Sen (left) and Chatterjee at the lecture. (PTI)

New Delhi, Aug. 11: The theme was liberalism. A communist leader, whose party has been under fire for not being tolerant, did his best to present a liberal face. But the man who has come to symbolise reforms was in no mood to spare the comrades.

The cream of India’s political class and intelligentsia had gathered at Parliament’s central hall today for the first Professor Hiren Mukherjee Memorial Lecture on ‘Demands of social justice’, delivered by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

It was a rare occasion when a communist icon had got such pride of place in a polity dominated by the Congress.

But Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — who described the late parliamentarian as a “rare communist who was a true liberal” — didn’t miss the chance to rub in the message that what India needed was a reformist, not dyed-in-the-wool, comrade.

CPM chief Prakash Karat wasn’t around but the barb wouldn’t have been lost on his colleague Sitaram Yechury, who was present.

And if their former comrade, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee — recently sacked by his party for doing his job — permitted himself a smile, nobody couldn’t have grudged him that.

The expelled CPM veteran had every reason to smile because the Prime Minister paid “tribute” to his “inspirational leadership”.

“The entire country has come to look up to him for balance and fair play in the functioning of the Lok Sabha. He is the true inheritor of the legacy of comrade Hiren Mukherjee,” Singh said of the man who last month defied his party chief and presided over a trust motion the Left could not defeat.

Earlier, before the programme started, Yechury had taken pains to present a liberal face. He walked up to Pranab Mukherjee to shake hands with the Congress veteran, said hello to BJP leaders L.K. Advani and Jaswant Singh and moved towards Congress boss Sonia Gandhi who, however, wasn’t very enthusiastic to spot the “Red” trouble-shooter.

Yechury wished Sonia and then walked over to where A.K. Antony was sitting. The defence minister stood up to greet the communist leader and the two talked for a while.

Yechury then returned to Pranab, exchanged a few words and took his seat. By that time the Prime Minister had arrived.

“It is not often that one comes across a liberal revolutionary. Some might regard that description an oxymoron. Can a revolutionary be a liberal? But that is precisely what comrade Hiren Mukherjee was,” he said.

“One of the hallmarks of Bengali renaissance was this commitment to liberalism and pluralism,” he added. “We see it in the writings of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, in the essays of Raja Rammohun Roy, in the novels and poetry of Rabindranath Tagore.”

Sen, who dwelt on poverty alleviation, principles of justice (niti and nyay) and parliamentary democracy, described Hiren Mukherjee as his hero.

He also recalled that the late CPI leader had disagreed with his party when it described India’s Independence as false.