The Fight for the Republic

This book of three essays by Sitaram Yechury, introduced by Prabhat Patnaik is the first in the series titled ’Contemporary Themes’. The basic theme running through the essays included here is: reason versus unreason. The fomenting of hatred by Hindutva forces in India against religious minorities is advanced on the basis of a perception of history based on an invoking of unreason. As against this, these essays promote inclusive nationalism founded on a reading of our history that relies on evidence and reason. Yechury states that India’s anti-colonial nationalism sought to unite all segments of society in a common struggle, on the basis of a vision which ultimately got enshrined in the Constitution: the vision of a secular democracy committed to social justice and federalism. As against this, the Hindutva vision of a Hindu Rashtra is not just against the Constitution, not just majoritarian, but in openly advocating a second-class status for the minorities, indubitably ’fascistic’.

Sitaram Yechury (12 August 1952 - 12 September 2024) was the topmost leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), an outstanding leader of the Left movement and a well-known Marxist ideologue. He served as the General Secretary of the CPI(M) from 2015 until his untimely demise. A prolific writer, Yechury made invaluable contributions in the ideological field and was the Editor of the Party’s weekly paper, People’s Democracy. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha for two terms and in the recent period, he devoted a lot of his time and energy towards forging a broad unity of the secular opposition parties, which took the shape of the INDIA bloc.