On violence in the Kashmir and Hindus against Christians in India

Here is part of an interview of Communist Party of Indian spokesperson Comrade Azad on two major issues, the violence in the Kashmir province ( a target of terrorism for many years) and in recent years, violence against Christians by Hindu groups.

Interview on Kashmir and Khandamal
with CPI(Maoist) spokesperson, Comrade Azad,

MIB: I would like to ask your opinions on two of the most important developments which took place
in our country in the past one month—the massive movement for azadi in Kashmir and the attacks by
VHP-Bajrang Dal on the Christian community in Orissa. How do you look at these developments?
Azad: The first, the mass uprising of the Kashmiris, is a significant turning point in the struggle for
self-determination of the Kashmiri nation. It is a development that all democratic forces and people of
India at large should support unequivocally. And the second development, the savage attacks on the
Christian community by the saffron terrorists, should be squarely condemned by one and all. there is
urgent need to unite all secular and democratic forces to isolate and fight back this fascist offenisve on
the religious minorities by the state-backed Hindu fanatic
terrorists.
In this context, I would like to first stress the point that the
greatest threats to our society and the security of the people
of various religious communities are state terror and Hindu
fascist terror. These stand as the most important weapons
in the hands of the reactionary Indian ruling classes in their
war on the people. These two types of terror are so intertwined
that most often they become indistinguishable. In
Gujarat, for instance, it will be difficult to say how many had died in direct attacks by Hindu fascist
gangs and how many in the violence unleashed by the state against the minority Muslim community.
Overall, even where the state had no direct role in the murders and brutal attacks on the people
belonging to religious minorities, it played a dubious role by not intervening and acting as a passive
bystander when the attacks on helpless people is taking place. Not controlling Hindu fascist mobs and
allowing them to kill at will is one form of pro-Hindu partisanship of the Indian state. While both are
seen in Kashmir and Orissa, it is state terror which has been claiming the lives of thousands of people in
Kashmir while in Orissa, it is Hindu fascist terror backed by the state that had played havoc with the
lives of the minority Christian community.

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