Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday said that communal forces are strengthening their efforts to destroy the idea of India and called for everyone to be united to defeat such attempts.Vijayan’s remarks assume significance in view of the recent alleged attacks on Christian nuns and priests in some parts of the country and the arrests of two nuns in Chhattisgarh.
“Communal forces are strengthening their attempts to destroy the idea of India by trying to create religious and racial divisions. We all need to be united, irrespective of our religious and racial differences, to defeat such attempts,” the CM said.
He was speaking after hoisting the national flag at the Central Stadium here on the occasion of the 79th Independence Day of the country.
Vijayan further said that in the decades since independence, India has upheld democracy, except during a short time, and this was the country’s biggest achievement, as it has seen some of its neighbouring countries turning into military or puppet regimes.
“There have also been calls for setting up a religious state in some of them,” he added.
Besides these, there were also imperialist threats to the sovereignty and unity of the country from outside, Vijayan said.
Despite all this, the country has moved forward in the decades since independence, he said.
He said that the country has achieved a lot in the 78 years of its independence, but there are still various social problems that need to be addressed.