Aditi Phadnis: The equilibrium man

PLAIN POLITICS/ Sitaram Yechury has played a major role in his party's affiliation with the Cong

Driving home the point that a transition from TINA (There Is No Alternative) to SITA (Socialism Is The Alternative) is possible in Indian politics has been a Long March for Sita, as Sitaram Yechury is known to friends.

The Left parties' collaboration with unstable political outfits like the National Front (NF) and the United Front (UF) in the 1990s, was one landmark in Indian politics.

Every collaboration taught the Left a little more about participation in parliamentary democracy. And the affiliation now with the Congress is the logical penultimate step in experimenting with power-sharing arrangements with bourgeoise forces. A lot of the credit for getting cadres to come to terms with this must go to Sitaram Yechury.

Despite the strong personal bond with the other iconic Communist in the CPI (M), Prakash Karat, it is to Sitaram Yechury's credit that he has been able to carve out a path very different from the one Karat and he had embarked upon when the two first joined the Communist movement. Karat continues to be a Brahmin about relations with the Congress and shies away from an open collaboration with them in government.

Yechury, on the other hand, is possibly closer to Congress President Sonia Gandhi than many Congressmen of his age and political experience. If the CPI (M) had participated in government, Yechury's services would have most certainly been utilised in an important job in government.

When Sonia Gandhi decided not to become prime minister, it was Sitaram Yechury who tried to convince her that this was not a good idea.

At that famous meeting he even recalled a cartoon he had seen in the Italian Communist Party newspaper which, attempting to lampoon Silvio Berlusconi, had pointed out that there were only two foreigners who were prime ministers "" Sonia Gandhi in India and Berlusconi in Italy. This, he said, was evidence that the Italians considered her a foreigner now. Gandhi, according to sources, thought it was a nice try.

Yechury himself is at pains to emphasise that he doesn't even want a Rajya Sabha seat (he was tipped to be nominated from Andhra Pradesh this time in the one seat that was given to the CPI (M) but for reasons best known to the CPI (M), another colleague was selected).

But apparently the CPI (M) establishment fears change even more than the Congress. So he was overlooked for the Upper House again and continues to be in the organisation, the natural heir to the thinking of Communist leaders like former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and party secretary general, Harkishan Singh Surjeet.

In this Sitaram Yechury has come closer to his roots than he will ever admit. St Stephen's College and Jawaharlal Nehru University taught him economics.

Coming from an influential Kamma family in Andhra Pradesh, the UPSC exams should have been his target after his MA (his uncle, seven years older, is one of the best known bureaucrats of Andhra Pradesh, also a former chief secretary). But he was in the wrong place at the wrong time "" Jawaharlal Nehru University during the Emergency.

No one who came into contact with Yechury between 1974 and 1977 can ever forget him. Yechury was president of the JNU Students' Union led by the Students' Federation of India (SFI) thrice. During this period pro-vice chancellor Moonis Raza was the effective executive authority on the campus.

The police came to the campus to apprehend student activists because JNU had suddenly become an irritant for the authorities "" every other day there would be a gherao or demonstration against the Congress.

Raza risked his job "" and his political reputation (he was a card-carrying member of the CPI at the time and the CPI was supporting the Emergency) "" to prevent the police from entering the campus. The CPI and CPI (M) were not on particularly friendly terms but Raza went out on a limb to protect his students.

Whether it was solidarity with Nicaragua or seminars on Left unity which saw some of the best brains in the Left movement gathered together to discuss the future of the Communist movement, it was all happening in JNU. British champagne socialist and nominal Pakistani Tariq Ali also came to JNU during this period.

He mysteriously disappeared, causing a big hubbub on the campus. BS learnt just a few months ago that he was afraid of being arrested so he spent a night or two in the students' Union office, courtesy Yechury. This is the political atmosphere in which Yechury and Karat grew up.

It took very little for Yechury to become a full-timer in the organisation. From 1978 to 1998 he personally grew in the party. But for the CPI M it took 20 years to decide that the BJP was a bigger enemy than the Congress.

At the 16th Party Congress in Calcutta in 1998, the CPI M argued that since the BJP as a rightwing communal party had been leading the Indian government since 1998, mobilising democratic forces against it should be the main platform for the Left. After the 1998 elections this belief was reinforced and a new phase of collaboration began that we're witnessing now.

Between 1975 and today, Left parties have ruled in three states. They proved in 1996 that an anti-BJP coalition would not succeed without the effective support of the Left. It is the Congress's parliamentary stepney now.

In this whole process, Sitaram Yechury has become the public face of the CPI (M), in the way that Atal Bihari Vajpayee had become in the BJP. Yechury wears a watch with a little portrait of Che Guevara, proving that Communists too need to have their Gods.

As a Communist, he bookmarked a big leap of faith during the World Social Forum in Mumbai recently by acknowledging that in politics there was "an open space and a contending space. The contending character comes from the diverse ideological moorings of the various forces that participate in the forum. The WSF is an open space "" open to all who stand in opposition to neoliberal economic policies".

The Congress now believes that in order to ensure the longevity of the Manmohan Singh government, it is important to drum up the return of the BJP as the biggest threat to the government.

This will ensure continued Left support. The Left believes it can radicalise the Congress so much that the organisation can be captured eventually. It is men like Yechury who will maintain the equilibrium and prevent the boat from being rocked.