The Fight Now is Between Indian Nationalism and Hindutva Nationalism: Yechury

Kolkata: In India, the fight now is between Indian nationalism and Hindutva nationalism, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said here on Friday, calling upon all secular, democratic people “cutting across political lines to launch a pan-Indian offensive against the  subverting of the Indian Constitution and constitutional institutions being used in to decimate constitutional tenets.”

Addressing a press conference, Yechury said the Right wing political offensive in the country could only be thwarted by a Left-wing offensive, adding that a joint action programme by Left parties had already been launched throughout the country. He said there was need for joint protests, much like the PUCL (People’s Union of Civil Liberties) model formed during the Emergency.

Not a single Bill in Lok Sabha, he alleged, was being referred to Select Committees, adding that there was a complete breach of constitutional ethics.  “In India, laws are never made like the way this government is trying to, using its brute majority,” he added.

Yechury also mentioned that the  RSS chief saying that lynching was not an Indian word and that such things do not happen in India, was an attempt to completely erode the base of India’s constitutional framework in a bid to turn the country into a Hindu Rashtra, for which a narrative of Hindu nationalistic jingoism was being constructed.

Yechury was in Kolkata to attend the observance of the centenary of the formation of the united Communist Party of India and to attend an important session of CPI(M)’s West Bengal State Committee, which saw

four leaders --  Nripen Choudhury, Dipak Dasgupta, Goutam Deb  and Manab Mukherjee   -- opting out of the party’s state  secretariat.  

As per a decision ratified by the state committee, Anadi Sahoo (CITU state general secretary) and Sumit Dey (Nadia  district  secretary ) were inducted as new members of the party state secretariat,  along with Kallol  Majumdar  (Kolkata)  and  Palash Das (North 24 Parganas). 

CPI(M) district secretary of South 24 Parganas, Shamik Lahiri, was made a permanent invitee to the state secretariat. The party also decided to coopt Shyamali Pradhan (Birbhum) into the state committee, along with Paresh Pal, Saiyad Hossain, Alokesh Das, Mayukh Biswas, Srijan Bhattacharya, Pratikur Rehman, Meenakshi Mukherjee and Sarbani Prasad Santra as permanent invitees.