The SITA factor: Yechury's essays defend socialism as real choice

Business Standard

07-05-2025

This posthumous volume distils Sitaram Yechury's lifelong case for socialism as a path to dignity and justice
Aditi Phadnis
THE FIGHT FOR THEREPUBLIC
Author: Sitaram Yechury
Publisher: TulikaBooks; SAHMAT
Pages:120
Price: ₹250
At least since 1996, when India got its first Communist home minister, the Indian Left has been trying to establish that there is something beyond TINA (There Is No Alternative) in Indian politics — and that it could be SITA (Socialism Is The Alternative). Till he was taken from us far too soon, strengthening the foundations of this premise was the burden of CPI (M) General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury. And this is the case he makes in a collection of his essays, put together after his death in a slim volume with an extensive and scholarly introduction by respected Left economist Prabhat Patnaik.
Dr Patnaik's essay provides the theoretical underpinning for Yechury's articles. He explains that India's anti-colonial struggle was inclusive and sought to unite everyone in a common struggle. This was the vision that was the basis for the Constitution and the idea that India was a secular democracy committed to social justice and federalism.
But to defend this edifice, India needed an economic trajectory that would break asset concentration, especially land. Dr Patnaik concedes that this line of thought could not acquire dominance both during and after the Independence movement. So, India remained semi-feudal, with capital asset concentration in the hands of a few — a process that accelerated after 1991 in a form of neoliberalism. This in turn led to deepening income inequality, a slower rate of job creation as the state retreated from economic activity, and a crisis of consumption that reached its height in the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008, leading to stagnation. He reminds us that worldwide, these processes were in evidence in the decades of the 1980s. As monopoly capital saw threats to its empire, it sought to divert the attention of people from their material conditions into other directions.
Dr Patnaik sees the rise of Marine Le Pen, for instance, as a result of these moves and sees a similar situation elsewhere in Europe and in India. Neo-liberalism dislikes taxing the rich and is critical of a fiscal deficit. What is more, finance is globally mobile now. So, no government can increase employment by using the tools neoliberalism offers. Which is why forces like the ones unleashed by Ms Le Pen (and similar ones in India) find roots; but simultaneously, these forces cannot survive endlessly, because at some point people will rise up against these governments like they did in the case of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil or Donald Trump in his first term. However, till structural solutions to livelihood crises are offered by succeeding governments, neofascism will remain a global threat.
Interestingly, Dr Patnaik says alternatives to ward off impoverishment, such as welfare schemes of the sort both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have offered, are not backed by any fiscal guarantees and are placebos at best. For instance, what is the point of transferring money to the female in the house in the belief that this will pay for the children's school fees, if there are no schools nearby? All that happens is private schools raise fees if they know such transfers are imminent. His solution is to provide constitutional guarantees and place the responsibility on the state. The whole thing can be paid for via taxes such as an inheritance tax.
Not everyone, even in the Left, would agree. Outside the Left, given the steadily receding electoral imprint of the Left parties among the people, there appear to be even fewer takers for the argument. But in his essays, Yechury makes a powerful case for fighting the BJP, a line the CPI (M) adopted at its 16th Party Congress in Calcutta in 1998 shortly after the BJP came to power at the Centre, that it must become the main force in mobilising democratic forces. To the point that when in 2004, Sonia Gandhi decided she would not become Prime Minister, it was Sitaram Yechury who tried to convince her otherwise.
Why should the BJP be fought? His article, first published as a CPI (M) pamphlet in 1993, days after the Babri Masjid was razed, reflects both rage and pain and contests all the reasons for the demolition, citing Vivekananda and Adi Shankara. It also challenges many assertions about Muslims, such as polygamy (more Hindus do it), the rate of growth of the minority population in India (the fears that minorities can ever overtake the majority numerically are unscientific), and mosque demolition in Islamic states (they're theocratic, India is not). In another article on 'What is Hindu Rashtra?', published in Frontline, he quotes extensively from M S Golwalkar to point out that many premises about the Hindu Rashtra are actually ahistorical. And the last piece, 'India at 75', published in 2021, takes a look at the BJP-led government's record. It says: 'The new narrative suggests that while we achieved our independence on 15 August, 1947, India's real freedom was achieved with the abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A of our Constitution, the dissolution of the state of Jammu & Kashmir on 5 August 2019, and the formal launching of the Ram temple construction in Ayodhya on 5 August 2020'.
Till the end of his life, Yechury believed that there could be a future free of exploitation, inequity, injustice and denial of human dignity to millions. He believed the state must have no religion and every individual must be free to practise any religion they liked. Many will continue to find his ideals illuminating and inspiring. This book is for them.