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Sitaram Yechury’s body in coffin: Right-wing influencers conclude he was a Christian

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury passed away on September 12 at the age of 72. Following his death, the Marxist leader’s body was taken to Jawaharlal Nehru University, his alma…

The post Sitaram Yechury’s body in coffin: Right-wing influencers conclude he was a Christian appeared first on Alt News.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury passed away on September 12 at the age of 72. Following his death, the Marxist leader’s body was taken to Jawaharlal Nehru University, his alma mater, in a coffin, for the JNU fraternity to pay its respect.

As images and videos of the comrade’s last visit to the university surfaced online, several Right-wing influencers took to X (formerly Twitter) to claim that Yechury was a Christian. Rishi Bagree, who uses his social media handles to amplify misinformation and communal propaganda on a regular basis, was one of them. Quote-tweeting JNUSU’s tweet about the homage to Yechury, Bagree speculated that Yechury ‘hated Hinduism’ because he was a Christian. (Archive)

Verified Right-wing propaganda handle @wokeflix_ also tweeted the same claim. The tweet garnered 1.7 million views and close to 7,000 retweets. (Archive)

Several other users amplified the viral claim. (Archives- 1, 2, 3, 4)

Click to view slideshow.

Fact Check

During his farewell speech in Rajya Sabha back in 2017, Yechury spoke about his religious background. Below is a transcript:

I was born in the Madras General Hospital now called Chennai to a Telugu-speaking Brahmin family. My grandfather being a judge…goes to Guntur, so we shifted there in 1954, I was born in 1952. We shifted to Hyderabad in 1956. My school education is in an Islamic culture that was prevalent in Hyderabad under the Nizam rule in the early days of independence. Humari taleem toh wahi hui sir. Then I came to Delhi, studied here. I am married to a person whose father is a Sufi of the Islamic order, and whose surname is Chisti… Her mother is a Rajput but a Mysorean Rajput who migrated there in the 8th century AD. We’re now in the 21st Century…I am from a south Indian Brahmin family married to this lady, what will my son be known as, sir?… There’s nothing that can describe my son rather than being an Indian. That is our country. This is my example, how look at how many such people (have the same background)…

In 2017, while criticising a statement made by then Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Yechury had identified himself as an atheist.

Alt News reached out to Mohammed Salim, the state secretary CPI(M) West Bengal. Salim also referred to the aforementioned speech by Yechury and said, “In a toxic socio-political atmosphere in ‘New India’, everything is being sought to be identified with religion. Traditionally, religious beliefs are considered human and personal. Relationship between the ‘worshiper and worshipped’. Comrade Sitaram Yechury himself elaborated on this as an unparalleled wordsmith in his Rajya Sabha speech.” He further added, “Coffins have no particular religion but for those who want to divide everything on the basis of narrow beliefs.”

Why was Sitaram Yechury’s Body in a Coffin?

According to Dr Rima Dada, in-charge of media and a professor at AIIMS Delhi, Sitaram Yechury’s family has donated his body for medical research. This requires the body to be embalmed, where fluids are injected into the body to preserve it for teaching purposes. The decision by Yechury’s family was hailed by the AIIMS faculty as ‘noble’.

According to an article in The Hindu, no last rites were performed as his body was donated for medical research at AIIMS. A day after his death, his embalmed body was taken to Jawaharlal Nehru University and then to his residence. On Saturday, September 14, his remains were brought to the party’s headquarters at AKG Bhawan in Delhi.

To sum up, the claims on social media speculating that Sitaram Yechury was a Christian are false.

The post Sitaram Yechury’s body in coffin: Right-wing influencers conclude he was a Christian appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.


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