Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Subhashini Ali has said that the assumption of religious identity by large sections of the majority community strikes at the very root of citizenship and the country’s Constitution that guarantees rights to all people.
She was delivering a speech on ‘Democracy and gender equality’ while inaugurating a seminar titled ‘EMS’ world’ organised by the District Library Council and EMS Chair of the District Library here on Saturday.
Ms. Ali said that democracy was facing a new danger of religious identity being constructed for the majority community. While for women belonging to the upper castes this identity seemed to guarantee their status and hierarchy, many of those in the lower rungs of the caste hierarchy too were adopting this identity because of their attachment to beliefs and rituals associated with the religion under the name of which this identity was being created, she noted.
“Women embracing this construction of religious identity are completely unaware of the fact that such an identity threatens their rights as women and their struggles against gender injustice and violence,” she said.
Unjust way
She observed that cases of rape and violence against Dalit women had always been treated in an unjust way by the administration, courts and the press.
Ms. Ali said that people were feeling that this ‘umbrella identity’ being created across castes would bring to an end caste discrimination and were also conscious of the fact that this strength would be used to suppress and control the minorities. The process of stoking feelings of fear, repugnance and hatred had been accelerated in a planned manner by the forces working behind the construction of this religious identity. This construction of a religious identity for the majority community was essential for establishment of the Hindu Rashtra, she pointed out.
