AIKS Dips The Red Flag in Memory of Comrade Sitaram Yechury
The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) mourns the loss of Comrade Sitaram Yechury, a stalwart leader of the working people and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) since 2015. Comrade Yechury was also a highly regarded Marxist intellectual, a member of the politburo of the CPI(M) since 1992 and an ace parliamentarian.
An exceptionally brilliant student, Yechury got radicalised in the turbulent decade of the 1970s and rose as a towering student leader from JNU. He was elected as JNU Students Union President thrice. In JNU, he led a legendary struggle against emergency. He was also elected as the All India President of SFI from 1984-86.
Throughout his political life, Yechury remained as one of the sharpest critics of imperialism and neo-colonialism. His lifelong commitment to resolving the “agrarian question” made him close to the peasantry and the Kisan movement. In the early 1990s, when the different factions of the ruling class and their intellectuals collaborated to impose neo-liberal policies, Comrade Yechury stood like a rock with the peasantry and other working people. With his in-depth theoretical understanding of political economy, he clinically diagnosed that peasantry will be devastated with the neo-liberal reforms. His acclaimed essay “Why This Economic Policy” gave much clarity into the predation of imperialism and monopolies.
Comrade Yechury consistently connected the rise of the Hindutva fascistic forces in India with the ascendancy and the hegemony of global finance. He reiterated that only the worker-peasant alliance can halt the Hindutva juggernaut.
His two terms in the Rajya Sabha from 2005 to 2017 were exceptional in articulating class issues of the working people. When the Modi regime wanted to intensify corporatisation in agriculture, Yechury was in the forefront uniting various opposition forces in the Parliament as well as on the streets. As a true patriot, Yechury ferociously fought the attempts to give away India’s agriculture to monopolies at a throwaway price. His insights into the emerging contradictions in the agrarian realm nourished the anti-corporate Kisan movement.
The most fitting tribute to Comrade Yechury, a committed internationalist and anti-imperialist Marxist-Leninist will be to intensify struggles against all forms of exploitation. AIKS dips the red flag in the memory of Comrade Sitaram Yechury’s meaningful life. Red Salute to Comrade Sitaram Yechury!
Sd/-
Ashok Dhawale
President
Vijoo Krishan
General Secretary
