A group of noted academics, artists and concerned citizens have issued an appeal, in the context of Elections 2014, to defend India’s secular democracy.

The statement, the lead signatories to which are Zoya Hasan, Rooprekha Verma, Sashi Kumar, Vivan Sundaram, Achin Vanaik, Jayati Ghosh and Prabhat Patnaik, said:

“Never before in post-independence India have political forces, which are a front for an organisation committed to creating a Hindu Rashtra, made as strong a bid for power as in the coming elections. These forces are led by a person who presided over a pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and has never expressed any contrition over his role in that ghastly incident. And they enjoy the backing of the most powerful corporate houses in the country. The prospect of this alliance of corporate capital and communal forces coming to power constitutes a palpable threat to the future of our secular democracy.

“We urge all responsible individuals and political formations to ponder over the situation and urgently take whatever steps are necessary for defending our secular democracy. We appeal to the electorate to foil this corporate-communal alliance’s bid for power by voting against the BJP-led NDA.”

Rooprekha Verma

Sashi Kumar

Vivan Sundaram

Achin Vanaik

Jayati Ghosh

Prabhat Patnaik

Kumar Shahani

Nirmalangshu Mukherjee

Abhilasha Kumari

Githa Hariharan

Ajeet Caur

Anand Sahay

Doodh Nath

Singh Arpana Caur

Amit Sen Gupta

Maya Rao

Amiya Kumar Bagchi

Akeel Bilgrami

Irfan Habib

M.K. Raina

Amit Upadhyay

Ram Rahman

Saeed Mirza

C.P. Chandrasekhar

Shakti Kak

Anil Sadgopal

Janaki Nair

Suvira Jaiswal

S. Kalidas

M.M.P. Singh

Vishwamohan Jha

Neeladri Bhattacharya

Madangopal Singh

Aban Raza

Abdul Maboob

Lima Kanungo

Ali N. Rizavi

Amar Farooqui

Amar Kanwar

Amarjit Chandan

Jehangir Jani

Aijaz Ahmad

Angelie Multani

Aniket Alam

Anil Bhatti

Anita Cherian

Apoorva Gautam

Archana Prasad

Arjun Dev

Arunkumar

H.G. Asad Zaidi

Ashish Dasgupta

Ashish Ghosh

Ashley Tellis

Ataullah

Atlury Murali

Atul Bhardwaj

Ayesha Kidwai

B.P. Sahu

Badri Raina

Banwari Taneja

Biswamoy Pati

D.N.Jha

Deepak K. Singh

G. Arunima

Praveen Jha

Geeta Kapur

Girish Mishra

Girish Shrivastav

Gitanjali Shree

Gunjan Doogar

Harbans Mukhia

Harun Riaz

Imrana Qadeer

Indira Arjun Dev

Indira Unninayar

Ishrat Alam

Indira Chandrasekhar

Iqtidar Alam Khan

Jasodhra Bagchi

Jauhar Kanungo

Javed Malick

Jawaharlal Pande

Jawarimal Parakh

Joe Athialy

K.M. Shrimali

Kanti Mohan Soz

Kesavan Veluthat

Keval Arora

Lata Singh

Madhu Prasad

Madhu Trivedi

Madhusree Dutta

Manas Ray

Mandira Sen

Malini Bhattacharya

Mandira Sen

Manjari Katju

Anand Bala

Mazher Hussain

N.K. Sharma

Mihir Bhattacharya

Mohan Rao

Mohd Arif

Moloyashree Hashmi

Mushirul Hasan

Nalini Taneja

Navjot Altaf

Neena Rao

Neera Chandhok

Wasi Haider

Neeraj Malik

Nilima Sheikh

Oishik Sirkar

Pamela Philipose

Parthiv Shah

Prabhat Shukla

Pushpamala

N R. Ramachandran

R.C. Thakran

Rahul Verma

Rajinder Arora

Rajiv Gupta

Rajni Arora

Rakhshanda Jalil

Ramesh Rawat

Rashmi Sawhney

Rebecca Kurian

Reena Ginwala

Rekha Awasthi

Ritu Jerath

S. Anand

Shabnam Hashmi

S.Z.H. Jafri

Saba Hasan

Selvyn Jussy

Seshnarayan Singh

Shamshad

Sherna Dastur

Shibani Kinkar Chaube

Shikha Sen

Shilpaa Anand

Shireen Moosvi

Shivaji Panikkar

Sibaji Bandyopadhyay

Smita Gupta

Sohail Hashmi

Srinivasan Ramani

Sruti Bala

Sudhanva Deshpande

Sudhir Chandra

Sudhir Gandotra

Sukumar Muralidharan

Sumitra Purkayastha

Sunil

Suresh Jayaram

Ujjawal Gupta

Zoya Hasan

Utsa Patnaik

V. Ramakrishna

Venkatesh Athreya

Vidya Arora

Vivek Monteiro

Xavier Dias

Yogesh Snehi

Veenapani Chawla

Rani Ray

Ramnik Mohan

Mallika Taneja

Debjani Sengupta

Radhika Prasad

Manish Kansara

Sumant Sengupta

Meghna Joshi

Mukul Priyadarshini

Shanta Gokhle

Ira Anjali

Urmimala Sarkar

Kajri Jain

Anomita Sen

Neha Chaturvedi

K.P.Jayashankar

Jaideep Chatterjee

Annie Koshi

Mahavir Sharma

Dvijendra Nath Kalia

Lakshmi Krishnamurty

Rimli Bhattachrya

Gargi Chakravarti

Saskia Sassen

Chitra Joshi

Supriya Verma

Kamla Menon

Yousuf Saeed

Shiba Chhachhi

Malathi A

Soumya Dutta

Urmimala Sarkar

Sumangala Damodaran

Saumyajit Bhattacharya

Jaishankar Monteiro

Rabin Chakraborty

Shubhradeep Chakravorty

Madhu Sahni