Book of Integration Council New - Ministry of Home Affairs

Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s Intervention
This meeting of the National Integration Council (NIC) has been convened
at a very critical moment in the life of our country. The orgy of violence against
the minority Christian community has continued for weeks in Orissa, Karnataka,
Madhya Pradesh and many other parts of the country. Reports of communal
clashes are pouring in from various other parts of the country. At the same time,
the series of terrorist attacks in Delhi as well as various state capitals poses a
severe challenge to our country's unity and integrity.
The NIC is meeting when such attacks against the minorities have continued
for several weeks. In fact the meeting should have been convened much earlier.
The Union Government has a responsibility towards maintaining the unity and
integrity of the country which has not been discharged in the manner warranted
by the deteriorating situation. The Union Government's responsibility is particularly
so on the issue of protecting the right to life and the security of the tribals and
the dalits in the country. The Union Government has failed to intervene in this
situation even after six weeks of continuous attacks against the Christian minority
in Orissa.
However, the agenda circulated for this meeting is a vast canvas covering
all aspects of potential conflict and tensions adversely affecting national integration.
In this short meeting, it is virtually impossible to discuss all these issues however
important and relevant they may be. On many of these issue like the question of
social justice and the struggles against the connected caste-based social
oppression; regional economic imbalances providing grist to the mill of regional
chauvinism; providing adequate facilities for improving the welfare of the religious
minorities as enunciated by the Sachar Committee Report etc, the CPI (M) has a
definite point of view which has been articulated before the NIC and publicly in
the past.
The situation on all these counts has deteriorated particularly since the
pursuance of the trajectory of economic liberalization in the country. With the
practice of a planned economic development where major public sector
undertakings were located in economically backward regions being abandoned,
regional economic imbalances have widened feeding the centrifugal forces of
separatism in many parts of the country. State's rights being adversely affected
over the sharing of financial resource under the liberalization regime undermining
Centre-State relations envisaged in our federal constitutional set up. With the
economic divide between the rich and poor widening and the consequent sharp
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