Frantic Communalization to Serve Vote Bank Politics.

Frantic Communalization to Serve Vote Bank Politics.

The manner in which the Rajasthan police invented a plot to assassinate Salman Rushdie to scare away the author from the Jaipur Literary Festival to appease the Islamic fundamentalists under orders from the state government and the way in which the central government looked the other way in order to serve the vote bank politics in UP elections show the extent to which communalization has reached in this country. Now even those writers who protested by reading sentences from Rushdie’s Satanic Verses banned in 1989 in this country to appease religious fundamentalists, are threatened with legal actions and protest threats from the fundamentalists.

These are days when the religious fundamentalists are creating fertile ground for the military chiefs and other authoritarian forces in South Asia to wantonly indulge in state affairs, threatening military take over as in Pakistan or Bangladesh. What was once an usual thing in Latin American countries are threatening to challenge even the existing democratic façade in South Asia, however weak it may be. At this juncture by allowing the religious fundamentalists of all hues to dictate terms, and the state machinery dancing to their tunes for vote banks portend grave dangers.

It is a pity that by talking in the name of all Muslims or other minorities, the fundamentalists among them are creating conditions for the Hindutva forces to get further strengthened all over the country day by day threatening  more communalization and more Gujarat like pogroms. History has proved repeatedly that all religious fundamentalists help each others’ growth, and the minority fundamentalists provide favorable condition for the majority fundamentalists to communalize the society as they want, as revealed by numerous instances in this country. Still, even the erstwhile Left Front government in Bengal did not protect the rights of an author like Taslima and weakened the left offensive that is required against all fundamentalist forces. In this situation,  what is happening in the Salman Rushdie’s case is most objectionable.

The CPI (ML) has already unequivocally condemned the banning of Rushdie’s participation in the JLF. It  appeals to all left, secular and democratic forces to oppose the wanton communalization indulged in by all brands of religious fundamentalist forces and the way the ruling class parties are pursuing the vote bank politics appeasing and abetting the fundamentalists. The manner in which the ruling class parties are utilizing the services of the religious fundamentalist and casteist forces to divert  people’s attention from the vital issues confronting them by indulging in vote bank politics should be exposed and opposed.

K.N.Ramachandran

General Secretary, CPI(ML).

Dated  22^nd January, 2012.