism and the Socialism remains the focal contradiction,the contradiction between imperialism and the people of the third world countries is the one that intensifying the most, in the context of the intensification of the Neo-liberal reforms. In the agrarian sector in India, though the basic contradiction between the semi-landlord class and rural affluent classes alliance – the rural rich nexus- on one side and the poor-middle peasants and agricultural workers on the other side remains central and acute, as the contradiction between the imperialist driven corporate powers and the peasantry is intensifying the most, a section of rich peasants may be ready to oppose these policies at times. This gives us an opportunity to build wider unity of different agrarian classes and further expanding it towards worker-peasant unity that is the basic requirement to advance towards agrarian revolution which is the axis of the people’s democratic revolution.
Sitaram emphasised the need for identifying concrete demands and slogans based on concrete situation and the tactics of the time for broader struggles to build unity among farmers. In his concluding remarks at the seminar, he highlighted that fostering worker-peasant unity and broader mass solidarity on the livelihood issues would be crucial to address the agrarian crisis as well as gather mass support in resisting the severe onslaught by the corporate-communal forces.
In the post-2009 political landscape, the peasant unity that formed locally on burning issues and on concrete demands against Neo-liberal policies and corporate exploitation, as well as the widespread peasant uprisings that have surged in the last ten years since 2014, have all been shaped by this understanding. The historic Kisan struggle has seen a section of the rich peasantry joining the anti-corporate struggle, and the joint platform that emerged through the struggle- SKM- is still working along with the platform of central trade unions. Today’s political environment across India underscores the critical importance of worker-peasant unity. These widespread class struggles are also essential in rallying the masses against the rising threat of communal forces.
During this period, being the General Secretary of the CPI(M), Sitaram played a crucial role in ensuring the development of united peasant struggles and worker-peasant unity that eventually became the base of developing possible unity of the opposition secular political parties against the BJP and the NDA. During the historic farmers’ struggle actively supported by the joint platform of trade unions and the working class, Sitaram as General Secretary of CPIM, had played a crucial role in ensuring maximum unity of the opposition political parties. He was able to muster the support of political leaders like Sarad Pawar, known for their loyalty to the same Neo-liberal policies.
As class struggles intensify and the political polarization between the neoliberalism and the Left and Democratic forces gain momentum across the nation in the coming days, each victory in the fight against the corporate forces and Imperialism will stand as a testament to Sitaram’s insight and ideological legacy.
Sitaram’s contributions in providing ideological clarity for activists, at all levels and in various class and mass fronts remain significant in advancing massive struggles. As class struggles intensify and the political polarization between the neoliberalism and the Left and Democratic forces gain momentum across the nation in the coming days, each victory in the fight against the corporate forces and Imperialism will stand as a testament to Sitaram’s insight and ideological legacy.
P Krishnaprasad is the Finance Secretary of All India Kisan Sabha and former All India President of Students’Federation of India