Colonisers' strategy of dividing people being used today: Kerala CM on CAA

Mumbai: Hitting out at the Centre over the CAA, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday said the "communal elements" today were using the British colonisers' strategy of disrupting people's unity by dividing them on communal lines.

He also said that the CAA must be rejected as it was "against the Constitution", "divisive" and "seeks to impose the philosophy of Hindutva", due to which the country's secular fabric was facing a "profound crisis". According to him, the amended citizenship law has pierced the secular mind of the people and rekindled the spirit of nationalist movement.

Vijayan, who heads the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the southern state, was speaking at the 'Mumbai Collective' here on 'National struggle against communalism'. "In the past, our movement was against the colonisers, but presently our struggle against communalism is a movement against those who stood with the colonisers," he said. "In the past, the colonisers tried to disrupt people's unity by dividing them on communal lines. Today, the communal elements are using the same strategy experimented by their masters," he added.

The fact that so many of us are out there on the streets, and gatherings such as this are happening across the country, are indicators of what our nation thinks, Vijayan said. "We do not have an iota of doubt that India's secular structure is facing a profound crisis, that out Constitution is under threat, and that out democracy itself is sought to be fundamentally undermined by the communal forces," he alleged.