People's Democracy

        Advani Must Apologise To The Nation: V P Singh

FORMER prime minister V P Singh has demanded that the deputy prime minister and BJP leader L K Advani must tender an apology to the nation for stoking and orchestrating the killings of thousands of innocents on the Ayodhya issue. "What Advani and the BJP are saying now – the issue can be resolved either through courts or through negotiation – had been the counsel of everyone, including myself as prime minister for the last 15 years. But Advani & Co were adamant that the issue pertained to Hindus sentiments and indulged in mayhem and killings. They should apologise to the nation now", said V P Singh.

He was speaking at the "Defeat BJP convention", organised by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) at JNU City Centre in New Delhi on on April 18. A gathering of primarily youth and students - with an intermingling of teachers and social activists attended this convention. Others who addressed the convention were CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury, CPI national secretary, D Raja, eminent economist, Professor Prabhat Patnaik, eminent Hindi writer Professor Namvar Singh, film personality, Muzaffar Ali and JNUSU president Rohit addressed the gathering while Professor C P Bhambri chaired the meeting.

V P Singh in his address said that the biggest challenge facing us in these elections if safeguarding the nation’s unity by defeating the BJP. He felt the nation cannot survive if the communal poison being spread by the BJP is not stopped forthwith. "BJP it does not only indulge in just double talk but it is also a multi faced, multi- tounged creature out to break the nation. They are the true heirs to Jinnahs in the sense they equally championed the two-nation theory", said V P Singh. He said the BJP was using the NDA as a mukhota to garner more support to itself. He questioned how Narendra Modi could continue as chief minister after the damning indictment of the highest judiciary, Supreme Court’s verdict.

Ridiculing the "Shining India" campaign, V P Singh said India was shining only for the top corporate rich. He explained with figures how this campaign is based on lies.

Sitaram Yechury in his address said it is all the more incumbent upon the youth of our country to save the nation from these communal forces in order to change it for the better. He explained how the BJP-led central government effected a directional shift in policies, particularly undermining the secular, democratic character of our republic. The systematic subversion of important constitutional institutions like NHRC, National Commission for Minorities etc, the posting of hardcore RSS activists as governors, the changes in syllabi etc for were cited as examples. Another shift effected was in the economic policies, which went far ahead than what Congress had done. In the name of liberalisation and privatisation, they were selling precious national assets and mortgaging the country. And then they were passing the burden of all these onto the people, said Yechury. The third area where there was a directional shift related to the country’s foreign policy. The Vajpayee government had made our nation more vulnerable to US imperialism by its pursuit of replacing Pakistan as the US surrogate in Asia.

Saying that the BJP is nothing but a political arm of the RSS whose main agenda is transforming the country’s secular democratic republican character into a fascistic Hindu Rashtra, Yechury called for foiling this agenda in the coming elections. He saw