Comrade who adapted Marxism to Indian reality

While staying committed to the broad ideological framework of communism and a lifelong Marxist-Leninist, Sitaram Yechury was a rare leader within his party with a grasp of the exigencies of electoral politics.

- ARCHIS MOHAN

As one of the top leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), at least since early 2000s, Yechury strived to have the country's Left movement shed its doctrinaire approach to India's socio-cultural complexities and stitch electoral and social alliances to fight the Sangh Parivar.

In that, Yechury, who passed away at 72 on Thursday in New Delhi after battling a severe lung infection, was an inheritor of the political legacy of his mentor, the late Harkishan Singh Surjeet.

With Surjeet at the helm of the CPI(M) from 1992 to 2005, Yechury was his chief lieutenant in shaping the 1996 United Front (UF) government and the United Progressive Alliance1 (UPA1) government in 2004. He contributed to the UF government's common minimum programme, along with the Congress' P Chidambaram, and was one of the architects of a similar document drafted for the UPA1 government.

In neighbouring Nepal, Yechury prodded that country's Maoist rebels to transition from their pursuit of peoples' war to join its multi-party democracy. As the head of the International Department of the party's Central Committee, Yechury was also the CPI(M)'s face abroad.