Need movement to fight communal issues: retired Karnataka HC judge Justice HN Nagamohan Das

BENGALURU: There is a need to build a powerful people’s movement to combat various critical issues that plague the country, particularly the rise in communal tensions, said retired Karnataka High Court judge Justice HN Nagamohan Das on Sunday.

At a symposium organised by the Forum for Democracy and Communal Amity (FDCA-K), he said there is no respect for dissent in the country. “The freedom of speech and expression includes the right to express our views, our dissenting views, and to criticise, question and keep silent. But today, you cannot question, criticise or express a different opinion from the government,” he observed.

Meanwhile, journalist Aakar Patel, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind president Syed Sadatullah Husaini and FDCA-K general secretary and former Inspector General of Police MF Pasha stressed on several issues primarily focusing on communal violence. They offered statistical, judicial and personal insights into problems that minorities faced in the country.

Husaini said, “We need to unite people from all strata -- the intellectuals, thought leaders, civil society, the youth, women’s groups, religious leaders, political and grassroot activists, farmers, labourers and others.” He said, “Our Parliament can be truly representative when different political ideologies, opinions, cultural leanings and aspirations of different ethnic-cultural groups are proportionately represented.” Patel said, “We’re going through a period where the mob is empowered. The government feels enabled if people stay silent.”

Pasha said, “The fundamental principles of equality, fraternity and freedom, so clearly and emphatically enshrined in the Constitution, are being unabashedly thrown to the winds and sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.”