"I won't say the RSS or BJP are actual fascists but it is for a fact that they have never concealed their admiration of fascist forces. They want to ape Adolf Hitler and this aspiration of theirs is reflected everywhere including in our educational institutions.
Noted author Irfan Habib and social activist Teesta Setalvad launched a scathing assault on the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on the occasion of Teachers' Day stating that they had 'initiated a campaign to destroy educational institutions in the country'.
While raising the issue of recent killings of rationalist authors in Maharashtra and Karnataka, the two also said that it is in fact the RSS that governs India and not the BJP. The two also criticised the decision of renaming Aurangzeb road to APJ Abdul Kalam road and accused the Union government of communalising the environment.
"I won't say the RSS or BJP are actual fascists but it is for a fact that they have never concealed their admiration of fascist forces. They want to ape Adolf Hitler and this aspiration of theirs is reflected everywhere including in our educational institutions.
"Go to the textbooks during the time of previous NDA regimes where names like Nehru and Gandhi do not feature in the Independence movement at all. Instead there will be a lot to read about Savarkar and other RSS figures who had no worthwhile contribution towards the national struggle. RSS's ire was not directed at their rulers but at their fellow subjects including Muslims whom they wanted to cleanse from Delhi," said Irfan Habib.
The author also said that renaming roads and places is a 'longtime ambition of the Indian right wing'. "An aspiring legislator wanted to rename his constituency from Lucknow to Lakshmanpuri. Similarly Allahabad is supposed to be named Prayad and so on. These are the things that Nazis would do," said Habib.
Teesta, who has been at loggerheads with Prime Minister Modi ever since the Godhra riots, told dna that there was not enough of 'resistance to the march of right wing forces into educational institutions of India'. "Back in 1999, we had reported about state educational policies in Gujarat and how the text books were being saffronised. This had been going on since 1989 and as of 2015 supplementary texts by right wing Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti are being taught in 400,000 government schools," Teesta said. She along with Habib, advocate Anil Lauria and academician Prabhat Patnaik spoke at a conference in New Delhi on Saturday.
Teesta also accused right wing groups for the murder of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare in Maharashtra and M M Kalburgi in Karnataka. "On one hand you have murders of authors, educationalists and rationalists and on other hand you have appointments in FTII and other institutions. If these are not signs of growing intolerance towards rational thought then what is," said Teesta. Patnaik said that the RSS wants to replace history with mythology.
Lauria said the NRI's who had supported the BJP in the 2014 general elections should also be held accountable for the choices they have made. "A person living in the United Kindgom or USA decides if people in India need a nuclear weapon without thinking of the repercussions of such activities. It is not fair and all this happened under the watch of the election commission," said Lauria. He added that killings of rationalists is not new but 'such assassinations in Karnataka and Maharashtra are a worrying sign'. All the panelists criticised the state police of not investigating the murders properly while taking pride in uncovering other crimes.
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