BJP President Amit Shah has openly endorsed and instigated violence against the Kerala State Government if it continues to implement the Supreme Court verdict lifting the ban on the entry of women into the Sabarimala shrine.
Shah said the Court should not pass orders which cannot be implemented, and warned that BJP cadres would ‘uproot’ the CPIM-led Government in Kerala if it arrested those fomenting violence to prevent women’s entry into Sabarimala.
Shah’s remarks make it clear that it is the BJP and RSS which are responsible for the violent stone pelting and attacks on women devotees attempting to enter Sabarimala, and even on women journalists covering the issue. The RSS and BJP are desperately stoking the violence over Sabarimala, hoping thereby to expand their support in Kerala. They are attacking the Kerala Government for doing its job by implementing the Supreme Court verdict and order.
The BJP’s violent defiance of the Supreme Court and the Constitution is also clear in its position on the ongoing Ayodhya case in the Supreme Court. Following the adjournment of the Ayodhya hearing, many BJP leaders have reiterated what the RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat recently said - which is that the Modi Government must subvert the Court process and pass an ordinance for a Ram Temple at the spot where the Babri Masjid was demolished. An RSS leader Sadhvi Prachi has been even more explicit - she has said that the Babri Masjid was demolished in defiance of Supreme Court orders, and likewise a Ram Temple will be constructed whether the Court likes it or not!
Such political statements by the BJP and RSS are not an expression of “Hindu religious sentiment” - they are an attempt to use religion as a pretext for fascist violence. We may remember here that the Muslim religious leadership and the community, for instance, has displayed no violent resistance to Court verdicts banning instant triple talaq and ordering women’s entry into Haji Ali Dargah. The violence over the Sabarimala and Ayodhya issues is not “religious” but political in nature - trying to stoke up regressive patriarchal and communal sentiments for votes is the only kind of politics the BJP knows.
The Modi Government which claimed to be a defender of Muslim women’s rights, showed its true colours when, soon after PM Modi’s meeting with the spiritual head of the Dawoodi Bohra community, Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, the Government withdrew its support for a ban on the practice of female genital mutilation (khafz) of girls in the Dawoodi Bohra community. This proves that the Modi Government is least concerned with the rights of any women, whether Hindu or Muslim. They are willing and eager to sacrifice and even attack the rights of women to promote their brand of regressive fascist politics.
CPI(ML) calls upon India’s people to reject and resist the BJP’s attempts to foment violence against the Constitution and the Supreme Court, over the Sabarimala and Ayodhya issues.
