The Central Executive Committee of the Young Communist League – Ligue de la jeunesse communiste Canada condemns in the strongest terms the police repression and attacks on workers, students, and youth in India who are struggling against mass electoral disenfranchisement and undemocratic repression of protest. Particularly we are disturbed by the arrests and use of force against youth and political activists from our sister organizations who raised legitimate concerns against Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s suppression of voting rights.

The purging of 130 million voter registrations is a direct attack on the democratic rights of workers and students across India. The YCL-LJC stands in solidarity with the comrades of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the All India Youth Federation (AIYF), and the All India Students Federation (AISF) who are rightfully protesting this egregious attack on civil liberties and participation. Thousands of youth and students participated in these protests in recent weeks, many of them young women in particular and these arrests represent an attack on the democratic right to protest and civil disruption.

The violence of the Delhi Police and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) paramilitaries in response to rightful protests expose the BJP’s agenda of political suppression, particularly of the youth, women, and Muslims. This is clear in the most recent attempts of the BJP to silence people’s anger by banning gatherings, shutting down transit routes, and setting up police barricades.

As a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth we echo its calls and the calls of our sister organizations for the release of the detainees and an end to the suppression of peaceful protest and voting rights in India.