Secularism cannot be protected unless there is a strict separation of religion from politics and government, said CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday. Yechury was speaking while inaugurating the state-wide celebrations of the CPI(M) marking the 100th year of the founding of the Communist Party in India, through video conference.
Yechury said forces like the RSS want to "take India into the darkness of the past" by changing the country's history, culture, education policy “to give a monolithic Hindu identity to India” instead of its syncretic cultural identity.
October 17 of this year is a historic day for the Communist party as it marks the hundred years of the formation of the first unit of the Communist Party of India in Tashkent in the then Soviet Union.
"Secularism means the separation of religion from politics and from the state. Every individual has the right to choose his own faith and it will be the duty of the state, law to protect that right which is inviolable and the Communists will always stand up to protect it," Yechury said.
He said that the state or the government does not have any religion and all the rights of individuals to their religion, or faith of their choice to their religious practices, need to be protected.
"However, secularism in our Constitution was interpreted as equality of all religions. The moment you say equality of all religions, it's only natural that the religion to which the majority of the population subscribe to, has a greater advantage over the others. And that has inherent dangers, which is what we are witnessing today. And unless there is a strict separation of religion from politics and government, secularism cannot be protected, defended or put into operation in a proper sense," the CPI(M) General Secretary said.
He said the entire logic of saying "my God is better than your God" is the basis for communal polarisation and communal conflicts.
"Today we have forces like the RSS, whose political wing is the BJP, who want to take India into darkness and backwardness of the past. Lack of scientific temper, rewriting Indian history, changing India's education policy, changing India's cultural policy in the cultural institutions, all to give a monolithic Hindu identity to India instead of the syncretic identity with which all of us grew up," Yechury said.
He appealed to the people to join in the "battle to stop India from going into the darkness of its past" and to take India To the brightness of the future by ending exploitation and moving towards socialism.
Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in a Facebook post, said that the Communist parties are the "voice of democracy and civil rights" which are being suppressed by "fascist forces."