A violation of the Constitution

Civil servants cannot pledge to defend our Constitution and secular democracy and at the same time owe allegiance to an organisation that stands for Hindu Rashtra

We, former civil servants and members of the Constitutional Conduct Group, write to express our profound concern about the implications for secular democracy of the recent order of the Union government to lift the decades-old ban on civil servants becoming members of or participating in the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The paramount duty of civil administrators and the police is to defend and uphold the Constitution. This includes, centrally, the protection of the constitutional rights -- including of life, liberty  and worship -- of religious and caste minorities. For a fair discharge of these duties, civil servants must, at all times, demonstrate their humanism, impartiality, and adherence to the values enshrined in the Constitution of India.

Recognising that caste, religion and gender continue to be critical fractures in Indian society, we feel a deep disquiet about this government order that allows government servants, who are tasked with defending secular democracy and minority rights, to openly declare their allegiance to an organisation that is ideologically opposed to both of these.

The import of this government directive is that from now on, a district magistrate, a police officer, a secretary to government, a professor, a teacher or a government doctor, can be openly a member of, or participate in the activities of, an organisation which rejects the pluralist, secular core of the Indian Constitution. We also note with regret the recent statements of High Court judges on the cusp of retirement of their ideological affinity with the RSS as well as the unequivocal judgement of the Madhya Pradesh High Court upholding the lifting of the ban.

The official defence of this decision rests on the claim that the RSS is a cultural and not a political organisation. This is patently not true. The goal of a Hindu Rashtra lies at the core of the ideology of the RSS,  as articulated by its founders and leaders since its formation 99 years ago. This goal of a theocratic State in which people of some religious identities have lesser rights is in direct opposition to the principles and pledges of the Indian Constitution, which guarantee equal citizenship rights and freedoms to people of every faith and identity. This renders the government order that permits public officials to be members of, or to associate with activities of, the RSS a violation of the Constitution itself.

The close links of the RSS with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are also well-known. Literally millions of RSS members openly campaign for the BJP in every state and national election. How then can the integrity of the electoral process be assured when Chief Election Commissioners, Returning Officers and all others tasked with organising a fair election can be members of an organisation which is strongly aligned to one particular political party?

Members of organisations with ideological affinities to the RSS have, in recent years, made speeches stoking hatred and sometimes even calling for genocide and ethnic cleansing. At least six judicial commissions of inquiry into major episodes of communal violence -- the Jaganmohan Reddy report on the Ahmedabad riots of 1969; the D P Madon report on the Bhiwandi riots in 1970; the Vithayathil report on the Tellicherry riots in 1971; the Jitendra Narain report on the Jamshedpur riots in 1979; the P Venugopal report on the Kanyakumari riots of 1982; and the report on the Bhagalpur riots in 1989 -- have explicitly indicted organisations and parties having strong affinities with the ideology of the RSS for their role in these major communal flare-ups that resulted in extensive loss of life and property of Muslim and other citizens.

As former civil servants, we focus specifically on the import of this order on the civil services during communal or caste mass-violence. In such times, the role of the district magistrate and the police leadership is decisive. If these public officers are free from religious and caste prejudices, if they are courageous, compassionate and fair, they can douse, in a matter of hours, the most fearsome fires of communal and caste savagery. But instead, if they buckle under illegal orders from their political superiors or, worse still, if they, too, are tainted by communal or caste bias, they would bear direct responsibility for the ensuing violence entailing the loss of innocent lives and livelihoods.

Civil servants are servants first of the Constitution; and only after this, of the elected government under which they serve. If constitutional pledges or the rights of the most disadvantaged citizen are imperilled by orders of the elected government, it is their duty to resist such unconstitutional orders. 

India’s first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel likened the civil services to the “steel frame” of our newly-independent nation. In times when some politicians and religious leaders might mobilise people with calls to religion, caste and region, his hope was that a grateful people would rely upon the civil services to act as the steel frame to hold the country together and protect its most vulnerable people. The order of his ministry banning the RSS in 1948 refers to “the forces of hate and violence” that must be rooted out.

Hence, we urge the immediate withdrawal of this egregious order, which, if and when implemented, would engender the collapse of Sardar Patel’s steel frame, render religious and caste minorities even more vulnerable in times of communal and caste violence, and cause enormous detriment to the soul of the Constitution.  

(The Constitutional Conduct Group comprises former civil servants from across the IAS, IPS, IFS, intelligence and information services who come together to “speak truth to power” on various issues of governance and public affairs through open letters, statements and study reports. 115 former civil servants signed this particular statement issued on August 30)