Your silence is deafening, end the politics of hate: Over 100 ex-bureaucrats write to PM Modi

Over 100 former bureaucrats, including former NSA and Ex-Delhi Governor, have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to call for an end to the 'politics of hate'.

Over 100 former bureaucrats have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the recent cases of communal violence in various parts of the country and requested him to call for an end to the 'politics of hate'.

Former national security advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon, ex-foreign secretary Sujatha Singh, former home secretary GK Pillai, former lieutenant governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, and former PM Manmohan Singh's principal secretary TKA Nair are among the 108 signatories to the letter.

In the letter to the PM, they raised concerns about the political situation in the country and said they "believe that the threat we are facing is unprecedented and at stake is not just constitutional morality and conduct; it is that the unique syncretic social fabric, which is our greatest civilizational inheritance and which our Constitution is so meticulously designed to conserve, is likely to be torn apart. Your silence, in the face of this enormous societal threat, is deafening."

They appealed to the PM to call for an end to the politics of hate. They said, "We appeal to your conscience, taking heart from your promise of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas. It is our fond hope that in this year of ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, rising above partisan considerations, you will call for an end to the politics of hate that governments under your party’s control are so assiduously practising."

They said they were compelled to write to the PM as "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."

Raising the issue of communal violence against minority communities, they wrote, "The escalation of hate violence against the minority communities, particularly Muslims, in the last few years and months across several States Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, all states in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power, barring Delhi (where the union government controls the police) has acquired a frightening new dimension."

Alleging that Muslims in BJP-ruled states are more exposed to communal hatred, they said, "The 'hate and malevolence' directed against Muslims seems to have embedded itself deep in the recesses of the structures, institutions and processes of governance in the states in which the BJP is in power. The administration of law, instead of being an instrument for maintaining peace and harmony, has become the means by which the minorities can be kept in a state of perpetual fear."