Mangalore: Modi Won Not Because of Minority Votes, but Other Parties: Teesta

Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (VM)

Mangalore, Dec 29: Prominent human rights activist Teesta Setalvad on Saturday December 29 launched a frontal attack on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and said that he won the recent elections in Gujarat mainly because crores of money had been spent on election marketing and also due to split in votes between other parties, and not because of minority votes to BJP.

She was addressing the gathering during a convention on unity by Karnataka Komu Souhardha Vedike on the occasion of their 10th anniversary at Loyola hall, St Aloysius PU College here on Saturday.

"People think that minority people in Gujarat voted for BJP but it is not true, as their votes were split among various opposition parties. We need to carefully understand the matter as this situation might be faced by Karnataka too in the future," she said.

"It high time that concerned people like us express our opinions, or else we will not be able to make any impact in politics," she added.

She further said that a huge amount of corporate money was backing political power. "A dangerous trend in the politics of Gujarat was that people voted for other parties as the central government is paralyzed. Narendra Modi's success is not because of BJP, but mainly because of his organization there," she said.

Asserting that many immoral activities had been going on in Gujarat, she recalled an incident during a camp in a Gujarat village, wherein a Dalit woman had told her that her kids were called by Bajrang Dal activists offering Rs 3,000 as salary for two days of work per week.

"In return for the money, they were trained to carry out immoral activities. The same situation is found in various places including Mangalore, as we have witnessed during the pub attack and the recent home stay attack," she said.

Teesta also spoke of the judicial system in the country and said, "Our judicial institutions have failed to perform their duty of upholding the Constitution."

To substantiate her statement, she gave an example wherein Shiv Sena supremeo Bal Thackeray had once published provacative matters in his newspaper ‘Samna’ to which a petition was filed by a few people in the court. "In return to the petition, the Bombay High Court gave a bad judgement without even filing an FIR. With this it is clear that our judicial institution has given up its task of upholding Constitution values," she said.

"Similarly we find many such incidents in the country," she added, and urged Komu Souharda Vedike to fight against such a system and lauded the organization for its work.

Dr Anand Teltumbde, professor at IIT Kharagpur and grandson of Dr B R Ambedkar in his address briefed about Hindutva and its origin.

"Communalism or Hindutva is found everywhere. RSS Hindutva came into existence in the year 1920 and in the year 1951 they got the political power of BJP. Soon, they started sowing the seeds Hindutva culture everywhere," he said.

"The question that arises in everyone's mind that why BJP is against Islam and Christianity. Around 1/5th of the lower caste Hindus got converted to Islam because they were attracted to the religion which preaches unity. The situation was the same even with Christians and hence Hindus hated it," he said.

"Hindutva means caste is been imposed on an individual, which means it creates individuals based on caste. For example, in Mangalore, we do not see minority people together which means Hindutva ideology exists. It divides the entire community into individuals based on caste,

"We should not be fooled when people say that Hindutva and BJP are two distinct elements. It is false as their main intention is to create a Hindu nation," he said.

Commenting on Congress and other political parties, he said they were not less than BJP as they carry out violence indirectly.

"Whenever there is a bomb blast in the country, we generally tend to think that the bomb was planted by Islamists or it was Pakistan's job. It is not true as we do not know that Pakistan itself suffers 10 times more than us when it comes to bomb explosions. In such a situation, how can we blame them?" he said.

"We should try to understand the basic roots of Hindutva, target their weak point and counter attack them," he added.

Anand also lauded Komu Souharda Vedike for marching in the right track in combating communal violence and asked the organization to to continue the good work.

A book was released on Communal Harmony Movement of Komu Souharda Vedike to mark its decennial celebrations.

Fr William Martiz, honorary president of welcoming committee; Gous Mohideen, state secretary; Sabeeha Bhoomigowda, writer and professor of University; AK Subbayya, rationalist and former MLA of Karnataka Vishana parishat; M Venkataswamy, state president of Samatha Sainika Dhala; Gowri Lankesh, editor of Lankesh weekly, Bangalore; Suresh Bhat Bhakrabailu, president of Vedike, Dakshina Kannada; KL Ashok, state chief secretary; Vasudev Bolur; CN Shetty; Damodar Bhat; SM Iqbal; Mohammed Kakkinje; K Paniraj; Fr Manohar Chandra Prasad; Philomena Peris; Mohammed Issac; Professor VS Sridar; Anand Kumar among others were present.