The Hindu : Sangh outfits exploiting fight against terrorism: CPI (M)

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 14, 2003

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Sangh outfits exploiting fight against terrorism: CPI (M)

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI FEB. 13. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today alleged that in its anxiety to "use terrorism for its political benefit," the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-led Bharatiya Janata Party and its other outfits were adopting a ``selective attitude in dealing with the menace.''

The CPI (M) had lost many workers at the hands of terrorists in Punjab, Assam and the northeast, "and no one, least of all the RSS-led BJP and its other tentacles, has any moral authority to issue certificates of patriotism in this fight against terrorism.''

These outfits were utilising the struggle against Islamic terrorism as a "means of whipping up passions against the Islamic community as a whole, which, in turn, assists them in consolidating their Hindu vote bank,'' the CPI (M) politburo member, Sitaram Yechury, said in an article in the latest edition of the party organ, People's Democracy. The fight against terrorism was sought to be exploited by these outfits for their electoral and political gains. And this "diabolic agenda" weakened the united struggle of the Indian people against all kinds of terrorism.

"Communal riots are also expressions of terrorism. Imposing terror by whipping up communal passions, resulting in violence and mayhem of unprecedented dimensions, like the country witnessed in Gujarat early last year, is a case of state-sponsored terrorism. The RSS/BJP and all its affiliates were party to this.''

On the international conference on terrorism organised recently by the youth wing of the BJP, Mr. Yechury said the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, chose the occasion to declare that fighting the terrorist menace often meant taking steps, which might infringe and curtail civil liberties. Apart from justifying POTA, Mr. Vajpayee was warning that the fight against terrorism could sanction and justify the infringement of democratic rights. "This authoritarian admission signals serious dangers for the future of Indian democracy.''

The CPI (M) leader agreed with the Prime Minister's assertion that equating terrorism with freedom struggle was ``dubious logic.'' By the same logic, terrorism could not be equated with nationalism.

"Passions whipped up over the issue of building a temple in Ayodhya resulted earlier in the demolition of the Babri Masjid... such passions continue to be roused even today... The demand of the Hindutva zealots is equated with the nation as a whole.

In other words, Hindus, and Hindus alone, are nationalists while all others belonging to different religious affiliations are not. Unless, of course, they support the Hindutva cause?''

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