Below we publish an editorial written by Sitaram Yechury that appeared in People’s Democracy dated October 6, 2002.

ON the eve of Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary, his assassins have launched yet another anti-national tirade. Releasing a book containing a collection of vituperative slander and canards against the Left, the RSS chief perfected the Goebellesian propaganda technique of telling big enough lies frequently enough in order to make them appear as the truth.

Taking the cue from the prime minister, the union minister for human resources development deliberately misinterpreted the Supreme Court judgement on the framing of syllabus by NCERT as a sanction for his by now infamous project of communalising the Indian education system. At the cost of repetition, it must be stated that all that the Supreme Court stated was that the framing of syllabus was not unconstitutional since the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE, which was not consulted) is not a Constitutional body and, hence, its consultation does not render the process illegal. In the same breath, the Supreme Court cautioned that religious education should not be "perverted".

It is precisely such perversion that was brazenly exhibited on this occasion. The RSS chief stooped to levels that he alone is capable by comparing the Left with the tail of a lizard. It needs to be reminded that the sting often lies in the tail of some reptiles. Thus, beware!

The union minister repeated his obnoxious characterisation of the Left as intellectual terrorists. He went on to heap insult on the people of West Bengal for continuously voting the Left to office for over quarter of a century!

Amongst the many slanderous charges hurled against the Left, ad nauseum, by the Saffron Brigade, two need to be answered, once again. The first relates to the role of the Communists in the freedom struggle and the second to its role in the partition of India.

One need not go into the details of the already richly documented history of the role of the Left in India's struggle for freedom. It would suffice to note that when the country was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Quit India Movement, the then President of India, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, addressing the midnight session of the Parliament said: "After large scale strikes in mills in Kanpur, Jamshedpur and Ahmedabad, a despatch from Delhi dated 5 September, 1942, to the Secretary of State, in London, reported about the Communist Party of India: "the behaviour of many of its members proves what has always been clear, namely, that it is composed of anti-British revolutionaries."

On the contrary, the role of the RSS during India's freedom struggle is an open secret. The Bombay Home Department, during the 1942 Quit India Movement, observed, "The Sangh has scrupulously kept itself within the law and in particular has refrained from taking part in the disturbances that broke out in August 1942." Even its leading light, Nanaji Deshmukh once raised the question, "Why did the RSS not take part in the liberation struggle as an organisation?" Further, throughout the national movement the RSS always collaborated with the princely states who stood in firm opposition to the freedom struggle. One of their closest allies was Raja Hari Singh of Kashmir who was reluctant to join India.

It is there for all to see as to who are the betrayers of the freedom struggle and collaborators of the British!

As regards the country's partition, the Communists had always maintained that the partition of India on communal lines was a disastrous event. Its consequences continue to be felt even today. This partition was the consequence of policies pursued by British imperialism and the actual circumstances in which power was transferred to the Indian ruling classes.

Who were the ones that comprehensively aided the British in such efforts? The first person to have articulated the two-nation theory was none other than the Saffron Brigade's appropriated hero, or, "veer" V D Savarkar. A full three years before the Muslim League and Jinnah raised this demand, Savarkar in his presidential address to the Hindu Mahasabha said: "We Hindus are a nation by ourselves ... we Hindus are marked out as an abiding Nation by ourselves'' (see Indian Annual Register, 1939, Vol II). Again later he reiterated, "I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah's two-nation theory. We, Hindus, are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations'' (Indian Annual Register, 1943, Vol II).

Those who have consistently been against the interests of the Indian people have the temerity today to cast aspersions on the patriotic zeal and innumerable sacrifices of Indian patriots who were leading lights of the Left movement in the country.

Thus, the communal fascist propaganda based, as it is, on lies and fabrications requires the distortions of India's rich history to advance their pernicious political project of converting the secular democratic character of the Indian republic into a rabidly intolerant fascistic "Hindu Rashtra". This cannot and will not be allowed.