Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has flayed the Narendra Modi government for India abstaining from voting against Israel at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday.
Delivering the Chintha Ravi Memorial Lecture, “Reclaiming secular democracy: The need for a new agenda,” organised by the Chintha Ravi Foundation here on Saturday, Mr. Yechury said India had for the first time made a shift from its foreign policy on the issue of Palestine. This was the preparation being done for the visit of the Prime Minister to Israel in November. It is for the first time the Indian Prime Minister is visiting Israel. Abstaining from vote meant virtually voting against the Palestine. The profits made by Israel by selling weapons to India are used to attack Palestine, he said.
(The UN resolution had welcomed the UN Human Rights Council report which found evidence of alleged war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas during the Gaza conflict in 2014 and called for accountability of Israeli officials. Forty-one countries voted in favour of the resolution against Israel while the U.S. voted against it. India was one of the five countries that abstained).
Incidentally, India had become the largest buyer of weapons from Israel and thereby stooping to imperialistic forces, Mr. Yechury said.
Speaking on the memorial topic, the CPI (M) leader exhorted the people to join the ongoing battle between reason, represented by secular democratic forces, and unreason, represented by Hindutva forces. This battle cannot be won by political alliances. It was a much larger battle.
“It is such philosophical irrationalism that permeates all aspects of India’s socio-politico cultural life under this RSS-BJP government today. This is simply put – unreason,” he said.
“ It is the reason today to seek the realisation of the idea of India by working for an economic agenda that seeks inclusion. It is unreason to implement neoliberal economic reforms under collaboration with international finance capital that seeks to subjugate the Indian economy to its predatory profit maximization,” he said.
He said the idea of India was evolving and that evolution was sought to be reversed by those who had not taken part in the freedom struggle. And the RSS wanted to establish its unfinished agenda to make India a Hindu Rashtra. He accused the NDA-led BJP government of attempting to replace history by Hindu mythology and philosophy by Hindu theology. It interfered in the education system and institutions such as ICHR and FTII, Mr. Yechury added.
On the occasion, he also released a book, “The new world disorder,” authored by Tariq Ali by handing a copy to Ravi’s wife, Chandrika.
Chintha Ravi Foundation chairman Sashi Kumar spoke about the threats of systematically destroying the secular fabric of society. Zachira, Sunil P. Elayidom, Hameed Chennamangaloor and Chelavoor Venu spoke.
