Photo: AFP
New Delhi: A group of former civil officials called the Constitutional Conduct Group urged the Centre on Friday to revoke the ruling that lifted a 58-year-old ban on government employees belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The group claimed in a letter that the order's enforcement would have "enormous detriment" to the Constitution's core values. On July 9, the Centre lifted the ban.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's parent organisation is the Hindutva group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Since Independence, it has been banned three times. Its critics claim that it encourages intolerance for minorities and Hindu dominance.
In November 1966, the Sangh was added to the list of organisations with which government personnel were forbidden to engage. The Constitutional Conduct Group stated on Friday that gender, caste, and religion remained major social divides in Indian society, Scroll.in reported.
“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,” it said.
The group stated that protecting and upholding the Constitution is the civil administration and police's primary responsibility. “This includes, centrally, the protection of the Constitutional rights – including of life, liberty and worship – of religious and caste minorities.”
The letter stated that public employees should always show their humanity, impartiality and commitment to the principles found in the Indian Constitution. In accordance with the group's assertions, the lifting of the restriction would permit individuals such as "a district magistrate, police officer, government secretary, professor, teacher, or government doctor" to publicly belong to an organisation that opposes the fundamental elements of the Constitution that are "pluralist, secular."
It stated that the assertion that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was a cultural rather than a political group served as the "official defence of this decision" to lift the ban.
“This is patently not true,” the letter said. “The goal of a Hindu Rashtra [Hindu nation] lies at the core of the ideology of the RSS, as articulated by its founders and leaders since its formation 99 years ago.”
As to the group's statement, this objective of establishing a “theocratic state” in which specific religious identities are granted less privileges is contrary to the Constitution’s principles and commitments, which “guarantee equal citizenship rights and freedoms to people of every faith and identity”.
It added: “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 group further indicated the close ties between the RSS and the BJP.
“Literally millions of RSS members openly campaign for the BJP in every state and national election,” it said. “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?”
The group claimed that speakers "stoking hatred and sometimes even calling for genocide and ethnic cleansing" have been made in recent years by members of organisations with ideological ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
It further stated that organisations with ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's ideology had been charged by at least six judicial commissions investigating episodes of communal violence for their part in these flare-ups that caused significant losses in terms of lives and property among Muslims and other citizens.
“Civil servants are servants first of the Constitution; and only after this, of the elected government under which they serve,” the letter said. “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.”
The panel also observed that the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have close ties.
The BJP government in Rajasthan also removed the prohibition on government employees participating in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh events a month after receiving instructions from the Centre. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was taken off a list of 17 organisations that public officials were not allowed to be affiliated with by the state government. In the state, the prohibition had been in effect since 1972.
Prior to this, the governments of a number of states, including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh, had also removed the restriction on public employees joining the association.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was banned three times: once following the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, once during the Emergency of 1975–1977, and once more following the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.