Terming the ideology of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ replacing the secular and democratic India the biggest challenge the country was facing since Independence, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has called for formation of a broadest platform of Left, democratic and secular forces to dethrone the Bharatiya Janata Party from power.
Inaugurating the party's 23rd Tamil Nadu State conference here on Wednesday, he said despite nation-wide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, farmers' struggle and and popular discontent against the government for its economic policies and increasing fuel price, the BJP continued to maintain a certain edge in elections.
He attributed BJP’s victories in elections to the Hindutva identity the BJP had created through hate campaigns which had sent all other problems of people to the background.
The Kashmir Files
Mr. Yechury accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of promoting Hindi film The Kashmir Files, which spoke only about killing of 89 Kashmiri pandits by the militants in the 1990s, to divide the people on religious lines in order to consolidate Hindutva vote bank. The film did not talk about the fact that 1,635 people belonging to other faiths, including Muslims, were killed during the same period, he said.
New education policy
The CPI (M) leader said the Centre was trying to control the mindset of the people through new education policy.
Besides, the Centre had come up with the idea of compulsory teaching of Bhagavad Gita in schools. The Vice-President of India, Venkaiah Naidu, had justified teaching the values of the Gita.
"Why should it insist only on teaching this and not the values of other religions in a secular country?" he asked.
The Gita was only justifying caste hierarchy and caste atrocities in society. Sudras were forced to do manual scavenging despite a ban on the practice. Dalits were forced to serve the upper caste, he said.
The Gita also justified subjugation of women by men, he added. The BJP was trying to ingrain in the minds of the youth justification of caste atrocity, rape of Dalit women and burning of lower caste people as if it was an ideal society.
The attempt to create such a reactionary, backward and exploitative system should not be allowed, Mr. Yechury said.
The imperial hegemony of the U.S. found resistance among the Left-led governments of Chile, Peru and Honduras. The Scandinavian countries had overthrown the right-wing governments and replaced them with Leftist governments, he said.
Similarly, the Left forces, along with secular and democratic forces, should remove the BJP government which had now aligned with the U.S. imperialism, in the interest of the country.
He said even the Prime Minister had recognised that the Left forces under the CPI(M) leadership could mobilise people against the BJP.
Party State secretary, K. Balakrishnan, senior leaders, G. Ramakrishnan, T.K. Rangarajan, M.A. Baby, U. Vasuki, M.N.S. Venkataraman, A. Soundarajan, and Su. Venkatesan, were among those who were present at the conference.
