Dharna to demand for punishing the guilty of December 6 and for an end to state organized communal violence and terror

Dharna to demand for punishing the guilty of December 6 and for an end to state organized communal violence and terror

Venue: Jantar Mantar, 11 am-1 pm

December 6, 2013

To mark 21 years since the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Lok Raj Sangathan, together with nearly various organisations held a protest dharna on 6 December 2013 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. The organisers and participants included the Communist Ghadar Party of India, Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), Lok Raj Sangathan, Association for Protection of Civil Rights, Purogami Mahila Sangathan, Hind Naujawan Ekta Sabha and the Mazdoor Ekta Committee, Jamat Islam-e-hind, People's Front of India, AIUTUC..

The site of the dharna was decorated with banners that carried the following slogans –“Unite to demand that the guilty are punished!”, “Carry forward the struggle for the empowerment of the people and for deep going reforms for the renewal of India!”, “Communalism and secularism are two aspects of the policy of the rulers!”, “Both Congress Party and the BJP are responsible for the destruction of the Babri Masjid, a historic monument!”, “An attack on one is an attack on all!”, “The Indian State is communal and not the Indian people!”, “Those responsible for the communal massacres in 1984, 1992-93, 2002, Odisha, Assam and UP, should be severely punished!”, “Down with state organised terrorism!”, “Unite against state organised communal violence”, “Communal violence is the favorite weapon of the state to divide the people”, etc.

Representatives of various organisations put forward their views.

Addressing the meeting, the spokesmen of CGPI Com Prakash Rao said that the destruction of the Babri Masjid showed once again, that organizing communal violence and terror remains the preferred weapon of our rulers, to divide the toiling people and divert them from the real issues facing them. In November 1984, the assassination of Indira Gandhi was used by the Congress party and government to unleash genocide against people of the Sikh community.  Similarly, in 2002, people of the Muslim community were the target of brutal communal violence organised by the BJP government in Gujarat.  Targeted communal violence and massacres have been organized time and again, against the Christian community in Orissa and other communities as well, the latest being the bloody communal violence organized last month in Muzaffarnagar, UP.

Events over the last 6 decades and more confirm time and again that the Indian state is communal to the core, as are all the political parties representing the interests of the ruling bourgeois class. Spokespersons of the Indian state continue to divide the polity between "secular" and "communal" and confuse people about the real source of communalism and communal violence.

President  of Lok Raj Sangathan, S. Raghavan pointed out that the demolition of the Babri Masjid exposed to our people their complete powerlessness under the existing political system. People were outraged that the two biggest parties in Parliament can get away with any heinous crime to expand their vote banks and to divert and divide the people and we have no power to prevent this. The police and state authorities fully facilitate these crimes against the innocent people while the guilty, those who masterminded these crimes not only go unpunished but are even rewarded with promotions or even ministerial posts. This realisation among large numbers of people gave a huge impetus to the movement for people’s empowerment. Our organisation was founded as part of this movement, as the Committee for People’s Empowerment, following the historic rally at Ferozeshah Kotla in February 1993. We issued a call to all men and women of conscience, in which it was highlighted that as long as the present political process continues, our people will be subjected to more calamities like the events of December 1992.  The challenge before all people of conscience is to ensure that people should have political power in their hands, to set the agenda of society in the interests of the vast majority and deal the harshest punishment to all those who inflict such crimes on our people.

Leader of Mazdoor Ekta Committee, Santosh Kumar spoke of how in the last 20 years, the political representatives of those in power have been increasingly resorting to the politics of communal violence and terror in order to achieve their political aims.  What the last 20 years have confirmed is that the state and its organs – including the legal and judicial systems, the various commissions of inquiry, and so on – cannot be relied on to get justice for the victims of communal violence.  The Indian state uses communalism and secularism to split and divert the people.  The aim is to prevent the people from understanding the real source of their exploitation and oppression under this system and from coming together to fight it.

Others who addressed the meeting included speakers from the Pratap Samal of Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), Sucharita of Purogami Mahila Sangathan, Inam Ur Rehman of Jamat Islam e ehind, Lokesh Kumar of Hind Naujawan Ekta Sabha, Jasim Mohammad of Central Univercities Research Scholar Association, Syed Akhlaq Ahmad of Association for Protection of Civil Rights and others. Participants in the dharna raised slogans against state organised communal violence and terror and expressed their resolve to carry forward  the movement to punish the guilty.

 

Lok Raj Sangathan, E-392, Sanjay Colony,Okhla Phase II,New Delhi 110020
Mob: 098185-75435
http://www.lokraj.org.in/