Gandhi says secular principles at risk

NEW DELHI: India’s secular principles are under threat, opposition leader Sonia Gandhi said yesterday as lawmakers paid tribute to the constitution and its makers.

The comments by Ms Ghandi, who leads the Indian National Congress party, came as increasing numbers of intellectuals, artists and opposition parties have said the space for dissent and difference was shrinking under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

A number of writers, academics, filmmakers and others have returned state awards the past few months after a man was lynched by a mob that suspected he had stored beef at home, and at least two rationalist thinkers have been murdered.

The cow is considered holy by India’s majority Hindu population.

Critics have said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP has failed to rein in hardline Hindu leaders who have been making divisive remarks.

“The incidents of the past few months are totally against the values enshrined in the constitution,” Ms Gandhi said. “The people who don’t have faith in the constitutional values are swearing by it ... what can be a bigger joke than that?”

India’s Parliament opened yesterday for a month-long winter session that promises to be stormy. The government, which is keen to push through a key bill on a uniform goods and services tax across the country in the current session, held a meeting of all party leaders on Wednesday.

“All of them felt the house should function in the best way possible,” Mr Modi said. “Debate and dialogue are the soul of parliament.”

The goods and services tax bill has been blocked by the opposition Congress party in the Rajya Sabha or upper house, where the ruling BJP is in a minority.

The Congress party, which had proposed the reform when it was in power, wants some changes in the bill tabled by Mr Modi’s government.