Down with the attempts to divide the anti-imperialist forces on the basis of religion!

The broad masses of Indian people, along with justice and peace loving peoples all over the world, are expressing their anger against the aggressive and criminal acts of US imperialism and Israel. However, the possibility of a politically united struggle in India against imperialist aggression and war is being prevented by the divided state of the communist movement.

A right opportunist faction within the communist movement, which calls itself the ‘Left Front’, is acting as the major roadblock to political unity against imperialist aggression and war. This faction, led by the CPI(M), is raising the issue of religious fundamentalism to create divisions within the ranks of those who are coming out on the streets to oppose imperialist aggression and war. By doing so, they are conciliating with the imperialist line that religious fundamentalism is the main problem.

The aggressive warmongering alliance led by US imperialism justifies its crimes by claiming that so-called Islamic fundamentalists are the threat to peace and security of the world’s peoples. They are thereby turning the truth on its head. By presenting the victims of imperialist aggression as the cause of the problem, they are justifying further imperialist aggression and war crimes.

The US imperialists tried to justify their naked aggression and occupation of Iraq with the claim that the Government of Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction”. In actual fact, it is precisely the United States and its allies, such as Israel, that have been shown to not only possess but also deploy the most deadly weapons of mass destruction against entire nations and peoples.

Israel is trying to justify its naked aggression and violation of the sovereignty of Lebanon as an act of “self defence” against so-called terrorists and fundamentalists. Historical facts show that it is Israel that has repeatedly aggressed on various nations and peoples in the region and occupied their territories. It labels those who fight back against such aggression and occupation as “terrorists” and “fundamentalists”, thereby turning truth on its head.

The struggle against imperialist aggression, such as by the US and Israel, is a political struggle. Communists must seek to build unity on a political basis against imperialist aggression, and oppose all forms of justification for such aggression. They must not raise religion or any ideological consideration to create divisions among the fighting forces.

The Communist Ghadar Party of India upholds the right of minorities within Indian society, including a religious minority such as the Muslims, to their beliefs. When people of the Muslim faith are discriminated against or persecuted on account of their beliefs, as they are today, it is natural that they will unite on the basis of their religious beliefs and fight in defence of their right to conscience.

For a communist party to demand that Muslims must swear by secularism or liberalism, as the CPI(M) and its allies in the ‘Left Front’ are doing, means to deny them their right to conscience. It means to violate the basic principle that communists must uphold the right of every human being to her or his conscience. To divide the anti-imperialist opposition of the peoples into ‘secular’ and ‘fundamentalist’ camps is to play into the hands of imperialism and its tactics of turning the truth upside down, to justify religious persecution and acts of aggression against sovereign nations and peoples.

By raising the issue of religious beliefs, the CPI(M) and its followers are creating sectarian divisions among the anti-imperialist forces. They are thereby weakening the struggle against imperialist aggression and war. They are blocking the path to a politically united opposition that can defeat the warmongering powers headed by US imperialism.

Historical experience shows that imperialism is the fountainhead of terrorism. It is the colonial, imperialist and reactionary capitalist states of the world that have covertly organised terrorism as a weapon to discredit national liberation struggles, and to justify the unleashing of fascist repression, state terrorism and imperialist wars in the name of putting down terrorism. To conciliate with the line that ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘Islamic terrorists’ are the problem, or that they and the imperialist aggressor states are “equally to blame”, means to conciliate with imperialist politics and to divide and weaken the movement to defeat this politics.

The times are demanding that the Indian people, cutting across religious beliefs, party or ideological affiliation, forge a powerful anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-war front directed against US imperialism and its allies. Indian communists must demand that the Government of India must break all political and military alliances with the United States and Israel, and join hands with other anti-imperialist forces to boycott these aggressor states, and demand that the United Nations takes stern action against them.

The Communist Ghadar Party of India calls upon all communists to expose and defeat the trend in the movement that conciliates with the imperialist line of blaming ‘religious fundamentalism’ to justify blatant violation of the right to conscience and the sovereignty of nations and peoples.