COMRADE Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is no more. After a brief illness, he succumbed to a serious respiratory infection, becoming the first general secretary of the Party to pass away while in office. However, to describe Comrade Sitaram solely as the general secretary would be an incomplete portrayal of his contributions. He had been part of the Party's leadership for a long time, and his legacy goes far beyond his title.

The widespread reactions to this tragic development reflect the significant impact he had within the Party and on the larger political landscape. His contributions spanned multiple spheres – ideological, political, organisational, and agitational. Commentators have highlighted the many dimensions of his multifaceted personality.

To emphasize the significance of his departure from a completely different angle, it is important to note that on the day we received his body from the AIIMS authorities and commenced his final journey, starting with the sorrowful sight of him "in a coffin" at his alma mater, Jawaharlal Nehru University – where he had plunged into the democratic movement as a student activist – the response came from an unexpected camp. A senior member of the BJP's IT cell remarked in a tweet, “So Sitaram Yechury was a Christian, no wonder he hated Hinduism.”

Even in death, it became clear that Comrade Sitaram continued to haunt the Hindutva brigade. This perhaps underscores one of his most profound contributions in the ideological sphere. While many secular and liberal voices lauded his lifelong commitment to promoting scientific thought, his legacy was also questioned through attempts to falsify his religious identity.

Sitaram dedicated his life to exposing and undermining the ideological roots of Hindutva and its fountainhead, the RSS. He keenly responded to the shifting political landscape in India, particularly in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. During this critical period, the country witnessed the alarming momentum of the Hindutva project, which bore little resemblance to the diverse philosophical traditions commonly understood as Hinduism. His core contribution lay in unmasking the true nature of the Hindutva agenda.

One of his seminal works, ‘What is this Hindu Rashtra?’ published in 1993, critically analysed the falsifications of India's civilizational history propagated by the second RSS chief, Golwalkar. In it, Sitaram conducted a thorough and incisive study of Golwalkar’s ‘We or Our Nationhood Defined’, revealing that Hindutva's primary objective was to fundamentally alter the character of Indian society and its nationhood – a legacy preserved through the Indian people’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule. He laid bare the ideological underpinnings of Hindutva and the RSS, whose goal was the destruction of India’s secular democratic republic and its constitution. The clarity, with which he exposed this project, marshaling well-researched facts, became a persistent thorn in the flesh of the RSS and the broader saffron brigade. This has been further reinforced by RSS’ links with Italian fascists by the researcher Marzia Casolari and genomic studies of migration.

One of Sitaram’s often repeated quotes was from Lenin: “A concrete study of the concrete situation is the essence of dialectics.” This guiding principle helped him dismantle Golwalkar’s ideas of a religious-identity-driven nationhood. Without this rigorous analysis, subsequent efforts to confront Hindutva as the spearhead of right-wing political ideology in India would have been incomplete. In the finest traditions of Marxism, he linked this ideological counterattack with the contributions of India’s freedom fighters and wove it into the CPI(M)’s updated programme, where the BJP is distinctly differentiated from other parties due to its subservience to the RSS.

Sitaram's academic background as an economist, having completed his post-graduation at JNU, proved invaluable in understanding the tectonic shifts in the global economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His grasp of the overarching influence of global finance capital and its impact on inequality, unemployment, and poverty allowed him to explain how this new phase of global capitalism was reshaping India, creating fertile ground for the rise of extreme right-wing forces, with Hindutva as their ideological lynchpin and the RSS as their vehicle.

I had the privilege of associating with Comrade Sitaram for the last four decades, beginning with our work in the student movement at the national level. In the mid-1980s, as a colleague, leader, and guide, he empowered me with his extraordinary analytical skills and articulation, helping us navigate the challenges facing the student movement. His pamphlet for the Students' Federation of India, ‘New Education Policy: A Blueprint for Colonisation’ became the foundation for not just the student movement but for the entire academic community in preparing for future battles. His formulation of the assault on education, encapsulating the changes and its subsequent avatars as "centralisation, commercialisation, and communalisation" – became a rallying point for confronting imminent threats. His engagement with educational issues reached its pinnacle during his intervention in a Rajya Sabha debate, leading the government to hastily withdraw its first draft of the new education policy.

I also experienced his humility. During my final year in parliament, I was acting as the leader of the CPI (M) group. Despite my repeated pleas, he refused to assume that role immediately, insisting that I continue in the position as long as I remained in parliament. His numerous contributions during his further 11-year tenure are well-known and widely recorded. While his versatility in various debates across political issues is celebrated, his central focus was always on exposing the dangers of Hindutva and the undermining of our constitution.

One particularly memorable intervention occurred during a special discussion on the history of India's freedom struggle. In this debate, Sitaram highlighted the glorious legacy of the Communists while rebutting the betrayal of the RSS and the Hindutva brigade during the country’s fight for independence.

Sitaram Yechury was elected general secretary at a time when we were mustering all our resources to combat the increasingly evident fascist tendencies of Hindutva. Beyond political and ideological battles, the struggle required uniting a broad array of forces committed to defending secularism, democracy, and social justice. As a principled communist, he never lost sight of the need to bring the Left and democratic forces together in this crucial fight. Yet, he remained acutely aware that this unity had to be aligned with the broader struggle to defend the Indian Constitution.

His training under senior leaders like Comrade Harkisan Singh Surjeet and his experiences during the 1996 United Front government and the 2004 non-BJP governments equipped him with the skills to forge common ground across a broad spectrum of democratic and secular forces. These experiences became particularly relevant when confronting the full might of the Modi government, especially after the 2019 elections. Despite the aura of invincibility surrounding the Hindutva brigade under Modi, Sitaram recognised the seeds of vulnerability within their political, economic, and ideological framework.

Drawing from the anti-fascist legacy of the international communist movement during the Nazi onslaught, Sitaram coined the slogan “March separately, strike unitedly” in relation to other democratic and secular forces. This slogan became a guiding principle for forging the INDIA platform, which now stands as an alternative to the BJP.

It is not surprising that both friends and foes have reacted strongly to Comrade Sitaram’s departure. His contributions to understanding and transforming reality will continue to be a vital asset for the struggles ahead. In the end, Sitaram never saw himself as an individual but as part of the larger movement. His legacy lies in assimilating changes, applying scientific analysis, and facing challenges head-on to overcome them.