BENGALURU: Historian Ramachandra Guha on Saturday said that ignoring the voice of civil society is very much against what Dr BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi had propagated. He insisted that such dialogues consist of grassroots knowledge and raise real concerns.
He spoke at the release of a common manifesto--‘Civil Society Forums Presentation of Manifesto for Karnataka Assembly Elections to 2023 to Political Parties’ -- organised by members of various organisations. Around 38 different civil society groups presented a common manifesto to different political parties to get their demands included in their respective manifestos.
While members of Congress and AAP were present at the meeting, those from the BJP and JDS stayed away. “The BJP is more into ‘One Nation, One Language, One Culture and Nagpur’, so they do not want other civil societies organisations to flourish,” Guha claimed, adding that the policy of the BJP government at the Centre and state has been to remain immune to all kinds of criticism.
“We don’t want to be distracted by trivial issues like communal issues, hate speeches and others, and we want to move away from that. We want to mobilise people to move on from such issues and focus on real ones,” said Kathyani Chamraj, executive trustee, of Civic.
The absence of the JDS and BJP invited sharp criticism from the organisers and chief guest Guha. Guha claimed that JDS may not have come due to indifference towards the Civil Society Forum, but BJP did not come deliberately. Dharmasena from Congress and Ashwin Mahesh from AAP were present.