The Narendra Modi government refuses to act against those indulging in hate politics because it patronises them, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury has said.
"That this government patronises such divisive politics becomes evident with the government refusing to act against the perpetrators," he said in an article in "People's Democracy", the party's official mouthpiece.
Yechury said that since he became the prime minister in May last year, Modi had faced demands in parliament that action should be taken against his ministers and BJP MPs indulging in hate speeches.
"Modi was asked to at least give an assurance on this score. Till date, forget action, there is no such assurance.
"What else can this mean other than the erasing of the distinction between the government that is entrusted to uphold and act according to the law of the land, and the 'mob'," the CPI-M leader said.
Yechury accused senior ministers in Modi's cabinet of showing "utter contempt at the growing protests of a cross section of enlightened Indian minds.
"The protests against this growing intolerance that began with eminent Sahitya Academy awardees returning their recognition has now snowballed to include litterateurs, poets, cinema personalities, historians, scientists and others."
Yechury said the distinction between the so-called "core" and the "fringe" in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was spurious.
"It is the very ideology of the RSS which breeds the venom of intolerance in pursuit of their ideological project of seeking to convert the secular democratic Indian Republic into their version of a rabidly intolerant fascistic 'Hindu Rashtra'."
