New Delhi: Over 100 former officials have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressing their hope that he will call for a halt to what they describe โhate politicsโ perpetrated โassiduouslyโ by BJP-controlled governments.
In an open letter, they said โwe 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 itselfโ.
Former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, ex-foreign secretary Sujatha Singh, former Home Secretary GK Pillai and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singhโs Principal Secretary TKA Nair are among the 108 signatories of the letter.
โAs 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,โ the letter said.
โThe escalation of hate violence against the minority communities, particularly Muslims, in the last few years and months across several states โ Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, all states in which the BJP is in power, barring Delhi (where the union government controls the police) โ has acquired a frightening new dimension,โ it said.
The former bureaucrats feel the threat is unprecedented, and that what is at issue is not merely constitutional morality and conduct, but also the unique syncretic social fabric โwhich is our greatest civilizational inheritance and which our Constitution is so methodically crafted to preserve.โ
โYour silence, in the face of this enormous societal threat, is deafening,โ the letter said.
We appeal to your conscience, taking heart from your promise of โSabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwasโ,โ it said.
โIt is our fond hope that in this year of โAzadi Ka Amrit Mahotsavโ, rising above partisan considerations, you will call for an end to the politics of hate that governments under your partyโs control are so assiduously practising,โ said the letter.
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