People's Democracy

  DTF STATEMENT

Meena Gupta, president and Surajit Mazumdar, secretary of the Delhi Teachers Front (DTF) issued the following press release on May 11, 2005.

THE DTF condemns the concerted attack on Zahoor Siddiqui, senior teacher in the Campus of Open Learning and former president of the DUTA, by various organs of the RSS including Panchjanya, through a legal notice and defamatory pronouncements in the press and electronic media. The RSS has targeted three of Zahoor Siddiqui’s history lessons written for 2nd year B A Pass students on Communalism (Sampradayikta), Left Movement (Vampanthy Andolan), Independence and Constitution of 1950 (Swadhinta ki Prapti aur 1950 ka Samvidhan).

It is not for the first time that the lessons have been attacked. Similar attempts were made in 1979, 1983 and now again in 2005. These attacks are consistent with the well known coercive political attempts of the RSS to impose its own version of history upon the nation. It is to be noted that the writing of history has been a subject of ideological controversy. The DTF has always welcomed a scholarly debate on issues and believes that such controversies are best conducted in a civilised and scholarly ambience.  However the RSS has never accepted the position that differences of approach to established facts are an integral part of democracy. It is regrettable that instead of engaging in a seasoned debate, the RSS always takes resort to threats and legal actions. Academic and intellectual questions cannot be resolved in a court of law. The DTF throws an open challenge to the RSS to sit with us in a properly conducted interaction or respond to written presentations through substantiated counter presentations.

The RSS has the cheek to accuse Zahoor Siddiqui, who is well-known for his exceptional secular credentials, of having a fanatic mind-set. And this at a time when the RSS is cosying up to the Jamat-i-Islami, both here and in Pakistan, in order to derail the salutary attempts of both peoples and governments to bring peace to the subcontinent.