More than 100 former civil servants have said that the recent instances of “hate violence against [India’s] minority communities, particularly Muslims” represent the “subordination of the fundamental principles of our constitution and of the rule of law to the forces of majoritarianism”, accusing the state of being “fully complicit” in this process.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the former civil servants – under the banner of the Constitutional Conduct Groupe – said the “frenzy of hate filled destruction” that the country is witnessing is not just targeting minorities, but the constitution itself. Though they criticised the prime minister’s silence on these incidents as ‘deafening’, they hoped that he would “call for an end to the politics of hate that governments under your party’s control are so assiduously practising”.

Former Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, ex-foreign secretary Sujatha Singh, former home secretary G.K. Pillai and former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s principal secretary T.K.A. Nair are among the 108 signatories to the letter.

“As former civil servants, it is not normally our want 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 letter said.

The escalation of “hate violence” against the minority communities, particularly Muslims, in the last few years and months across several BJP ruled states like Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand “has acquired a frightening new dimension”, they said….

https://thewire.in/rights/narendra-modi-civil-servants-communal-violence-silence-defeaning

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