Former civil servants write letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on ‘politics of hate’ in Uttar Pradesh, want accountability to be fixed.
New Delhi: A group of 82 retired civil servants has written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding the resignation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath “for his failure to abide by the Constitution to which he has sworn his allegiance”, in light of the recent mob violence over alleged cow slaughter in Bulandshahr.
On the morning of 3 December, a mob had turned violent after remains of cattle were found in Bulandshahr district’s Mahav village. Suspecting cow slaughter, the mob had clashed with police, leading to the deaths of inspector and Syana station house officer Subodh Kumar Singh and 22-year-old undergraduate student Sumit Singh.
“It shows that in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, fundamental principles of governance, of constitutional ethics and of humane social conduct stand perverted,” write the former civil servants.
“The chief minister of the state acts as a high priest of the agenda of bigotry and majoritarian supremacy – an agenda which now seems to take precedence over everything else,” the letter adds.
The letter is an attempt to remind “the chief secretary, the director general of police, the home secretary, and all other members of the higher civil services concerned, of their constitutional duty to fearlessly implement the rule of law rather than the perverse dictates of their political masters”.
It calls upon the Allahabad high court to take suo motu cognisance of this incident and supervise a judicial enquiry, and also requests the citizens of India to lead a “national campaign against the politics of hate and violence”.
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No country for minorities
In the letter, the former civil servants have stated that while mob violence, deaths of police officers and cow politics have been a part of UP’s political landscape in the past, the Bulandshahr incident marks “the most dangerous turn yet in the direction taken by the politics of hate in recent times”.
Under Adityanath, they argue that the confidence that the government will “keeps its partisan political agenda at bay” has been “misplaced” because “hooliganism and thuggery have been mainstreamed into governance not just to intimidate minorities, but to teach a lesson to anyone, including police personnel and others in the administration, who dare to be even-handed in their approach to minority communities”.
“This was a deliberate attempt to display majoritarian muscle and send a message to the Muslim communities living in the region that they have to live in fear, accept their subordinate status and conform to the cultural diktats of the majority community,” reads the letter.
It further points to complicity on the part of the Adityanath administration in seeking inspector Singh’s transfer for “anti-Hindu” conduct, subsequently remaining silent on his murder “by calling it an accident” and allowing the instigators of the violence to walk free while alleged cow smugglers, “against whom not a shred of evidence exists are taken into custody, just because they are Muslims”.
“This was murder with intent. It was murder most foul,” they say.
Call for accountability
Like in previous open letters, the group wants Prime Minister Modi to take accountability for his government’s actions.
“Our Prime Minister, who is so voluble in his election campaigns and who never tires of telling us of how the Constitution of India is the only holy book he worships, maintains stony silence even as he sees a chief minister handpicked by him treat that same Constitution with sheer contempt,” they have written.
The group, which came together in June 2017, has appealed to the PM earlier too, including on the Unnao and Kathua rape cases, and the arrests of five activists in relation to the Bhima-Koregaon violence. The letter states that it has spoken out “nine times in the last eighteen months”, which indicates a measure of the “rapid erosion of constitutional values”.
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Where will he go.. to the cattleshed.. no no .. you thing Modi will remove him from the ministerial post.. no.. he is there for a purpose… And the result of the purpose is what we are seeing as incidents of this sort.. lynching. Cow.. police officers..encounters.. all these are there in the agenda………… One fact to be acknowledged is life ..yes life is a boomerang… What goes out comes in … When the boomerang hits him back.. ayogi nath should have the guts to say it was an accident..
Os there a link to the letter?
I start by saying the people who have signed this peition are dangerous to the common man. Why? I explain below
Looks like in India, moral compass of certain people starts to function only in a partisan manner. Frankly, as a citizen, people like these so called moral keepers signing politically motivated petitions send shivers down my spine .
Why? Because these voices will be found nowhere if citizens are openly murdered in a ‘politically friendly’ state.
SHAME on such fake crusaders. And India needs to get its law and order machinery in shape. no ordinary citizen feels safe anywhere….and even less safe when we realise that media and so called moralists will speak only if we face difficulties in a politically convenient state.
I say such people are dangerous to our society.
Right till the very last minute before the U.P. elections, Keshav Prasad Maurya was being projected as the CM candidate. I remember in the very last speech Mr Modi gave before the campaigning was closed, a full wall-size picture of Mr Maurya was spread in the background of the dais. No wonder this gentleman developed a health problem when finally his name was not announced, and instead Adityanath was propped up as the CM.
So in a way, Adityanath was “inflicted” upon the people. If the BJP wanted to push what he stood for and was confident that it will be palatable to the people, then why this sleight of hand? Clearly the BJP knew that Adityanath’s brand of Hinduism was a problem with even the majority of Hindus, but this was the brand Mr Modi and Mr Amit Shah were bent upon pushing through!
The result is for every one to see. Adityanath’s shocking ways, for example in the most recent example, in Bulandshahar giving more priority to a cow over a brave police officer who was murdered in its name, once again remind us that he just isn’t worthy of the chair he is occupying. His choice also pulls the mask down from the real faces of the two most important leaders of the present BJP.
Sober analysts are placing Yogiji ahead of demonetisation as a risk factor.
Congress must be banned for 1984 anti Sikh riots.