India: SAHMAT Statement against communal Modi statement on Bengali speakers | 8 May 2014

SAHMAT
Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust
29, Ferozshah Road, New Delhi-1
Tel: 011-23381276, 23070787
Email. sahmat8@yahoo.com

8.5.2014

SAHMAT Statement

We the undersigned are deeply disturbed by the reported remarks of the Prime Ministerial candidate of the NDA at an election rally in West Bengal that “infiltrators†from Bangladesh belonging to a particular religious community must be sent back. Apart from the sheer inhumanity of the remark, we fear that in a country in which every citizen does not possess documentary proof of citizenship such a move would simply cause a general victimization of persons belonging to that particular religious community.
The reason cited by him for sending back “infiltrators†is that they take away jobs from local youth causing unemployment among the latter. This is exactly the reason offered by racist, fascist and xenophobic groups all over Europe, such as the Northern League in Italy, the National Front in France, the British National Party in the U.K., the Movimento Social Espanol in Spain, the National Renewal Party in Portugal, the Flemish Block in Belgium, and the Danish People’s Party in Denmark, for their attacks on immigrants. Persons of Indian origin have often been targets of such attacks which people in this country have rightly condemned. We must not replicate the same logic and the same attitude with regard to immigrants into this country which we condemn when they are directed against Indian immigrants abroad.
Blaming a hapless minority of immigrants for the flaws of an economic system that does not generate enough jobs for our youth is not just bad economics, but precisely what those who wield power within the current economic system would like everyone to believe.
We appeal to the people to reject this invitation to target a particular religious minority. We urge them to spurn those who are aiming to capture power by spreading communal hatred.

Ashok Mitra
Romila Thapar
Amiya Kumar Bagchi
Anish Kapoor
Vivan Sundaram
Prabhat Patnaik
Akeel Bilgrami
Girish Karnad
Mrinalini Mukherjee
Siddhartha Chatterjee
Sadanand Menon
Dev Benegal
Ashok Mitra
Shankha Ghosh
Ashokenath Basu
Amiya Dev
Pabitra Sarkar
R K Poddar
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Usha Gaguly
Nityapriya Ghosh
Supriya Chaudhuri
Ashoke Mukhopadhyay
Ratnabali Chattopadhyay
Tirthankar Chattopadhyay
Manabendra Bandyopadhyay
Abdul Bashar
Soumitra Dastidar
Shubhonil Chowdhuri
Sudipta Bhattacharya
Mihir Bhattacharya
Malini Bhattacharya
Irfan Habib
Antara Dev Sen
Geeta Kapur
Navtej S. Johar
Mridula Mukherjee
Aditya Mukherjee
Anita Dube
Arpita Singh
Paramjit Singh
Rooprekha Verma
Sashi Kumar
Arpana Caur
M.K. Raina
Ram Rahman
Saeed Mirza
Maya Krishna Rao
Ajeet Caur
Githa Hariharan
Doodh Nath Singh
Kumar Shahani
Jayati Ghosh
C.P. Chandrasekhar
Jehangir Jani
Archana Prasad
Madangopal Singh
Sohail Hashmi
Aijaz Ahmad
Shireen Moosvi
Pushpamala N.
Anil Bhatti
Teesta Setalvad
Parthiv Shah
Nilima Sheikh
Veer Munshi
Aruna Roy
Nikhil De
Achin Vinayak
Nirmalangshu Mukherjee
Abhilasha Kumari
Anand Sahay
Amit Sen Gupta
Amit Upadhyay
Shakti Kak
Anil Sadgopal
Janaki Nair
Suvira Jaiswal
S. Kalidas
M.M.P. Singh
Vishwamohan Jha
Neeladri Bhattacharya
Aban Raza
Abdul Maboob
Lima Kanungo
Ali N. Rizavi
Amar Farooqui
Amar Kanwar
Amarjit Chandan
Angelie Multani
Aniket Alam
Anita Cherian
Apoorva Gautam
Arjun Dev
Arunkumar H.G.
Asad Zaidi
Ashish Dasgupta
Ashish Ghosh
Ashley Tellis
Ataullah
Atlury Murali
Atul Bhardwaj
Ayesha Kidwai
Anuradha Kapur
B.P. Sahu
Badri Raina
Banwari Taneja
Biswamoy Pati
D.N. Jha
Deepak K. Singh
G. Arunima
Praveen Jha
Girish Mishra
Girish Shrivastav
Gitanjali Shree
Gunjan Doogar
Harbans Mukhia
Harun Riaz
Imrana Qadeer
Indira Arjun Dev
Indira Unninayar
Ishrat Alam
Indira Chandrasekhar
Iqtidar Alam Khan
Jasodhara Bagchi
Jauhar Kanungo
Javed Malick
Jawaharlal Pande
Jawarimal Parakh
Joe Athialy
K.M. Shrimali
Kanti Mohan Soz
Kesavan Veluthat
Keval Arora
Lata Singh
Madhu Prasad
Madhu Trivedi
Madhusree Dutta
Manas Ray
Mandira Sen
Mandira Sen
Manjari Katju
Anand Bala
Mazher Hussain
N.K. Sharma
Mohan Rao
Mohd Arif
Moloyashree Hashmi
Mushirul Hasan
Nalini Taneja
Navjot Altaf
Neena Rao
Neera Chandhoke
Wasi Haider
Neeraj Malick
Oishik Sirkar
Pamela Philipose
Prabhat Shukla
R. Ramachandran
R.C. Thakran
Rahul Verma
Rajinder Arora
Rajiv Gupta
Rajni Arora
Rakhshanda Jalil
Ramesh Rawat
Rashmi Sawhney
Rebecca Kurian
Reena Ginwala
Rekha Awasthi
Ritu Jerath
S. Anand
Shabnam Hashmi
S.Z.H. Jafri
Saba Hasan
Selvyn Jussy
Seshnarayan Singh
Shamshad
Sherna Dastur
Shibanj Kinkar Chaube
Shikha Sen
Shilpaa Anand
Shivaji Panikkar
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay
Smita Gupta
Srinivasan Ramani
Sruti Bala
Sudhanva Deshpande
Sudhir Chandra
Sudhir Gandotra
Sukumar Muralidharan
Sumitra Purkayastha
Sunil
Suresh Jayaram
Ujjawal Gupta
Zoya Hasan
Utsa Patnaik
V. Ramakrishna
Venkatesh Athreya
Vidya Das Arora
Vivek Monteiro
Xavier Dias
Yogesh Snehi
Veenapani Chawla
Rani Ray
Ramnik Mohan
Mallika Taneja
Debjani Sengupta
Radhika Prasad
Manish Kansara
Sumant Sengupta
Meghna Joshi
Mukul Priyadarshini
Shanta Gokhale
Ira Anjali
Urmimala Sarkar
Kajri Jain
Anomita Sen
Neha Chaturvedi
K.P.Jayashankar
Jaideep Chatterjee
Annie Koshi
Mahavir Sharma
Dvijendra Nath Kalia
Lakshmi Krishnamurty
Rimli Bhattacharya
Gargi Chakravartty
Saskia Sassen
Chitra Joshi
Supriya Verma
Kamala Menon
Sheba Chhachhi
Malathi A.
Soumya Dutta
Sumangala Damodaran
Saumyajit Bhattacharya
Jaishankar Monteiro
Rabin Chakraborty
Shubhradeep Chakravorty
Madhu Sahni
Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay
Kumkum Roy
Abdullah A. Rahman
Mukul Mangalik
ShubhraChakrabarti
Kunal Chakrabarti
Sumesh Sharma
Kirti Jain
Ambarish Rai
A.Mathew
Manish Jain
Sheeba Aslam Fehmi
Uma Chakravarti
Ein Lall
Sukanya Rahman
Anjali Gopalakrishnan
Neelima Luthra
Manjeet Singh
Kumi Chandra
Nandita Narayan
Asmita Aasaavari
Abhai Maurya
K.L. TUTEJA
Ashavari Majumdar
Vikas Gupta
Mandeep Raikhy
Zahoor Siddiqui
Hasan Suroor
Sameera Aga Zaidi
Mahendra Misra
Primila
Naman P. Ahuja
Chandan Gomes
Gigi Scaria
Prerna Sharma
Anil Nauria
Sridharkrishna