Bumble, Indira Gandhi, Elon Musk, Chinese Press: When Sitaram Yechury Bared It All In A Podcast
Sitaram Yechury was a member of CPM's top decision-making body Politburo for over three decades and was the Rajya Sabha MP from 2005 to 2017.
Sitaram Yechury, veteran leader of CPI(M), passed after a brief hospitalisation on Thursday. Several political leaders cutting across party lines expressed their condolences over the demise of the leader.
Yechury was a member of CPM's top decision-making body Politburo for over three decades and was the Rajya Sabha MP from 2005 to 2017.
The leading Communist leader is famously known for standing resolute beside Indira Gandhi after leading a student march in 1977, while he was the President of the Students' Union at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Leading a group of students to the prime minister's residence, he had handed her a memorandum seeking her resignation as the JNU chancellor.
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In a podcast interview with Unfiltered by Samdish in January this year, Yechury recalled the episode and said, "She (Indira) came out. As I was reading that litany of you know, epithets against her, she had a smile on her face. And then she took the memorandum and then walked away. And then while walking away, she abused all her associates. She said, you don't know how to handle protests."
"You don't know how to handle these people. You should have invited all of them into the lawns. After that, of course, she resigned," he said.
A photograph of the JNU students surrounding Gandhi and a young Yechury reading out the memorandum is a part of history.
Yechury further said that the students changed the statute stating that the Chancellor need not be the Prime Minister.
He started his political life, while he was a student of MA in economics in JNU where he joined the SFI in 1974. He was elected the Students Union President thrice and was known for his uncompromising ideological commitment to Marxism-Leninism.
The CPI(M) general secretary, when asked about his retirement plan, said, "What will I do, if I retire."
What Sitaram Yechury On China's Press Freedom?
In the candid interview, when asked whether China is a totalitarian state, Sitaram Yechury said that there are both sides to the argument.
He was also asked if there is a free press in China, to which he remarked, "Well they print some newspapers."
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He went on to add, "All the foreign agencies work from there."
Speaking on the India-China border standoff, he said that the prime minister said that there is nothing going on there.
"Between the two countries, if any deal happens, it is basically between government to government. Government is saying nothing has happened," he added.
On Bumble & Elon Musk
The interviewer asked the CPI(M) leader whether he had heard of Bumble or Hinge (online dating websites), to which the former parliamentarian asked in surprise, "Bumper Hinge?"
To a question on whether he has heard of the fighting contest between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, Yechury laughingly remarked, "I hate both."
"No, hate in the sense the way they manipulate the, that is the problem," he added.
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