The Indian nation can survive as a Democratic Republic only — repeat only — if it preserves its unity and integrity. This supreme value of Swaraj and sovereignty can be sustained if We the People of India resist corrupt, corrosive, communal pathology, divisive and disastrous, and escalating with each passing day. Casteism, communalism and religious fundamentalism have aggravated to menacing proportions during the nineties of the last century and thereafter. To combat this hydra-headed monster, a people’s Promethean struggle is an urgent desideratum.

The political conscience of all communities must be sensitised secularly and the unifying forces strengthened sedulously by the patriotic masses awakening to the danger of an emasculated India. Majority communalism, in a country of religious pluralism, has a proclivity towards fascist terrorism, suppressive of minority identity and autonomy. India has always had, in the long-ago past, a cultural heritage of religious tolerance, spiritual amity and comity of co-existence.

But this glorious vintage heritage, where many religions have flourished in fraternity, has been in peril since the cult of Hindutva became a political platform and the noxious agenda of a class of people who swear by hatred of minority groups and covertly practise a curious neo-version of the two-nation theory, as if Bharat were a Hindu nation, contradicted though by our Constitution in its Preamble, the fundamental rights chapter, the Directive Principles of State policy and the deep concern expressed throughout for the weaker sections of the polity. Inevitably, minority communalism, with desperate marginal terrorism, raises its hood, which is equally poisonous.

How should we battle against the grave threat to Indian unity and democracy integrated by a deep sense of secularity? It is in this context that a heroic role is being played by a dynamic journal with determined intent, led by a great activist, young in age, but burning with passion and patriotism for the great cause of uncompromising secularism. She is Teesta Setalvad and the journalistic organ that bravely campaigns for India and Indians to be rid of the curse of communalism and religious fundamentalism is Communalism Combat.

Just a decade old, yet driven by a dialectical understanding of the Indian situation and informed indignation against the terrible scourge of bitter separatism, violent religiosity and alienating estrangement, Communalism Combat is powerful in its struggle, not negotiable in its principle, and operationally alert in fighting against the syndrome of majority terrorism wearing holy Hindutva apparel. The record of this journal, in its fearless performance, is creditable. Their tireless exertion, with selfless objective and social activism, with its spirit of secularism and mission of fraternalism, makes this a historic instrument with a vision. The battle is raging, the enemies are roaring, but the will to carry on the combat is in no mood to relax.

I conclude with a salute to Communalism Combat, adding a Churchillian message: