Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said the growing trend of equating social evils with some sections of society needs to be “nipped in the bud” as doing so will only exacerbate the communal differences in society.
Cautioning citizens against using religion and caste for divisive purposes, he said glorifying terror organisations or equating them with symbols of freedom struggles would “weaken the communal harmony in society and endanger our freedom.”
Mr. Vijayan’s comment was perceived as a veiled criticism of Pala bishop Joseph Kallarangatt’s controversial sermon on “narcotic jihad” and an oblique censure of the spat between Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan and a priest after the latter alluded to an Ezhava plot to convert Christian girls to Hinduism via inter-faith marriage.
The Chief Minister was speaking at an event organised to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Amritham Student Struggle. He offered social reformer Sree Narayana Guru’s humanist views as an antidote to religious sectarianism that threatened the country’s secular fabric.
