Yechury’s legacy smashing taboos lives on, says CPM on death anniv celebrating body donation

CHENNAI: CPM polit bureau member K Balakrishnan on Thursday said the first death anniversary of former general secretary Sitaram Yechury was being observed in a manner that challenged centuries-old religious and caste taboos, with a campaign encouraging people to donate their bodies for medical research.

Launching the body donation campaign at the party’s state headquarters in T Nagar, he noted that while many communities still resisted even post-mortem examinations on ritual grounds, the initiative affirmed that “the human body can continue to serve society even after life ends.”

In Chennai, 235 party leaders and card holders, including polit bureau members Balakrishnan and U Vasuki, state secretary P Shanmugam and central committee member P Sampath, handed over certificates of intent to Dr Gopalakrishnan, member-secretary of the Tamil Nadu Transplant Authority, and Dr Suganthi Rajakumari, Director of Medical Education, for body donation. According to organisers, 1,586 people across Tamil Nadu registered on the first day of the campaign, which will continue in the coming months.

Balakrishnan hailed the participation of volunteers from Hindu, Christian and Muslim backgrounds who pledged to donate their bodies and organs, calling it a powerful message against caste-based burial practices that persist in parts of the State.

He recalled that new members of the CPM once signed a pledge expressing readiness to sacrifice their lives for the people. “Today, comrades extend that pledge by offering their bodies for scientific study,” he said, citing past party workers who upheld such ideals even when facing capital punishment.

Balakrishnan described Yechury as an outstanding Parliamentarian, writer and orator who opposed communalism and corporate monopolies and raised concern over the widening gap between India’s wealthy elite and its working class.