'Constitution Day' organised to attack India's secular foundations: Sitaram Yechury

BJP-led government has let the cat out of the bag.

After hearing the home minister in the Lok Sabha, it became clear why the BJP has organised this day as the so-called "first" Constitution Day, 65 years later.

It has been done to attack the secular democratic foundations of the Indian republic and to try and appropriate the Ambedkarite legacy with their false portrayal.

By questioning "dharm-nirpekshta" and asking why it should not be "panth nirpekshta", it is clear that the BJP wants to simply attack settled principles of Indian secular democracy and turn it into a Hindu Rashtra idea of the RSS. An idea that the Indian freedom struggle rejected resoundingly. An idea that continues to be rejected today.

The purpose of trying to celebrate this day instead of keeping the focus on Republic Day, which is when the Constitution was enacted, is to do exactly what the home minister through his provocative speech has done. Push the RSS' objectives, waste national energies in raising old, defeated and divisive ideas and attack the secular democratic foundations of modern India.

They won't succeed in this. To distract from real issues of price rise, unemployment and agrarian distress. Whatever polarisation they seek to spread through pretending to celebrate the Constitution, they are in reality attacking it.

[This post first appeared in Sitaram Yechury's Facebook page.]