The banning of the hijab by the BJP government in Karnataka state, southern India, is a continuation of the vile policy of the ruling class of India to divide the people on the basis of religion. This is a legacy of British imperialism’s method of ‘divide and rule’, which spread religious hatred across the whole region, and which the Modi regime has taken to a new extreme. During Congress’, it too used the same tactic to ensure the continuation of the rule of capital in this country. Modi’s regime only represents the brutal face of the ruling class, which has been exposed in this epoch in which it faces a deep crisis. The veil of democracy, the rule of law and freedom of expression is falling away.

This document was written in December 2014 in the aftermath of the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine, the uprisings in Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Russian annexation of Crimea. At that time, the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) had been involved in launching the Solidarity with Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU) campaign. Meanwhile, several so-called Marxist organisations had capitulated to reactionary Ukrainian nationalism. As such, it was important to go back and provide some background to the historical development of the national question in Ukraine.