Kochi: A cross section of public intellectuals and cultural personalities has announced a movement, Sarva Dharma Samabhavana (All Faiths Equal), to oppose the Sangh Parivar. The movement will be formally launched on Tuesday, marking the 70th anniversary of the martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi. In a statement, they said the movement aims at a new discourse and practice to counter the Hindutva forces based on the subaltern political and democratic values inherent in the thinking of Gandhi, Ambedkar and Marx.
The idea is "to revive the will and spirit for freedom seen amongst a vast mass of ordinary folks in the country during Independence Struggle which has been vitiated during the past 70 years." The statement alleged that the Sangh Parivar was using religion as a political instrument with the idea of converting India into a Hindu Nation. "The very notion of using religion as a political instrument is inherently fascist, and a political party associated with such fascist outlook of the Sangh Parivar is ruling the country nowadays," it says.
"The Hindu religion which the Sangh Parivar claims to represent is actually a 200-year old creation of the Western Colonial power. The colonial rulers have carved out a new ruling class as middlemen comprising upper caste from the old caste system to implement colonial exploitation in the form of land taxes from the land converted into capitalist private property." The signatories include M.K. Sanu, M Leelavathy, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, K.N. Panikkar, Rajan Gurukkal, B. Rajeevan, M.N. Karassery, Attoor Ravi Varma, K.G. Sankara Pillai, K. Satchidanandan, Paul Zachariah, Joy Mathew, T.V. Chandran, Najmal Babu (TN Joy), Anwar Ali and Lenin Rajendran.
