Assembly Speaker M.B. Rajesh has said that the country is going through its most dangerous phase.
The country’s democratic values and institutions were being attacked collectively, and the state of affairs was worse than the Emergency, he said here on Wednesday.
Mr. Rajesh said that majority communalism was more dangerous than minority communalism as the former could capture power in the country. “A communalist cannot be a true believer or a follower of a faith. Jinnah and Savarkar were not believers but were communalists. Gandhi was a strong believer, but he was not a communalist,” he said.
Mr. Rajesh said he had ignored the cyber attacks that were mounted against him in the wake of his comments about the 1921 Malabar Rebellion and its leaders such as Variyamkunnath Kunhahamed Haji and Ali Musliar.
However, he said legal action would be initiated against those who attacked his wife and children. He said his family had got several threat calls. He said he would not withdraw from his stand.
Mr. Rajesh said the renovation being made at Jalianwala Bagh massacre site in Amritsar was corporatisation of history as commented by historians such as Irfan Habib. “Instead of restoration, the place is being renovated,” he said.
He said efforts were on to change the use of ‘sir’ in the Assembly. According to him, addressing someone as ‘sir’ is a misnomer in democracy. “We don’t need to call the Speaker ‘sir’. Instead, we can address ‘honourable Speaker,” he said.
However, Mr. Rajesh said that it was a question of habit and it would take a long time to change.
He said the IT Department was asked to investigate the allegations of Pegasus intrusion into the Kavach application used by people’s representatives.
