Thiruvananthapuram: CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the RSS-BJP had unleashed an assault on Consti-tution, democracy, secularism and federalism because their rabid communal project will not succeed if present character of India continues.
Yechury was delivering a talk on abrogation of Article 370 and the challenges in Kashmir, at the AKG Hall here on Tuesday. “For Hindu Rashtra to function you need a unitary state, a central high command, a state that can be controlled from one Centre. Here under federalism you have equality of various states that does not go along with RSS variety of Hindu Rashtra,” he said.
The CPM leader said the battle today was between saving and preserving India as we know according to Constitution or allowing it to be trampled for creating a unitary state structure that will facilitate the transformation of the Republic into fascist Hindu Rasthra
He said the RSS does not share the vision of a pluralistic society and linguistic reorganisation of the states. “The threads of commonality in diversity must be strengthened if secular democratic republic has to be strengthened. They want Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan concept. One country, one culture, one language and this is the conception of unitary state that is completely against the Constitution,” he said. Yechury said the Centre had carried out the Kashmir operation in a planned manner. Two weeks before the abrogation of Article 370 people had been warned, asked to stock up ration for two months. Additional troops were sent to Kashmir valley that is already the world’s most concentrated military area in geographical terms.
“Today it is an occupied territory. All communication networks were cut, no cellphones, no internet, no laptops, schools and colleges are shut, no medicines in hospitals. The situation itself has created huge panic.
There is further potential of disturbance. The government says everything is normal but all international agencies BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, New York Times have given detailed reports on the protests and number of people injured,” he said. He said all prominent political leaders who were talking with Centre to cement negotiations between India and J&K have been arrested.
No one knows what are the charges. Now the Supreme Court in its wisdom has given Centre more time till things settle down.
Yechury said people in Kashmir were asking whether the Centre was trying to create Palestine and a Gaza strip in the Valley. In that case there will be intafada every day , India will never be at peace, Pakistan will get opportunity to interfere more, threat of cross border terrorism will escalate.
The Centre's operation is aimed at a demographic change. They want the Kashmiri people to remain subdued. But people in the valley say the Centre will not succeed in its designs.
