Communalism, neo-liberal policies must quit India: Yechury

On the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement, it is necessary that communalism and neo-liberal economic policies that are hurting people "quit India", Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury said in an impassioned speech on Wednesday.

"What is the meaning of observing the 75th Anniversary of the Quit India Movement if today what has to quit India does not quit India? You have to quit these economic policies that are increasing unemployment, that are increasing poverty, that are increasing the divide between the rich and the poor," Yechury said in Rajya Sabha.

He said that in 2014, wealth amounting to 49 per cent of the GDP was held by one per cent of the Indian population. In 2016, the figure rose to 58.4 per cent of GDP in the hands of one per cent of population.

"Is this the India of the dreams of 1947 when we became independent?" he said.

"If there is anything that must quit India today on its 75th Anniversary, it is the neo-liberal economic policies that are impoverishing the mass of my people; it is the communalism that is dividing my country and disuniting our people," the Left leader said.

He said that the movement forward should be for strengthening the secular democratic republic of India and not "for creating a Hindu-Pakistan in India".

"We will have to reject the regressive ideology that seeks to take us back to the darkness of the past. Without rejecting this ideology, we cannot march forward towards a bright future," Yechury said.

"Let us observe Quit India by saying, quit neo-liberal reforms, quit Communalism," he said.

--IANS

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