Mayukh Mukherjee in conversation with Niloptal Basu
Mayukh Mukherjee: Comrade Sitaram Yechury and you have worked together for nearly four decades. Both of you were part of the All India Center of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and later engaged in democratic people’s movements. Could you share your first memory of Sitaram? how was your experience working alongside him within the SFI?
Nilotpal Basu: I came to Delhi in March 1986. That time com. Sitaram was the SFI president and the editor of Student Struggle, where my first work with him started. There was a team of many good writers, who were our comrades, proficient in different subjects. Com Sitaram, through discussions with other comrades, used to conceptualize particular issues in the ‘Student Struggle’, and then we used to work upon that. This is something which provides an insight of how he functioned in terms of his vision. His nature of execution was much participatory inclusive.
Alongside I started working in the All India Centre of SFI. At that point of time SFI All India leaders were very few in numbers, who were functioning from the All India Centre. We had very limited strength to coordinate with different states. It was also the time when we were preparing for the SFI All India Conference, December 1986, held in Vijayawada where Com. Sitaram was relieved from SFI and I was elected as the General Secretary. Thereafter we interacted very closely; he more as a veteran involved in the people’s democratic movement and we as student activists. One of the major works we had undertaken at that time, was the struggle against the New Education Policy introduced by the Rajiv Gandhi Govt. Concerning the NEP. Com. Sitaram had written a pamphlet titled as “Blueprint for Colonization of Education” and it set out the tone, not just in the student movement but among the academia as a whole. Therefore we had that vision of encapsulating the idea of opposition and resistance in a larger policy framework.
These were my early memories with Com. Sitaram.
Mayukh Mukherjee: You just mentioned the pamphlet on NEP and the impact it had among the students as well as the academia. We have heard of similar instances from student leaders from the 90s, about how the writings of Com. Sitaram like the one exposing Hindutva Politics significantly shaped their opinions and stances. Can you provide an insight into those instances where works of Comrade Sitaram Yechury, helped young comrades develop their opinions?
Nilotpal Basu: It was the 80s period, when along with communalism, separatist movements were also growing in different parts of the country like in North East, Kashmir and Punjab. We had to intervene on all those questions because of the similarity in the nature of separatist and extremist movements, which were up to an extent spearheaded by young students. Therefore, without taking on those forces ideologically, it was very difficult for SFI to go ahead. In this battle Com. Sitaram started writing and articulating, which sort of became path breakers for younger comrades to understand.
At that point of time one of our major of interventions was against the encroachment and hijacking of Bhagat Singh by the right wing forces like ABVP. Therefore Sitarm worked very meticulously by trying to revive the anti-colonial and pro-socialist aspects of Bhagat Singh’s thoughts. I recall, we had several rounds of discussions with comrade Shiv Verma, Pundit Kishorilal in Punjab and so on and so forth. At that point of time we formulated the slogans of Bhagat Singh and included them in the student as well as youth movements. Comrade Sitaram had a great role in making Bhagat Singh the icon of the politics we stand for.
Naturally, the continuation of this was our ideological intervention, while taking on the rising communal forces. There were elements of divisions and enmity on the caste question and the religious identity question, so we had to take a position strongly in favor of social justice. Again at the same time we weren’t blind to the concerns of the poorer sections of the forward caste. This was an important aspect of our struggle midst the temple agitation, as there was large upper caste mobilization. It was a very critical situation followed by the third question of great significance which came up after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a setback for the idea of Socialism. Naturally, our ideological opponents were trying to stretch it to undermine us in all possible ways. In this entire battle as well Com. Sitaram had immense contributions.
What you were referring to, at the beginning, was written after 6th December 1992 when the Babri Masjid was brought down. It was first published in ‘The Hindu’ as ‘What is this Hindu Rashtra’ exposing the very ideological foundations of Hindu Rashtra. He did it by picking up the 936foundational texts of Hindutva forces like ‘We or Our Nationhood’ by Golvalkar. There he exposed the source of Hindutva, the question of Varnashram (caste system) and Bramhinism as the major social content along with the fascist sources which helped in the final shaping of the Hindutva Paradigm. It had a major impact. Even today, I think, the copies of that text gets published and republished. AG Noorani (who is considered as an expert on RSS) too publically acknowledged the importance of it in the struggle against divisive forces.
Mayukh Mukherjee: Sitaram Yechury was the longest-serving editor of ‘Student Struggle’. How was the magazine during that time and what was his vision for an organization like the SFI?
Nilotpal Basu: First of all, Sitaram wasn’t burdened with shaping of the organization because our previous generation of Student Leaders had done that. Therefore, in this phase our approach was to see how far we could broaden the SFI, how inclusive we can make the SFI. Another thing was how far, despite of ideological differences with other Student Organizations, we could unite them on the questions of common student interests. That was really the challenge we had to deal with.
‘Student Struggle’ was very important in this battle because it wasn’t just a propaganda instrument but an organizer. Unlike today, the internet wasn’t available; no digital platform was there. Therefore physically producing the magazine and ensuring its postal delivery to comrades was very important. We had to do it under a specific registration number, which required the publication of each issue within the date which was attached to that particular number of registrations, so there was the issue of deadlines. Some of us even had to go to the press and spend nights there. Unlike today’s computerized nature of working, it involved a lot of physical labour.
In this context, Comrade Sitaram, I think, inherently had that journalistic bend of mind and the capacity to envision the entire process.
Mayukh Mukherjee: As a noted scholar and militant student leader from the SFI, Yechury later became the General Secretary of the CPI(M). How was your experience working with him in the party Politburo in recent years compared to your collaboration in the SFI All India Center in the 1980s?
Nilotpal Basu: My association with him in the party work was little bit earlier because he came to the Rajya Sabha as a parliamentarian at the time when my tenure was about to end. He used that time of association within the parliament to understand how the parliament functions. And as we all know, he subsequently emerged as one of the most effective parliamentarians in the years ahead. Therefore this was my first interaction with him in sharing a platform of the party work. I came to the party centre in 2005. Since then we had been working more closely. We got even more closely associated after the Hyderabad Congress of the party when I came to the Politburo.
His entire focus was on how to tackle the Hindutva. He saw this as the central challenge for the Communist Party, the Left as a whole and the foundational principles of the Indian Republic. His work was majorly dedicated in that direction.
And subsequently we have seen how other parties have reacted after his untimely demise. I think the wider acceptability that Com. Sitaram got was in a way that he had intervened in setting out the direction and the political approach of the party. That is the source of hope for us, even though we shouldn’t be in denial that the Left has become weaker in India, still we have that capacity and the vision of going ahead and securing the interest of the working class, the peasantry, the poorer sections of the society, the students, youth and women.
Mayukh Mukherjee: As we can see, times have changed a lot with rapid technological advancements. The functioning of the divisive forces has also changed. On the other hand with the introduction of New Education Policy 2020 our struggle has become more crucial as well as difficult. What you think should be our strategy in the years ahead?
Nilotpal Basu: First of all, apart from the outward changes which you have referred to, the basic political landscape has also changed. There has been an emergence of ultra Right Wing forces, and there is an observably common global trend. At the level of economy you can see the extreme concentration of wealth resulting in sharp increase of inequality and parallelly there has been a rise of right wing divisive ideologies. They go hand in hand. Unlike before, they are now very closely intermeshed because the economic process is taking place to maximize profit and hence it has an ‘inequalizing effect’. The corporate section therefore looks forward for grounds where they can divide the people in the receiving end to sustain themselves. This idea has taken different forms in different places across the globe. In our country, RSS was there, battle ready. Therefore, to protect the idea of India and its diversified unity has to be our major vision and line of action right now.
The same thing goes for the National Education Policy, 2020. The very idea of accessible education has been severely eroded. We can already see the consequences of such policies. Lakhs of students are now not a part of mainstream education; dropout rates are sharply rising in schools and colleges. So, this is the most vulnerable part of the student community being denied access to affordable education, which we have to bring into the sphere of our struggle. With these sections coming in, the movement will become more sustainable. Considering the emergency of the situation, this should be the foremost priority of the Student Movement in the years ahead.