Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday assailed the RSS, the BJP’s ideological mentor, for seeking to “racially purify Hindustan” by introducing prejudicial laws aimed at incrementally ridding the country of religious, ethnic and linguistic minorities or reducing such groups to subaltern status.
Speaking in the Assembly on the resolution seeking scrapping of the Centre’s amended citizenship law, Mr. Vijayan said the RSS considered Muslims a hindrance to its bid to reshape India into a Hindu majoritarian State, wherein religion and caste of persons determined their social status, line of work and chances of social mobility.
The RSS attempted to portray liberal and secular voices opposed to the criminalisation of Muslim divorce law and the CAA as fifth columnists, agents of forces inimical to the country, he said.
Congress member V.D. Satheesan said laws analogous to the Citizenship Amendment Act that set religion and race as the criteria for granting citizenship had triggered the Holocaust in Europe and more recently the state-sponsored liquidation of the Rohingya Muslim community in neighbouring Myanmar.
Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said the very idea of India was under threat. The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh had threatened to take revenge against anti-CAA protesters.
