Resonating Reds of Sangue, Salute, and Sitaram

Sitaram, portmanteau with names of two prominent gods Ram and Sita, took his birth in devout traditional Hindu Indian family where religious practices are not just part, but the very way of living.

But a topper all through in his studies, Sitaram Yechuri imbibed socialist ideology without divorcing his respect for traditional beliefs.

However, after his BA in Economics, while pursuing MA in Economics at JNU, Delhi, he immersed more into communist values. He has been a leader all through including in the class, SFI, and CPI-M. Situations made him to believe that activism and agitation are much needed to preserve equity in humanity.

Being a polyglot with fluency in English, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Tamil, and Kannada, and ability to sufficiently understand few other languages, and having clarity in his thoughts, communication, and expression, it was never a challenge for Sitaram Yechury to receive natural acceptance as a leader wherever he was. His sports enthusiasm including his love for tennis and football drew many friends and followers, unknowingly. His love to continuously meet people, travel places disregarding comforts, and ability to empathize any kind of suffering, and endurance to any hardships gave him the leadership responsibility. His love for literature, his ability to speak eloquently with deeper literary phrases, ability to coin new yet interesting and meaningful phrases gained him audience in all strata.

He was steadfast in voicing communist ideas all through but appears to have tempered as the situations warranted coalition collaborations. Due to this, to face bigger ideological opponents, he had to forge collaborations with those whom he opposed initially. It is important to note that his humanitarian camaraderie, ideological differences not intruding into personal aspects of opponents, and overarching social approach helped him in achieving the collaborations.

For reasons unknown, he was more against the US country and US philosophy than his ideological opponents within India. He did criticize the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, but there were instances he divulged his antagonism towards other religions without slipping balance of mind.

In year 1996, when CPI-M had an opportunity to nominate one of its tall leader Jyoti Basu to the post of Prime Minister which proposal included honoring Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat and a couple of other CPI-M into Central Ministerial berths, it was Sitaram who strongly opposed the opportunity. He declared that their strength of 32 MPs would not allow them the freedom to oppose anti-people policies, if any, that could be imposed by the major party in the coalition. It was another story that in due course, he felt that the Party should have tried the proposition.

He cherished to be among the leadership, but is not known to have misused either leadership, his friendships in other parties, or his familial network, or his media relationships. While he was never a dictator on any policy matter of CPI-M, he believed in Leninist principles which mainly support dictatorship of leadership to implement social good in the larger interest of mankind.

Sitaram has a special chapter in the history of JNU, SFI, CPI-M, Indian coalition politics, and is one of the rarest to receive Revered Red Salutes.

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Disclaimer: Dr. Kishore Nuthalapati is the CFO of BEKEM Infra Projects Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad, India. Views are his personal and do not reflect those of any of the organizations he is or was associated with.