Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, July 27, 2024

Since 1966 there had been a ban in place on government employees participating in activities of organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that propagates Hindutva supremacism & the Jamaat e Islami that pushes an Islamist ideology. Official circulars issued by successive governments in 1966, 1970 and 1980 maintained these restrictions and the All India Service Conduct Rules for civil servants reflected these to maintain the neutrality of the state officials and prevent politicisation of the bureaucracy in a secular state. On July 9, 2024, an order [1] issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension in the third term of the Narendra Modi led Central Government the restraining Office memorandum removes the name of the RSS from the government orders and consequently lifting the ban on participation of government employees in the activities of the RSS. It is known to all that India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just like its previous avatar Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS or JS) is a political outfit of the RSS —which itself has a political agenda. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself served a long time as a full-time activist of the RSS. The Modi government which is driven by Hindutva ideology is moving clearly as part of a continuing wider agenda to give the RSS and its off-shoots an unrestrained sway & participation in the affairs of the state. The RSS had been banned in 1948 over its role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi [2], but over the past decades, particularly during the BJP-ruled governments, most of all during the Modi years since 2014 [3], a process of social legitimation of the RSS has been underway. For many years now senior ministers in the government have been products of the RSS, including those with constitutional positions like Governors owe their appointments to their membership of the RSS and openly participate in RSS activities despite holding public positions. The RSS itself has since the mid-1980s been running a coaching school for its candidates preparing for competitive exams to join the Indian administrative service [4]. After the coming to power of the 2014 Modi Government-funded TV has often carried live national broadcasts of the speeches of the RSS chief. The parliamentary opposition parties must unitedly challenge the lifting of the ban on the RSS and resist the expanding influence of the RSS in society and the state. It is never too late to resist the fascists and communal forces.

July 26, 2024 —HK