Book of Integration Council New - Ministry of Home Affairs

SHRI V. S. ACHUTHANANDAN
CHIEF MINISTER, KERALA
Honourable Chairperson and Members of the National Integration Council.
I am glad that a meeting of the National Integration Council is taking place
at this moment. The challenge to the unity and integrity of our nascent nation has
never been as severe as it is now, and the National Integration Council is the
appropriate forum to discuss our collective response to this challenge.
The most obvious manifestation of this challenge is the spate of terrorist
attacks that is occurring all over the country, taking a heavy toll of the lives of
innocent citizens. Terrorism has to be dealt with, with absolute firmness, and the
Union government can count on the complete support of the government of
Kerala in eliminating this horrendous cancer that now afflicts our national life.
But at the same time we have to be careful that our measures against terrorism
do not undermine the basic structures upon which modern India has been founded,
i.e. the structures of democracy, secularism, and a rights-based approach to
freedom that protects not only individuals against possible excesses of the State
but also small groups and minorities against majoritarian encroachment and
against vilification by mischievous elements trying to appeal to majoritarian
sentiments for narrow ends. If these structures get weakened or undermined in
our fight against terrorism, then the terrorist paradoxically would have succeeded
precisely in their effort to defame, delegitimize and destabilize our nation State.
The fight against terrorism in short requires a strengthening of our democratic
and secular fabric, and not a compromise vis-a-vis these cherished values. The
surest weapon against terrorism is to make every Indian feel that he or she
belongs here and is proud of being a part of this nation. This is why we have
been deeply disturbed by the recent developments in Karnataka, Orissa and
elsewhere, where persons belonging to a minority community have been targets
of vicious attacks. These attacks, apart from being inhuman and a flagrant
violation of the law of the land, constitute grist to the mill of the terrorists. They
defame and delegitimize our nation, divide our people, and give implicit support
to terrorist propaganda about the hollowness of our cherished secular values.
This terrorization of the minorities, this communal game dividing and
polarizing people along religious lines, must stop. We demand the most stringent
measures against the Bajrang Dal which has been spearheading this vicious hate
campaign. The concerned state governments must live up to their constitutional
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