Darkest Hour In Post Independence India-49 Retired IAS, IPS, IFS Officers Write To PM Modi

Letter expresses shame, rage and anguish over situation in India

Forty Nine retired civil servants have written to Prime Minister Modi expressing shame, rage and anguish over the situation in India. Some excerpts:

1. “the unspeakable horror of the Kathua and the Unnao incidents shows that the Government has failed in performing the most basic of the responsibilities given to it by the people.“
2. “By giving sustenance to the brutality of one human being against another in the name of Hindus we have failed as human beings.”
3. “Prime Minister, we write to you not just to express our collective sense of shame and not just to give voice to our anguish or lament and mourn the death of our civilizational values – but to express our rage. Rage over the agenda of division and hate your party and its innumerable, often untraceable offshoots that spring up from time to time, have insidiously introduced into the grammar of our politics, our social and cultural life and even our daily discourse. It is that which provides the social sanction and legitimacy for the incidents in Kathua and Unnao.”
4. “In Kathua in Jammu, it is the culture of majoritarian belligerence and aggression promoted by the Sangh Parivar which emboldened rabid communal elements to pursue their perverse agenda. They knew that their behavior would be endorsed by the politically powerful and those who have made their careers by polarizing Hindus and Muslims across a sectarian divide.”
5. On Unnao: “But even more reprehensible than such abuse of power, it is the response of the State Government in hounding the victim of rape and her family instead of the alleged perpetrator that shows how perverted governance practices have become. That the Government of UP finally acted only when it was compelled to do so by the High Court, shows its hypocrisy and the half-heartedness of its intent.”
6. “In both cases, Prime Minister, it is your party which is in power. Given your supremacy within the party and the centralised control you and your Party President exercise, you more than anyone else have to be held responsible for this terrifying state of affairs.Instead of owning up and making reparations however, you had until yesterday chosen to remain silent, breaking your silence only when public outrage both in India and internationally reached a point when you could no longer ignore it.”
7. And even then, while you have condemned the act and expressed a sense of shame, you have not condemned the communal pathology behind the act nor shown the resolve to change the social, political and administrative conditions under which such communal hate is bred. We have had enough of these belated remonstrations and promises to bring justice when the communal cauldron is forever kept boiling by forces nested within the Sangh Parivar.

The letter calls upon Prime Minister Modi to do the following:

• Reach out to the families of the victims in Unnao and Kathua and seek their forgiveness on behalf of all of us.

• Fast-track the prosecution of the perpetrators in the Kathua case and request for a Court directed SIT in the Unnao case, without further ado
• In the memory of these innocent children and all other victims of hate crime, renew a pledge to offer special protection to Muslims, to Dalits, to members of other minority communities, to women and children so that they need not fear for their life and liberty and any threat to these will be extinguished with the full force of State authority.
• Take steps to remove from Government anyone who has been associated with hate crimes and
  hate speeches.
• Call for an All Party Meeting to deliberate on ways in which the phenomenon of hate crime can be tackled socially, politically and administratively.

It is possible that even this may be too little too late but it will restore some sense of order and give hope that the free fall into anarchy can be arrested. We live in hope.

Signed:

1. SP Ambrose, IAS (Retd). Former Additional Secretary, Ministry of Shipping and Transport, GoI

2. Vappala Balachandran, IPS (Retd). Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI

3. Chandrashekhar Balakrishnan. IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Ministry of Coal, GoI

4. Pradip Bhattacharya, IAS (Retd). Former Additional Chief Secretary, Development & Planning and Administrative Training Institute, Govt. of West Bengal

5. Meeran C Borwankar, IPS (Retd). Former DGP, Bureau of Police Research and Development, GoI

6. Sundar Burra, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra

7. Javid Chowdhury, IAS (Retd). Former Health Secretary, GoI

8. Anna Dani, IAS (Retd). Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra

9. Surjit K. Das. IAS (Retd). Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Uttarakhand

10. Vibha Puri Das. IAS (Retd) Former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI

11. Nareshwar Dayal. IFS (Retd). Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom

12. Keshav Desiraju, IAS (Retd). Former Health Secretary, GoI

13. M.G. Devasahayam, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Govt. of Haryana

14. Sushil Dubey, IFS (Retd). Former Ambassador to Sweden

15. K.P. Fabian, IFS (Retd). Former Ambassador to Italy

16. Meena Gupta, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI

17. Ravi Vira Gupta, IAS (Retd). Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India

18. Wajahat Habibullah, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, GoI and Chief Information Commissioner

19. Sajjad Hassan, IAS (Retd). Former Commissioner (Planning), Govt. of Manipur

20. M.A. Ibrahimi, IAS (Retd). Former Chief Secretary (rank) Bihar

21. Ajai Kumar, Indian Forest Service (Retd). Former Director, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI

22. Arun Kumar, IAS (Retd). Former Chairman, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, GoI

23. Harsh Mander, IAS (Retd). Govt. of Madhya Pradesh

24. Aditi Mehta, IAS (Retd). Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan

25. Sunil Mitra, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GoI

26. Sobha Nambisan, IAS (Retd). Former Principal Secretary (Planning), Govt. of Karnataka

27. Amitabha Pande, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Inter-State Council, GoI

28. Niranjan Pant,IA&AS (Retd). Former Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General of India

29. P. R. Parthasarathy, IPS (Retd). Former Director, Anti-Corruption Bureau, Govt. of Maharashtra

30. Alok Perti, IAS (Retd) Former Secretary, Ministry of Coal, GoI

31. N.K. Raghupathy, IAS (Retd). Former Chairman, Staff Selection Commission, GoI

32. M.Y. Rao, IAS (Retd).

33. Sujatha Rao, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Ministry of Health, GoI

34. Julio Ribeiro, IPS (Retd). Former Adviser to Governor of Punjab & Ambassador to Romania

35. Aruna Roy, IAS (Resigned)

36. Manabendra N. Roy, IAS (Retd). Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal

37. Umrao Salodia, IAS (Retd). Former Chairman, Rajasthan Road Transport Corporation, Govt. of Rajasthan

38. Deepak Sanan, IAS (Retd). Former Principal Adviser (AR) to Chief Minister, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh

39. E. A.S. Sarma, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, GoI

40. N.C. Saxena, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Planning Commission, GoI

41. Ardhendu Sen, IAS (Retd). Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal

42. Abhijit Sengupta, IAS (Retd). Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI

43. Aftab Seth, IFS (Retd). Former Ambassador to Japan

44. Navrekha Sharma, IFS (Retd). Former Ambassador to Indonesia

45. Har Mander Singh, IAS (Retd). Former Director General, ESI Corporation, GoI

46. Jawhar Sircar, IAS (Retd). Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI, & CEO, Prasar Bharati

47. K.S. Subramanian, IPS (Retd). Former Director General, State Institute of Public Administration & Rural Development, Govt. of Tripura

48. Geetha Thoopal, IRAS (Retd). Former General Manager, Metro Railway, Kolkata

49. Ramani Venkatesan, IAS (Retd).Former Director General, YASHADA, Govt. Of Maharashtra