A group of noted academics, artists and concerned citizens have issued an appeal, in the context of Elections 2014, to defend India’s secular democracy.
The statement, the lead signatories to which are Zoya Hasan, Rooprekha Verma, Sashi Kumar, Vivan Sundaram, Achin Vanaik, Jayati Ghosh and Prabhat Patnaik, said:
“Never before in post-independence India have political forces, which are a front for an organisation committed to creating a Hindu Rashtra, made as strong a bid for power as in the coming elections. These forces are led by a person who presided over a pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and has never expressed any contrition over his role in that ghastly incident. And they enjoy the backing of the most powerful corporate houses in the country. The prospect of this alliance of corporate capital and communal forces coming to power constitutes a palpable threat to the future of our secular democracy.
“We urge all responsible individuals and political formations to ponder over the situation and urgently take whatever steps are necessary for defending our secular democracy. We appeal to the electorate to foil this corporate-communal alliance’s bid for power by voting against the BJP-led NDA.”
Rooprekha Verma
Sashi Kumar
Vivan Sundaram
Achin Vanaik
Jayati Ghosh
Prabhat Patnaik
Kumar Shahani
Nirmalangshu Mukherjee
Abhilasha Kumari
Githa Hariharan
Ajeet Caur
Anand Sahay
Doodh Nath
Singh Arpana Caur
Amit Sen Gupta
Maya Rao
Amiya Kumar Bagchi
Akeel Bilgrami
Irfan Habib
M.K. Raina
Amit Upadhyay
Ram Rahman
Saeed Mirza
C.P. Chandrasekhar
Shakti Kak
Anil Sadgopal
Janaki Nair
Suvira Jaiswal
S. Kalidas
M.M.P. Singh
Vishwamohan Jha
Neeladri Bhattacharya
Madangopal Singh
Aban Raza
Abdul Maboob
Lima Kanungo
Ali N. Rizavi
Amar Farooqui
Amar Kanwar
Amarjit Chandan
Jehangir Jani
Aijaz Ahmad
Angelie Multani
Aniket Alam
Anil Bhatti
Anita Cherian
Apoorva Gautam
Archana Prasad
Arjun Dev
Arunkumar
H.G. Asad Zaidi
Ashish Dasgupta
Ashish Ghosh
Ashley Tellis
Ataullah
Atlury Murali
Atul Bhardwaj
Ayesha Kidwai
B.P. Sahu
Badri Raina
Banwari Taneja
Biswamoy Pati
D.N.Jha
Deepak K. Singh
G. Arunima
Praveen Jha
Geeta Kapur
Girish Mishra
Girish Shrivastav
Gitanjali Shree
Gunjan Doogar
Harbans Mukhia
Harun Riaz
Imrana Qadeer
Indira Arjun Dev
Indira Unninayar
Ishrat Alam
Indira Chandrasekhar
Iqtidar Alam Khan
Jasodhra Bagchi
Jauhar Kanungo
Javed Malick
Jawaharlal Pande
Jawarimal Parakh
Joe Athialy
K.M. Shrimali
Kanti Mohan Soz
Kesavan Veluthat
Keval Arora
Lata Singh
Madhu Prasad
Madhu Trivedi
Madhusree Dutta
Manas Ray
Mandira Sen
Malini Bhattacharya
Mandira Sen
Manjari Katju
Anand Bala
Mazher Hussain
N.K. Sharma
Mihir Bhattacharya
Mohan Rao
Mohd Arif
Moloyashree Hashmi
Mushirul Hasan
Nalini Taneja
Navjot Altaf
Neena Rao
Neera Chandhok
Wasi Haider
Neeraj Malik
Nilima Sheikh
Oishik Sirkar
Pamela Philipose
Parthiv Shah
Prabhat Shukla
Pushpamala
N R. Ramachandran
R.C. Thakran
Rahul Verma
Rajinder Arora
Rajiv Gupta
Rajni Arora
Rakhshanda Jalil
Ramesh Rawat
Rashmi Sawhney
Rebecca Kurian
Reena Ginwala
Rekha Awasthi
Ritu Jerath
S. Anand
Shabnam Hashmi
S.Z.H. Jafri
Saba Hasan
Selvyn Jussy
Seshnarayan Singh
Shamshad
Sherna Dastur
Shibani Kinkar Chaube
Shikha Sen
Shilpaa Anand
Shireen Moosvi
Shivaji Panikkar
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay
Smita Gupta
Sohail Hashmi
Srinivasan Ramani
Sruti Bala
Sudhanva Deshpande
Sudhir Chandra
Sudhir Gandotra
Sukumar Muralidharan
Sumitra Purkayastha
Sunil
Suresh Jayaram
Ujjawal Gupta
Zoya Hasan
Utsa Patnaik
V. Ramakrishna
Venkatesh Athreya
Vidya Arora
Vivek Monteiro
Xavier Dias
Yogesh Snehi
Veenapani Chawla
Rani Ray
Ramnik Mohan
Mallika Taneja
Debjani Sengupta
Radhika Prasad
Manish Kansara
Sumant Sengupta
Meghna Joshi
Mukul Priyadarshini
Shanta Gokhle
Ira Anjali
Urmimala Sarkar
Kajri Jain
Anomita Sen
Neha Chaturvedi
K.P.Jayashankar
Jaideep Chatterjee
Annie Koshi
Mahavir Sharma
Dvijendra Nath Kalia
Lakshmi Krishnamurty
Rimli Bhattachrya
Gargi Chakravarti
Saskia Sassen
Chitra Joshi
Supriya Verma
Kamla Menon
Yousuf Saeed
Shiba Chhachhi
Malathi A
Soumya Dutta
Urmimala Sarkar
Sumangala Damodaran
Saumyajit Bhattacharya
Jaishankar Monteiro
Rabin Chakraborty
Shubhradeep Chakravorty
Madhu Sahni
Published - April 05, 2014 09:16 pm IST
