‘PM’s Silence Shows Armed Mobs Enjoy Official Patronage’: Opposition Leaders in Joint Statement
PTI
Leaders of 13 opposition political parties on Saturday expressed deep concern over the recent incidents of hate speech and communal violence in the country, and urged people to maintain peace and harmony.
In a joint statement, the leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and her Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand counterparts M.K. Stalin and Hemant Soren, also raised concern over the manner in which issues relating to food, dress, faith, festivals and language “are being used” by the ruling establishment to polarise society.
“We are shocked at the silence of the Prime Minister, who has failed to speak against the words and actions of those who propagate bigotry and those who, by their words and actions, incite and provoke our society. This silence is an eloquent testimony to the fact that such private armed mobs enjoy the luxury of official patronage,” they said in the joint statement.
Reiterating their collective resolve to work together to strengthen the bonds of social harmony that “defined and enriched India for centuries”, the opposition leaders said, “We reiterate our commitment to combat and confront the poisonous ideologies which are attempting to entrench divisiveness in our society.”
“We appeal to all sections of the people to maintain peace and foil the sinister objective of those who wish to sharpen communal polarisation. We call upon all our party units across the country to independently and jointly work for maintaining peace and harmony,” they said in the joint appeal.
Incidents of communal violence were reported from some parts of the country on the occasion of Ram Navami on April 10.
The statement was signed by Sonia Gandhi, president, Indian National Congress; Sharad Pawar, president, Nationalist Congress Party; Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal and chairperson, Trinamool Congress; M.K. Stalin, chief minister of Tamil Nadu and president, DMK; Sitaram Yechury, general secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist); Hemant Soren, chief minister of Jharkhand and executive president JMM; Farooq Abdullah, president, National Conference; Tejashwi Yadav, RJD; D. Raja, general secretary, Communist Party of India; Debabrata Biswas, general secretary, All India Forward Bloc; Manoj Bhattacharya, general secretary Revolutionary Socialist Party; P.K. Kunhalikutty, general secretary, IUML; Dipanker Bhattacharya, general secretary Communist Party of India(ML)-Liberation.
(Courtesy: The Wire, Business Standard.)
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The Congress President Sonia Gandhi also wrote an article in a newspaper on the “Apocalypse of Hatred, Bigotry, Intolerance, Untruth Engulfing Country”. The PTI reports:
Hatred, bigotry and intolerance were “engulfing” the country and if not stopped these would damage the society beyond repair, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has alleged.
In a newspaper article, she called upon people not to allow this to go on and urged them to stop “this raging fire and tsunami of hate” that will “raze all that has been so painstakingly built by past generations”.
“An apocalypse of hatred, bigotry, intolerance and untruth is engulfing our country today. If we don’t stop it now, it will – if it already hasn’t – damage our society beyond repair. We simply cannot and must not allow this to go on. We as a people cannot stand by and watch as peace and pluralism are sacrificed at the altar of bogus nationalism,” she said in an article in the Indian Express.
“Let us contain this raging fire, this tsunami of hate that has been unleashed before all that has been so painstakingly built by past generations is razed to the ground,” Gandhi wrote.
She quoted Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali to say its verses were “all the more relevant and have heightened resonance” now.
“Over a century ago, the poet of Indian nationalism gave the world his immortal Gitanjali of which perhaps the 35th verse has become the most celebrated and most quoted. Gurudev Tagore’s prayer, with its seminal lines starting, ‘Where the mind is without fear…’ is all the more relevant and has heightened resonance today.”
In the article ‘A Virus Rages’, the Congress chief asked, “Does India have to be in a state of permanent polarisation?”
She alleged that the ruling establishment clearly wants the citizens of India to believe that such an environment was in their best interest.
“Whether it is dress, food, faith, festivals or language, Indian are sought to be pitted against Indians and the forces of discord are given every encouragement – overt and covert. History – both ancient and contemporary – is continuously sought to be interpreted to promote prejudice animosity and vengeance,” she claimed.
Her article comes in the wake of the hijab row, violence during Ram Navami and the clash in the Jawaharlal Nehru University over serving non-vegetarian food in the hostel mess on the occasion.
Gandhi alleged it was a “travesty” that instead of utilising the resources for creating a bright, new future for the country and engaging young minds in productive ventures, “time and valuable assets were being used up in attempts to refashion the present in terms of an imagined past”.
Noting there was much talk from the prime minister about acknowledging India’s diversity, she claimed the “harsh reality” was that under the ruling dispensation, the rich diversity that defined and enriched the society for centuries was “being manipulated to divide us and, worse, to harden and get more firmly entrenched” in them.
“The rising chorus of hatred, the unconcealed instigation of aggression and even crimes against the minorities is a far departure from the accommodating, syncretic traditions in our society.”
The Congress chief alleged, “There is something else more insidious that is part of this new, grand divisive plan to keep India in a state of permanent frenzy. All dissent and opinion that are opposed to the ideology of those in power are sought to be ruthlessly stifled. Political opponents are targeted and the full might of the state machinery is unleashed against them.”
In the article, she claimed that activists were being threatened and sought to be silenced while social media particularly was being used to “propagate what can only be described as lies and venom”.
“Fear, deception and intimidation have become the pillars of the so-called ‘maximum governance, minimum government’ strategy,” Gandhi said.
Sharing a screenshot of the article on Twitter, Rahul Gandhi said, “Every Indian is paying the price for the hate fuelled by BJP-RSS. India’s true culture is that of shared celebrations, community, and cohesive living. Let’s pledge to preserve this.”
Leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge shared a link to Sonia Gandhi’s article on the microblogging site and said, “The sense of hatred and animosity is prevalent in the nation, constantly fuelled by the ruling party BJP.”
(Courtesy: The Economic Times.)
