Veteran Marxist leader, Sitaram Yechury, has lashed out at the RSS and the BJP for desperately ‘seeking’ to appropriate Sardar Patel despite having made ‘no contribution’ to the freedom movement.
In an EXCLUSIVE interview with www.jantakareporter.com’s Editor-in-Chief, Rifat Jawaid, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, said that the RSS was ‘targetting religious minorities’ at a time when Indians as a whole fought a united battle against the colonial power.
Watch the interview here
He said, “Today the RSS and the BJP are seeking to appropriate Sardar Patel as their icon. I can understand their problem because they do not have icons of the national movement primarily because they did not participate in the national movement. When the whole country was united against their common political enemy i.e. the British, you had the RSS only targetting the religious minorities and whipping up communal passion. It’s not my assessment, it’s their own admission. Even people like Nanaji Deshmukh has gone on record to say why did the RSS as an organisation not participate in the national movement.”
On the intellectuals’ protests against the growing religious intolerance under Narendra Modi government, Yechury said that it was serious warning to the central government.
He said, “I think this is a warning., very very serious warning that the intellectuals of our country is giving. Just look at the spread of these intellectuals…It started with the Sahitya Akademi winners returning in protest against Dr Kalburgi’s murder. Then it picked up with the film industry joining with what’s happening in the Film institute(FTII). With the sort of moral policing that the RSS and all its affiliates are doing all over the country, what people should eat and how people should dress, all these are against what our constitution guarantees.”
Yechury said that the BJP-led NDA was set suffer a humiliating defeat in Bihar as there was ‘strong upsurge’ among voters against the communal forces.
He said, “One thing is clear as far as I know, there’s a very very strong upsurge against these communal forces. The anti-incumbency has set in much faster (against Narendra Modi-led central government). Then what do they see. They see Prime Minister either abroad or receiving guests from abroad. He doesn’t have time to attend to people’s problem. ”
The senior communist leader said that all those parties who cherished the idea of India must come together adding that it may not include the Congress party. He said that Congress was responsible for bringing the BJP to power.
On Aam Aadmi Party, he said that Arvind Kejriwal had been taking up issues that the CPI-M raised adding that he had supported the AAP during the Delhi elections.
Yechury, however, clarified that the AAP needed to clarify its stand on communalism and neo liberal economic policy.