Indian state turning authoritarian under BJP: former Kerala minister Baby

‘Just as the Congress had misused Maintenance of Internal Security Act during the Emergency, the BJP was using UAPA and other laws against adversaries’

The Indian state under Bharatiya Janata Party was not only turning authoritarian but also terroristic, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and former Kerala minister M.A. Baby said here on Monday at a function organised to release the Tamil translation of A.G. Noorani’s The RSS: A Menace to India.

Just as the Congress had misused MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) during the Emergency, the BJP was using UAPA and other laws against adversaries to not only arrest them but also plant evidence. Be it Anand Teltumbde or Fr. Stan Swamy.

That the Indian state under the BJP was terroristic could also been clearly in its using a snooping software like Pegasus to spy on opponents, he said.

Though the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was clearly behind such actions of the BJP, it would publicly deny its role, Mr. Baby said, and added that the RSS’ role in power structure could not be missed.

A proof of it was the recent dharam sansad or religious parliament held in Hardiwar. There was a naked, blatant call given by people who rubbed shoulders with those in power to terminate a particular community, Mr. Baby alleged to underscore his statement.

Quoting studies by NGO Genocide Watch, the former Kerala minister said the BJP had so clearly polarised the country on religious lines that there were fears of a genocide.

Tamil Nadu State Minorities Commission Chairperson S. Peter Alphonse said there was a need for all secular political parties to come together on a broad political platform to fight the BJP in the next election as it would be BJP versus Rest of India.