16 April 2022
Dear Prime Minister,
We are witnessing a frenzy of hate filled destruction in
the country where at the sacrificial altar are not just Muslims and members of
the other minority communities but the Constitution itself. As former civil
servants, it is not normally our wont to express ourselves in such extreme
terms, but the relentless pace at which the constitutional edifice created by
our founding fathers is being destroyed compels us to speak out and express our
anger and anguish. The escalation of hate violence against the minority
communities, particularly Muslims, in the last few years and months across
several States – Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh,
Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, all states in which the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) is in power, barring Delhi (where the union government controls the
police) – has acquired a frightening new dimension. It is no longer just the
politics of an assertive Hindutva identity, nor the attempt to keep the communal
cauldron on the boil – all that has been going for decades and in the last few
years had become a part of the new normal. What is alarming now is the
subordination of the fundamental principles of our Constitution and of the rule
of law to the forces of majoritarianism, in which the state appears to be fully
complicit. The hate and malevolence directed against Muslims seems to have
embedded itself deep in the recesses of the structures, institutions and
processes of governance in the States in which the BJP is in power. The
administration of law, instead of being an instrument for maintaining peace and
harmony, has become the means by which the minorities can be kept in a state of
perpetual fear. Their constitutional right to practice their own faith, follow
their own customs, dress code and personal laws and exercise their own food
choices, is threatened not merely by letting vigilante mobs inflict violence on
them with impunity but, by twisting the law itself, to circumscribe their
freedom of choice and make it convenient for a prejudiced, communal executive to
make colourable use of state power. State power is thus used not only to
facilitate vigilante violence targeted against a community but to make
ostensibly legal means available to the administration (e.g., anti-conversion
laws, laws proscribing consumption of beef, encroachment removal, prescription
of uniform codes in educational institutions) to strike fear in the community,
deprive them of their livelihoods and make it evident to them that they have to
accept their status as inferior citizens who have to subordinate themselves to
majoritarian political power and majoritarian social and cultural norms. The
likelihood of our becoming a country that systematically makes sections of its
own citizens – minorities, Dalits, the poor and the marginalized – targets of
hate and knowingly deprives them of their fundamental rights is now, more than
ever, frighteningly real. While we are not aware if the current spurt in
communal frenzy is coordinated and directed by the political leadership, it is
evident that the administration at the state and local levels provides a
facilitating environment for mischievous lumpen groups to operate without fear.
Such facilitation and support is not limited to that offered by the local police
and other administrative officials; it appears to have the tacit approval of the
highest political levels in the state and central governments, which provide the
enabling policy and institutional environment for local level tyranny. While the
actual commission of violence may be outsourced to fringe groups, there is
little doubt as to how the ground for their operations is made fertile, how each
of them follows a master script and shares a common ‘tool kit’ and how the
propaganda machinery of a party as well as the state is made available to them
to defend their actions. What distinguishes the incidents that are taking place
now from earlier communal conflagrations is not merely that a master design is
being unveiled to prepare the grounds for a Hindu Rashtra, but that the
constitutional and legal framework designed to prevent such a development from
taking place is itself being twisted and perverted to make it an instrument of
majoritarian tyranny. No wonder then that the bulldozer has now become the new
metaphor for the exercise of political and administrative power, literally and
figuratively. The edifice built around the ideas of ‘due process’ and ‘rule of
law’ stands demolished. As the Jahangirpuri incident shows, even the orders of
the highest court of the land appear to be treated with scant respect by the
executive. Prime Minister, we, the members of the Constitutional Conduct Group –
all of us are former civil servants who have spent decades in the service of the
Constitution – believe that the threat we are facing is unprecedented and at
stake is not just constitutional morality and conduct; it is that the unique
syncretic social fabric, which is our greatest civilizational inheritance and
which our Constitution is so meticulously designed to conserve, is likely to be
torn apart. Your silence, in the face of this enormous societal threat, is
deafening. We appeal to your conscience, taking heart from your promise of Sabka
Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas. It is our fond hope that in this year of
‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, rising above partisan considerations, you will call
for an end to the politics of hate that governments under your party’s control
are so assiduously practising. The idea of India that our founding fathers had
envisioned and fought for needs a climate of fraternity and communal harmony to
thrive. Hate will engender hate, rendering the environment too noxious for the
idea to survive. SATYAMEVA JAYATE
Yours sincerely,
Constitutional Conduct Group
(108 signatories)
1. Anita Agnihotri IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Department of
Social Justice Empowerment, GoI 2. Salahuddin Ahmad IAS (Retd.) Former Chief
Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan 3. S.P. Ambrose IAS (Retd.) Former Additional
Secretary, Ministry of Shipping & Transport, GoI 4. Anand Arni RAS (Retd.)
Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI 5. Aruna Bagchee IAS (Retd.)
Former Joint Secretary, Ministry of Mines, GoI 6. Sandeep Bagchee IAS (Retd.)
Former Principal Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra 7. G. Balachandhran IAS (Retd.)
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal 8. Vappala Balachandran
IPS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI 9. Gopalan
Balagopal IAS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal 10.
Chandrashekar Balakrishnan IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Coal, GoI 11. Rana
Banerji RAS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI 12. T.K.
Banerji IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Union Public Service Commission 13. Sharad
Behar IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh 14. Madhu
Bhaduri IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Portugal 15. Meeran C Borwankar IPS
(Retd.) Former DGP, Bureau of Police Research and Development, GoI 16. Ravi
Budhiraja IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, GoI 17.
Sundar Burra IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra 18. Maneshwar
Singh Chahal IAS (Retd.) Former Principal Secretary, Home, Govt. of Punjab 19.
R. Chandramohan IAS (Retd.) Former Principal Secretary, Transport and Urban
Development, Govt. of NCT of Delhi 20. Kalyani Chaudhuri IAS (Retd.) Former
Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal 21. Gurjit Singh Cheema IAS
(Retd.) Former Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Govt. of Punjab 22. F.T.R.
Colaso IPS (Retd.) Former Director General of Police, Govt. of Karnataka &
former Director General of Police, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir 23. Anna Dani IAS
(Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra 24. Surjit K.
Das IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Uttarakhand 25. Vibha Puri Das
IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI 26. P.R. Dasgupta
IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Food Corporation of India, GoI 27. Pradeep K. Deb
IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Deptt. Of Sports, GoI 28. M.G. Devasahayam IAS
(Retd.) Former Secretary, Govt. of Haryana 29. Sushil Dubey IFS (Retd.) Former
Ambassador to Sweden 30. A.S. Dulat IPS (Retd.) Former OSD on Kashmir, Prime
Minister’s Office, GoI 31. K.P. Fabian IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Italy
32. Prabhu Ghate IAS (Retd.) Former Addl. Director General, Department of
Tourism, GoI 33. Suresh K. Goel IFS (Retd.) Former Director General, Indian
Council of Cultural Relations, GoI 34. S.K. Guha IAS (Retd.) Former Joint
Secretary, Department of Women & Child Development, GoI 35. H.S. Gujral IFoS
(Retd.) Former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Govt. of Punjab 36. Meena
Gupta IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI 37.
Ravi Vira Gupta IAS (Retd.) Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India 38.
Deepa Hari IRS (Resigned) 39. Sajjad Hassan IAS (Retd.) Former Commissioner
(Planning), Govt. of Manipur 40. Siraj Hussain IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary,
Department of Agriculture, GoI 41. Kamal Jaswal IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary,
Department of Information Technology, GoI 42. Najeeb Jung IAS (Retd.) Former
Lieutenant Governor, Delhi 43. Brijesh Kumar IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary,
Department of Information Technology, GoI 44. Ish Kumar IPS (Retd.) Former DGP
(Vigilance & Enforcement), Govt. of Telangana and former Special Rapporteur,
National Human Rights Commission 45. Sudhir Kumar IAS (Retd.) Former Member,
Central Administrative Tribunal 46. Subodh Lal IPoS (Resigned) Former Deputy
Director General, Ministry of Communications, GoI 47. B.B. Mahajan IAS (Retd.)
Former Secretary, Deptt. of Food, GoI 48. Harsh Mander IAS (Retd.) Govt. of
Madhya Pradesh 49. Amitabh Mathur IPS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary, Cabinet
Secretariat, GoI 50. Lalit Mathur IAS (Retd.) Former Director General, National
Institute of Rural Development, GoI 51. L.L. Mehrotra IFS (Retd.) Former Special
Envoy to the Prime Minister and former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs,
GoI 52. Aditi Mehta IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of
Rajasthan 53. Shivshankar Menon IFS (Retd.) Former Foreign Secretary and Former
National Security Adviser 54. Sonalini Mirchandani IFS (Resigned) GoI 55. Sunil
Mitra IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GoI 56. Noor Mohammad
IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, National Disaster Management Authority, Govt. of
India 57. Avinash Mohananey IPS (Retd.) Former Director General of Police, Govt.
of Sikkim 58. Satya Narayan Mohanty IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary General,
National Human Rights Commission 59. Deb Mukharji IFS (Retd.) Former High
Commissioner to Bangladesh and former Ambassador to Nepal 60. Shiv Shankar
Mukherjee IFS (Retd.) Former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom 61. Gautam
Mukhopadhaya IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Myanmar 62. Pranab S. Mukhopadhya
IAS (Retd.) Former Director, Institute of Port Management, GoI 63. T.K.A. Nair
IAS (Retd.) Former Adviser to Prime Minister of India 64. P.A. Nazareth IFS
(Retd.) Former Ambassador to Egypt and Mexico 65. P. Joy Oommen IAS (Retd.)
Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Chhattisgarh 66. Amitabha Pande IAS (Retd.)
Former Secretary, Inter-State Council, GoI 67. Maxwell Pereira IPS (Retd.)
Former Joint Commissioner of Police, Delhi 68. G.K. Pillai IAS (Retd.) Former
Home Secretary, GoI 69. R. Poornalingam IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry
of Textiles, GoI 70. Rajesh Prasad IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to the
Netherlands 71. Sharda Prasad IAS (Retd.) Former Director General (Employment
and Training), Ministry of Labour and Employment, GoI 72. R.M. Premkumar IAS
(Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra 73. Rajdeep Puri IRS
(Resigned) Former Joint Commissioner of Income Tax, GoI 74. T.R. Raghunandan IAS
(Retd.) Former Joint Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, GoI 75. N.K.
Raghupathy IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Staff Selection Commission, GoI 76. V.P.
Raja IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission
77. Satwant Reddy IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Chemicals and Petrochemicals,
GoI 78. Vijaya Latha Reddy IFS (Retd.) Former Deputy National Security Adviser,
GoI 79. Julio Ribeiro IPS (Retd.) Former Adviser to Governor of Punjab & former
Ambassador to Romania 80. Aruna Roy IAS (Resigned) 81. A.K. Samanta IPS (Retd.)
Former Director General of Police (Intelligence), Govt. of West Bengal 82.
Deepak Sanan IAS (Retd.) Former Principal Adviser (AR) to Chief Minister, Govt.
of Himachal Pradesh 83. Shyam Saran IFS (Retd.) Former Foreign Secretary and
Former Chairman, National Security Advisory Board 84. S. Satyabhama IAS (Retd.)
Former Chairperson, National Seeds Corporation, GoI 85. N.C. Saxena IAS (Retd.)
Former Secretary, Planning Commission, GoI 86. A. Selvaraj IRS (Retd.) Former
Chief Commissioner, Income Tax, Chennai, GoI 87. Ardhendu Sen IAS (Retd.) Former
Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal 88. Abhijit Sengupta IAS (Retd.) Former
Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI 89. Aftab Seth IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador
to Japan 90. Ashok Kumar Sharma IFoS (Retd.) Former MD, State Forest Development
Corporation, Govt. of Gujarat 91. Ashok Kumar Sharma IFS (Retd.) Former
Ambassador to Finland and Estonia 92. Navrekha Sharma IFS (Retd.) Former
Ambassador to Indonesia 93. Pravesh Sharma IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief
Secretary, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh 94. Raju Sharma IAS (Retd.) Former Member,
Board of Revenue, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh 95. Rashmi Shukla Sharma IAS (Retd.)
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh 96. Mukteshwar Singh
IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission 97. Sujatha
Singh IFS (Retd.) Former Foreign Secretary, GoI 98. Tara Ajai Singh IAS (Retd.)
Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka 99. Tirlochan Singh IAS
(Retd.) Former Secretary, National Commission for Minorities, GoI 100. Narendra
Sisodia IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GoI 101. Parveen
Talha IRS (Retd.) Former Member, Union Public Service Commission 102. Anup
Thakur IAS (Retd.) Former Member, National Consumer Disputes Redressal
Commission 103. P.S.S. Thomas IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary General, National
Human Rights Commission 104. Hindal Tyabji IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary
rank, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir 105. Jawed Usmani IAS (Retd.) Former Chief
Secretary, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh & former Chief Information Commissioner, Uttar
Pradesh 106. Ashok Vajpeyi IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi 107.
Ramani Venkatesan IAS (Retd.) Former Director General, YASHADA, Govt. of
Maharashtra 108. Rudi Warjri IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Colombia, Ecuador
and Costa Rica
