India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has condemned an unlikely spate of political vandalism after a number of statues, including two of Lenin, were defaced in an escalating row between rival party supporters across the country.
In a throwback to 20th century protest, two busts of the Soviet Communist leader were torn down in the north-eastern state of Tripura after an election victory for Modi’s Right-wing Hindu BJP ended 30 years of regional rule by the Marxist Communist Party of India.
Several arrests were made amid a wave of anti-Leftist sentiment and retaliatory vandalism, with police now on alert for further attacks on public statues and landmarks.
Video footage and social media posts showed the statues of Lenin – held as a father figure by many Indian communists – being razed in Tripura. Then, on Wednesday, a bust of the founder of the Jana Sangh Party – forerunner of the BJP – Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, was defaced in Kolkata.
As the action spread, a statue of Erode Venkata Ramasamy Periyar, an anti-religious scholar and social reformer was then vandalised in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, allegedly by BJP members.
Mr Modi condemned the vandalism as the Ministry of Home Affairs instructed all regional states to take steps to prevent further toppling of statues and arrest those “indulging in such acts under relevant provisions of law”.
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Tripura’s new BJP governor Tathagata Roy Subramanian Swamy told the ANI news agency: "Lenin is a foreigner and in a way, a terrorist, there shouldn’t be a statue of this sort of person in our country. They are welcome to put that statue inside the Communist Party headquarters and worship it if they so wish."
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Communist parties have held power in several north-eastern states, including West Bengal – where buildings across its capital Kolkata to this day bear hammer and sickle symbols – and Kerala in the south.
The Marxist wing of the party is distinct from the Maoist wing, which has been actively rebelling against the central government in several states for decades.
AFP
In a statement railing against the RSS – the Right-wing, Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer group regarded as the ideological heart of the BJP – the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said: “The destruction of the statue of Lenin, is symbolic of the rabid anti-communist, anti-democratic fascistic character of the RSS.
“These attacks clearly demonstrate, once again, that the RSS/BJP rely mainly on unleashing political violence as means to advance their inherent anti-democratic agenda."
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