Referring to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's 'secularism' remarks in Parliament on Thursday, Ramesh said "India is defined by secularism. If India is not secular, it becomes a mirror image of Pakistan".
Speaking at a seminar on 'Growing intolerance and threat to secularism' here, the Congress leader noted, "Secularism is part of our constitution. The day, we drop the word 'secularism', I think we will be destroying the very foundation of Indian republic."
"Leaders will come and speak the language of development. I do not have to name those leaders. You all know whom I am referring to. They speak of development, but bottom line is practise of communal polarisation. So it is this mask of development that pose a threat", he said.
Taking a dig at BJP for its drubbing at Bihar assembly polls, Ramesh said, "People of Bihar saw the threat. Bihar showed that they could see through the mask of development."
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The Congress leader asserted that all types of communalism had to be fought, whether it was majority or minority.
"I do no distinguish between Hindu communalism, Muslim communalism, Christian communalism and Sikh communalism. Communalism is dangerous and pose a threat to the country," he said, adding a political party that misuse religion for political purposes is a communal party.
"Unity yes...Uniformity no. Because India is a country defined by several religions, 500 languages, numerous regions, 29 states, 5,000 communities. India is not just unity in diversity, but unity through diversity", he said.
"What communal ideologies want is uniformity and that is not what India needs", he added.