 "BJP will use anything to spread hatred: Sitaram Yechury")
Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), tells Aditi Phadnis that the edifice of the rule of law in India is being undermined by the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government.
There seems to be a hysteria about returning awards. What do you think is happening?
It is complete calumny by the (ruling) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that the return of awards is a political motive; that it is the Left which is engineering it - that it has lost space, it is hitting back, it is playing politics through other means - and that all those who have returned awards are motivated by elements, which are anti-BJP. My view? The BJP has lost it.
Those who have returned the awards are some of the best minds India has produced. We should only be thankful to the BJP for clubbing all these brilliant people with us. Equally ridiculous is the argument: 'why didn't they return awards during the Emergency? Or during 1984 (anti-Sikh riots)?' That's like saying, 'why weren't you born 10 years earlier'?
What do Nayantara Sahgal, Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas, Pushpa Bhargava and Ashok Vajpeyi have in common ? Some of those who have returned their awards are scientists who have, stretching the boundaries of knowledge, shaped India as we know it today. All of us, cutting across party boundaries in Parliament have hailed their contribution. What does the head of an institution dedicated to research in cellular and molecular biology have to do with eating beef? Or, a retired admiral of the Indian Navy? Or even Dibakar Banerjee, the director of Love Sex Aur Dhokha?
The only thing common to all of them is they are all Indians and inheritors of a civilisational ethos based on syncretism. All of them have different eating habits, they all probably pray to different gods and speak different languages. But they are all brilliant and the Indian state recognised this by awarding them at one point or the other. If people like them are returning awards, has the Modi-led government stopped for a moment to consider why? Instead, there is all this name-calling, political bracketing…
What they are protesting is the assault on the kind of society India has managed to create. As the Bihar Assembly elections unfold, the BJP continues to show it has no sense of remorse for this assault on India. India was envisaged as a secular democracy. In its place, the BJP wants to establish the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) ideological project of a rabidly intolerant, fascist Hindu Rashtra. Anything it can lay its hands on that will spread hatred between the illusory Hindu monolith and the 'enemy' external to it, the party will use: minorities, mainly Muslims; beef-eating; love jihad; the kind of clothes you can wear; the kind of things you can say…
When we were going for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, many supporters of Narendra Modi kept wanting to hear him say things that would have some meaning for them: that he would drive minorities out of India, that he would make Hindus proud by emasculating the minorities. But he said nothing like that. He only spoke of development. What do you think has happened?
That wasn't the real Modi. Development, achhe din, the Gujarat model of development… these were issues to mislead the people. It is the habit of the RSS and the BJP to speak with a forked tongue - one thing for public consumption; another that is their real agenda.
Why are intellectuals reacting? All they are asking is that all those who are threatening the fabric of Indian society and are saying things that could tear the country apart be dealt with under the law of the land.
Let me take you back to the first session of Parliament. After members of the government made one slight after another on people of other religions, we said, we wanted a statement from the PM that action would be taken against these people in accordance with Indian law. To date, neither in Parliament nor outside has the PM given any such assurance.
He is a congenital tweeter. In not one of his tweets has he said that there are laws and action would be taken against those who violate them. The faith of the Indian people that the government will uphold the law is being undermined every day.
Nor can the government get away by saying that the fringe elements are the ones using the communal appeal. It is not happening in the fringes; everybody is the core. The PM is seen as patronising elements, who are breaking the law. If the law does not ensure that such violators are punished and the BJP chief makes communal statements, what do you expect the people to say? The PM is too busy either travelling abroad or receiving foreign visitors.
In this atmosphere of a breakdown of consensus, what is the prospect of decision-making by consensus - both in Parliament and outside it?
Politics is shifting irreversibly and the paradigm of national discourse is being hijacked by the RSS and the BJP stuffing Hindutva into everything. Nobody is talking about child malnutrition. India has the largest number of hungry people in the world. You would expect the government to feel ashamed of such a statistic: Bangladesh and Nepal have better Human Development Indices (than India). Instead, all we're hearing is beef, marvels of plastic surgery that led to the creation of Ganesha, or how the Vedas were written 6,000 years before they actually were. (Pakistani artiste) Ghulam Ali is not allowed to sing his ghazals, the office of the Board of Control for Cricket in India is attacked simply because it was discussing a cricket match with a Pakistan team.
The winter session of Parliament is approaching. Does this acrimony spell the washout of yet another session?
I am apprehensive of the government's commitment to having a meaningful Parliament session. The Gujarat model is being implemented here: Gujarat has had the lowest number of days of Assembly sittings. Soon, we are likely to see that happen in Parliament. If Parliament doesn't meet, the government has no accountability -so it suits them, and they can rule through ordinances. This is what this is leading up to.
So no comfort on the Goods and Services Tax bill, or other bills such as the Bankruptcy Code?
Bills have been passed by the Lok Sabha - and seven such bills have been referred to the Select Committee in the Rajya Sabha.
The Land Acquisition amendment ordinance has been re-promulgated thrice and the ruling alliance stopped short of doing it the fourth time only because it was not sure how the Bihar peasantry would react to that.
As for the threat of a joint session, well, the Prevention of Terrorism Act was brought in through a joint session. It was withdrawn when the government changed. And everyone knows calling a joint session is not so simple.
On the Goods and Services Tax (GST), for six years, it was the BJP that stopped it - in Parliament and outside as well.
We have some issues with the GST: we feel that VAT (value added tax) and GST are assaults on the country's federal structure. Some states will suffer a revenue loss. How will they be compensated and for how long ? But still, the empowered group on the GST was headed by the finance minister of the West Bengal government.
You need to talk to everyone, set their apprehensions at rest. The approach should be: 'let us sit and iron it out'. But as far as I can remember, there hasn't been a single all-party meeting called by the government on anything. Meanwhile, India, a dal-roti country, is having to eat dal that costs Rs 200 a kg. It is a terrible joke on the people.
There seems to be a hysteria about returning awards. What do you think is happening?
It is complete calumny by the (ruling) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that the return of awards is a political motive; that it is the Left which is engineering it - that it has lost space, it is hitting back, it is playing politics through other means - and that all those who have returned awards are motivated by elements, which are anti-BJP. My view? The BJP has lost it.
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What do Nayantara Sahgal, Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas, Pushpa Bhargava and Ashok Vajpeyi have in common ? Some of those who have returned their awards are scientists who have, stretching the boundaries of knowledge, shaped India as we know it today. All of us, cutting across party boundaries in Parliament have hailed their contribution. What does the head of an institution dedicated to research in cellular and molecular biology have to do with eating beef? Or, a retired admiral of the Indian Navy? Or even Dibakar Banerjee, the director of Love Sex Aur Dhokha?
The only thing common to all of them is they are all Indians and inheritors of a civilisational ethos based on syncretism. All of them have different eating habits, they all probably pray to different gods and speak different languages. But they are all brilliant and the Indian state recognised this by awarding them at one point or the other. If people like them are returning awards, has the Modi-led government stopped for a moment to consider why? Instead, there is all this name-calling, political bracketing…
What they are protesting is the assault on the kind of society India has managed to create. As the Bihar Assembly elections unfold, the BJP continues to show it has no sense of remorse for this assault on India. India was envisaged as a secular democracy. In its place, the BJP wants to establish the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) ideological project of a rabidly intolerant, fascist Hindu Rashtra. Anything it can lay its hands on that will spread hatred between the illusory Hindu monolith and the 'enemy' external to it, the party will use: minorities, mainly Muslims; beef-eating; love jihad; the kind of clothes you can wear; the kind of things you can say…
When we were going for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, many supporters of Narendra Modi kept wanting to hear him say things that would have some meaning for them: that he would drive minorities out of India, that he would make Hindus proud by emasculating the minorities. But he said nothing like that. He only spoke of development. What do you think has happened?
That wasn't the real Modi. Development, achhe din, the Gujarat model of development… these were issues to mislead the people. It is the habit of the RSS and the BJP to speak with a forked tongue - one thing for public consumption; another that is their real agenda.
Why are intellectuals reacting? All they are asking is that all those who are threatening the fabric of Indian society and are saying things that could tear the country apart be dealt with under the law of the land.
Let me take you back to the first session of Parliament. After members of the government made one slight after another on people of other religions, we said, we wanted a statement from the PM that action would be taken against these people in accordance with Indian law. To date, neither in Parliament nor outside has the PM given any such assurance.
He is a congenital tweeter. In not one of his tweets has he said that there are laws and action would be taken against those who violate them. The faith of the Indian people that the government will uphold the law is being undermined every day.
Nor can the government get away by saying that the fringe elements are the ones using the communal appeal. It is not happening in the fringes; everybody is the core. The PM is seen as patronising elements, who are breaking the law. If the law does not ensure that such violators are punished and the BJP chief makes communal statements, what do you expect the people to say? The PM is too busy either travelling abroad or receiving foreign visitors.
In this atmosphere of a breakdown of consensus, what is the prospect of decision-making by consensus - both in Parliament and outside it?
Politics is shifting irreversibly and the paradigm of national discourse is being hijacked by the RSS and the BJP stuffing Hindutva into everything. Nobody is talking about child malnutrition. India has the largest number of hungry people in the world. You would expect the government to feel ashamed of such a statistic: Bangladesh and Nepal have better Human Development Indices (than India). Instead, all we're hearing is beef, marvels of plastic surgery that led to the creation of Ganesha, or how the Vedas were written 6,000 years before they actually were. (Pakistani artiste) Ghulam Ali is not allowed to sing his ghazals, the office of the Board of Control for Cricket in India is attacked simply because it was discussing a cricket match with a Pakistan team.
The winter session of Parliament is approaching. Does this acrimony spell the washout of yet another session?
I am apprehensive of the government's commitment to having a meaningful Parliament session. The Gujarat model is being implemented here: Gujarat has had the lowest number of days of Assembly sittings. Soon, we are likely to see that happen in Parliament. If Parliament doesn't meet, the government has no accountability -so it suits them, and they can rule through ordinances. This is what this is leading up to.
So no comfort on the Goods and Services Tax bill, or other bills such as the Bankruptcy Code?
Bills have been passed by the Lok Sabha - and seven such bills have been referred to the Select Committee in the Rajya Sabha.
The Land Acquisition amendment ordinance has been re-promulgated thrice and the ruling alliance stopped short of doing it the fourth time only because it was not sure how the Bihar peasantry would react to that.
As for the threat of a joint session, well, the Prevention of Terrorism Act was brought in through a joint session. It was withdrawn when the government changed. And everyone knows calling a joint session is not so simple.
On the Goods and Services Tax (GST), for six years, it was the BJP that stopped it - in Parliament and outside as well.
We have some issues with the GST: we feel that VAT (value added tax) and GST are assaults on the country's federal structure. Some states will suffer a revenue loss. How will they be compensated and for how long ? But still, the empowered group on the GST was headed by the finance minister of the West Bengal government.
You need to talk to everyone, set their apprehensions at rest. The approach should be: 'let us sit and iron it out'. But as far as I can remember, there hasn't been a single all-party meeting called by the government on anything. Meanwhile, India, a dal-roti country, is having to eat dal that costs Rs 200 a kg. It is a terrible joke on the people.