EVERY time a session of Parliament is about to begin, the ruling dispensation and the gangs protected by it come up with fabricated incidents and diversionary tactics to muzzle the debate on people’s genuine issues. The method behind this madness is coming to the fore day by day, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said speaking at a rally held in Kolhapur, Maharashtra on February 20, commemorating the first anniversary of Govind Pansare’s martyrdom. He was referring to the recent events in Jawaharlal Nehru University and Hyderabad Central University. “Of course, this hateful and violent campaign is not merely a subterfuge. There is a greater design behind it, to replace the Indian Constitution with one advocated by the RSS and turn this democratic republic into a Hindu Rashtra. It is to this end that the RSS and its several outfits are constantly trying to spread the communal poison among the people. This venom is also intended to work to numb people’s sensibilities and sensitivities about the real issues of the toiling masses of this country,” Yechury said. Trimurti – Constructive and Destructive Referring to the dastardly murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi, Yechury said they were the real ‘Trimurti’ of India who were opposed to the obscurantist idea of a theocratic state of Hindu Rashtra. Paying glorious tributes to their sacrifice for the cause of a rational and scientific attitude, he charged that their views were anathema to the Hindutva elements who were trying to push India into the medieval dark ages. “It is to counter the influence of the views propagated by this ‘Trimurti’ that the RSS is trying to impose an insidious ‘Trimurti’ on the Indian people. The latter has three faces: of spreading communal poison, of laying the interests of our sovereignty at the feet of profiteering global capital and an attack on the fundamental rights of the Indian people.” He said various incidents of communal conflagrations were incited at the behest of the RSS and its outfits. Drawing attention to the growing inequality in the country, he said, “Only one hundred capitalists in the country own wealth that is equivalent to fifty per cent of the GDP while families comprising ninety per cent population survive on a meagre monthly income of ten thousand rupees. The BJP government’s policies are intensifying the peasant distress and farmers’ suicides have grown by 26 per cent since the Modi government assumed office. This government is presiding over a regime that opens the treasure of national wealth to voracious monopoly capital, national and international, while pushing the Indian working masses into the quagmire of misery and indebtedness.” Charge of Sedition – A New Weapon It is in this background that the government and its agencies are foisting false cases of sedition on the dissenting voices, especially in universities. “Where was the RSS when the struggle against the British imperialists was raging,” he asked, to which the cheering crowd responded with a resounding applause. It was the common masses of workers and peasants who had fought for Independence and they still continue fighting for the defence of the sovereignty of the country. The people maintain the unity among themselves but ironically, it is the BJP government that is trying to divide them along communal and caste lines. The RSS does not believe in the Indian Constitution authored by Ambedkar. It wants to replace it with its own constitution based on the concept of the Hindu Rashtra. For turning the Indian democratic republic into a theocratic Hindu state they want to rewrite our history. They want to replace people’s real history with mythology. Hence the Prime Minister’s superstitious discourses on Ganesha as an instance of the first plastic surgery and the birth of Karna as that of the first test tube baby! “It is for this reason that the government has unleashed an onslaught on the institutions of learning, like JNU, Hyderabad Central University and IIT Madras and FTII, Pune. Once the democratic institutions are dismantled, imposition of Hindutva fascism would become much easier. This is worse than the Emergency,” he said. He explained how Kanhaiya Kumar’s slogans of ‘azadi’ from imperialism, capitalism, feudalism, ‘Manuvaad’ and ‘Sanghvaad’ were distorted in audio-visual media and spread a la Gobbelsian technique. Are these slogans anti-national, he asked. JNU that is being targeted as a hotbed of anti-nationalism has produced students of which 56 are serving the country’s administration in very high positions, both in India and abroad, he said. Moreover, three former students of JNU are members of Modi’s cabinet. “By what logic they are nationalist and the rest of the students are anti-nationals,” Yechury asked. He called upon the people to continue the fight against these reactionary forces and carry forward the message of the martyred ‘Trimurti’. He said CPI (M) would raise in both Houses of Parliament the issue of the government’s inability and indifference in apprehending the culprits and conspirators behind these assassinations. The public meeting was presided over by Prof. N D Patil, a veteran leader of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) in Maharashtra. In his address, Patil said, “The RSS was trying to impose a dharma sansad, theocratic parliament on our country. Pansare had constantly exposed these designs by his work and scholarship.” Referring to Pansare’s path-breaking interpretation of Shivaji and his life, he quipped, “We know of Shivaji’s legendary and daring escape from his imprisonment by Aurangzeb at Agra. CPI leader Amarjit Kaur also addressed the gathering. Pansare and his wife were shot from close range near their house in Kolhapur on February 16, 2015 and subsequently he succumbed to the fatal wounds on February 20. The town of Kolhapur led by the Left parties observed the five days with various programmess. Apart from the activists of the Left and democratic parties and organisations, many artists, writers, theatre personalities, cultural and educational institutions observed the five day event in the form of daily morning walks, street plays and colourful posters all over the city and the district. Meanwhile, Yechury at a press conference spoke on the JNU controversy and the Party’s stand in the forthcoming assembly elections, especially in West Bengal and Kerala. To the query on the Party’s stand on a Bihar like alliance in West Bengal, he said, “There is no question of such an alliance. What we need to understand is that the people of West Bengal want to see the anti-democratic and repressive government of Trinamool Congress out of office.” Yechury was the chief guest in a function that felicitated Vishwas Sayanakar, a progressive thinker, at Islampur in Sangli district. Islampur is well known for its role in the Left movement, especially the anti-British alternative government led by Nana Patil, a former president of AIKS. He also inaugurated the new office of Sugarcane Workers’ Union affiliated to CITU at Kolhapur. (END)