Letter regarding the lifting of the six-decade-old "ban" on government employees taking part in the activities of RSS | E A S Sarma

E A S Sarma
Former Secretary to the Government of India

To

Shri Rajiv Gauba
Cabinet Secretary
Government of India

I write this letter with a feeling of anguish and distress at a disturbing news report [1] that the Department of Personnel (Government of India) abruptly lifted the six-decade-old "ban" on government employees taking part in the activities of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). If what has been reported is factually correct, the said order makes a mockery of the vision of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the architect of the civil services in India, of the role expected of civil services in the country.

I would invite your attention and the attention of all members of the civil services in India, both at the Centre and in the States, to a highly insightful article authored very recently by Shri M G Devasahayam, "The Now-Lifted Ban on RSS, an Edifice Built on Hatred and Bigotry, Was Justified.." [2], preceded by an equally thought-provoking, earlier article by him [3], which should make each and every member of the civil services, as well as all right-thinking citizens of this country, to understand and feel concerned at the long-term adverse implications of such a highly objectionable move on the part of the present government, that cuts at the root of the apolitical, secular role expected of the civil services in the country.

At the website of the RSS [4], one finds the statement, "Sangh-inspired institutions and movements today form a strong presence in social, cultural, educational, labour, developmental, political and other fields of nationalist endeavour". Now that the RSS has gained a strong presence in politics, does the latest order of the government represent the present political executive’s endeavour to extend such a presence among the country’s civil services also?

Sardar Vallabhai Patel, whose statue stands tall near Kevadia in Gujarat, symbolising the spirit of unity that characterizes our nation, in his address to young civil servants on April 21, 1947, emphasised in unambiguous words as follows, the need for civil servants to remain apolitical and independent:

"I would advise you to maintain the utmost impartiality and incorruptibility of administration. A civil servant cannot afford to, and must not, take part in politics. Nor must he involve himself in communal wrangles. To depart from the path of rectitude in either of these respects is to debase public service and to lower its dignity. Similarly, no Service worth the name can claim to exist if it does not have in view the achievement of the highest standard of integrity. Unhappily, India today cannot boast of an incorruptible Service, but I hope that you, who are now starting, as it were, a new generation of civil servants, will not be misled by the black sheep in the fold but would render your service without fear or favour and without any expectation of extraneous rewards"

I invite your attention to an appeal addressed by me earlier to Rashtrapatiji [5] pointing out the present state of governance in the country, seeking her urgent intervention:

"With almost all institutions brought to near-total submission, with almost every regulatory authority rendered subservient to the political executive, with investigating and enforcing agencies being weaponized against the opposition and with the Election Commission refusing to invoke its authority against the political executive when required, one perhaps has to hold a magnifying glass to detect the last strands of democracy left untouched by the political executive today. One can only hope that those few institutions which still carry a semblance of independence will survive long enough to resuscitate the failing democracy in India"

Are there any institutions still left in our country which carry a semblance of independence that can survive long enough to resuscitate the failing democracy in India?

Is the latest memo on civil servants a part of an orchestrated attempt of the political establishment today to politicise institutions one by one, systematically?

As the head of the civil services in the country, I wonder whether you have advised the political executive not to do anything that interferes with the political neutrality of the civil services, unless some senior members of the civil services at the Centre have themselves voluntarily chosen to toe the line of the political executive to further their self-interest!

The role of the civil services is far too important a matter for a political party in power to take such a summary, unilateral decision without a wider debate in the Parliament and among the public, as once civil services become politicised, without a firm commitment to the secular, democratic values of the Constitution, it may usher in a highly regressive system of governance that cannot evoke public credibility and trust, paving the way for fissures within the society.

I am circulating this letter widely to generate a discussion and a debate among the public at large, because it is the public to which any system of governance should remain accountable.

Yours sincerely,

E A S Sarma

Visakhapatnam

30th July 2024