I met Sitaram Yechury for the first time in 1973 when we both joined Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Full-fledged academic programmes in many academic wings, including the School of Social Sciences, to which we both belonged – had started only the previous year. Classes were held in what we called “Old Campus,” the building belonging to the National Academy of Administration. The freshly built student dormitories, named after India’s rivers, were located on the “New Campus” a 10-minute walk to the new permanent campus that was under construction.

Meant to honour the memory of Jawaharlal Nehru, the university’s academic design was heavily influenced, as I discovered later from my research, by the plan suggested by Douglas Ensminger, the American Ford Foundation chief in New Delhi – a fact that would have shocked us had we known about it then.

Established to make a break from the existing pattern of academic study in Indian universities, JNU was meant to advance the modern national and international sprit associated with Nehru. An air of newness pervaded the place; it brimmed with an optimistic, pioneering energy

As I stepped into this space, I ran into Sita, as we called him. Although we were in different programmes – he in economics and I in history – meeting students in different subjects was easy because our numbers were small. We were all discovering new ways of academic study and being in the world. Students came from different backgrounds, belonged to different regions and spoke different languages.

Sita was from a Telugu background but fluent in both Hindi and English. After graduating from St. Stephens, he had not chosen the Delhi School of Economics, the coveted institution for the subject, but JNU because it offered a new way of studying economics. This openness to the new in him was evident when we met.

I took immediately to Sita. He was affable and charming, smiled easily and was always ready to banter good humoredly. He was initially not associated with any student political organisation but keenly interested in political questions. We became friends, and he spent several nights in my Kaveri hostel room, discussing and debating politics well into the early morning.

These discussions involved national and international matters. More immediately, they engaged with student politics in JNU. The Students’ Federation of India, affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was the dominant force on campus, but its domineering ways had alienated many, leading to the formation of the “Free Thinkers”, an organisation that professed to believe in thoughts unencumbered by political and party affiliations.

However, the Students’ Federation of India and the All India Students' Federation, associated with the Communist Party of India, formed an alliance and won the student union elections.

As an AISF member, I tried to recruit Sita. But with the support for Indira Gandhi a mill around the AISF’s neck, it was a hard sell. Sita joined the SFI. I reacted by telling him that he would find it difficult to live with the SFI’s domineering style. But he was convinced by its political ideology and programme. However, this did not come in the way of our friendship. Sita remained Sita – friendly, ready to share chai, go to watch movies, engage in discussions on books we had read.

His arguments were sharp and he was never shy to express his opinions, but he never personalised disagreements. Quick to laugh, his easygoing style made him a friend to many.

I recall that in 1974, the students union called for a strike to demand that the university change its admission policies to give weightage to applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds. In accordance with the union slogan “Study and Struggle”, we moved constantly between the library and the demonstration site. I remember studying with Sita in the library and then demonstrating together in front of the administrative block.

Fortunately, the vice chancellor was G Parthasarthy, a former diplomat and a man cut from Nehruvian cloth. Even though he headed the administration, he listened to us and accepted our demands. It helped that openness to social change was in the DNA of JNU’s milieu, so that even the administration was not deaf to social justice arguments.

I vividly remember the victory party where Sita was present, ebullient as ever.

During the Emergency in 1976, Sita was elected president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union. Later, he went on to rapidly climb the leadership ladder in the SFI and then the Communinist Party of India (Marxist).

This wasn’t surprising. His intelligence and talent for building bridges with people and leading them were evident.

I ran into him many years later in New Delhi. It was as if the years hadn’t passed by. He greeted me with warmth and affection. When I interviewed him for my book on the Emergency, he spoke of his experiences candidly and with self-deprecation.

He sent me a note when Rajkamal Prakashan released a Hindi translation of my book on August 18. He said that he had wanted to attend the book launch but couldn’t because he had just had a cataract operation and his doctor had advised him to restrict his movements. I heard later that he had been admitted to the hospital but that he was stable. Then came the sad news that he was no more. Farewell my friend, I will miss you.

Gyan Prakash is Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Princeton University, and was a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University.