Date:07/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/07/stories/2007120759461700.htm

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Don’t equate Left with communal forces: Karat

Staff Reporter

Prakash Karat

Kolkata: Intellectuals who have compared the recent troubles in Nandigram in West Bengal to Gujarat under Narendra Modi do not understand the meaning of fascism, Prakash Karat, general secretary, CPI(M), said here on Thursday.

“There have been nefarious attempts to equate the Left and the CPI(M) with communal fascists … a group of intellectuals have said that what is happening in West Bengal under Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is the same as Gujarat under Narendra Modi,” Mr. Karat said.

“They do not understand the elementary meaning of fascism….those doing so are enemies of the country and society.”

He said that the ‘face of fascism’ was visible in Gujarat between 1992 and 2002 when ‘communal mobilisation led to helpless people being targeted and massacred only for the selfish pursuit of power.’

The CPI(M) general secretary was speaking at a discussion organised by the Sports and Youth Welfare department of the State government, on the relevance of December 6, the day the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya 15 years ago.

“We should not allow any political party to use religion for political mobilisation or use religious issues to intrude into the secular space of the country,” Mr. Karat said.

Warning against underestimating the latent danger of communal politics, he said that it was necessary to keep in mind December 6, as the forces of ‘communal fascism’ which had once reaped electoral benefits will not only make a bid for power but also try to establish what they call a ‘Hindu rashtra.’

Accusing the Congress government at the Centre of ‘inaction’ when the Babri Masjid was demolished, Mr. Karat said that while the ‘culpability’ for the incident lay primarily with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindutva forces, the Narasimha Rao government was “also culpable and complicit in letting this dark, dastardly thing happen.”

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee warned against the RSS, which never supported the Indian independence movement and has no belief in either the Constitution or a democratic government.