Former bureaucrats seek PM Modi’s intervention amid rising communal tensions

A group of retired bureaucrats and diplomats have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting to convene an interfaith meeting and reassure the government’s resolve to maintain communal harmony and integration amid concerns over the “extremely strained” relations between Hindus and Muslims, and to an extent Christians, over the last decade which, according to them, has left the minority communities in “extreme anxiety and insecurity.”
Acknowledging that the relations between communities suffered blows on several occasions in the past, including the aftermath of the post-independence partition and periodic riots after that, the former senior officials said the incidents of the last ten years were “markedly different” and showed the “clear partisan role” of many of the state governments and their administrative machinery which is “unprecedented.”
“In the recent past there have been calls for boycotting Muslim business establishments and eateries, non-renting of premises to Muslims and unrestrained bulldozing of Muslim homes at the behest of Chief Ministers themselves led by a ruthless local administration,” they said citing media reports of 154,000 establishments being hit and lakhs of people, majority of them Muslims, rendered homeless.
The letter comes amid the communal tension over conducting a survey of a Mughal-era mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal district following a local court’s order and a demand for a survey of the famous 12th-century dargah of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Rajasthan’s Ajmer.
“The very thought that a mendicant Saint, a fakir who was an integral part of the Sufi/ Bhakti movement unique to the Indian sub-continent, and a paragon of compassion, tolerance and harmony could have destroyed any temple to assert his authority, is ridiculous,” the letter said.
They pointed out that several prime ministers, including Modi, had visited the site to pay homage to the saint’s message of peace and harmony. “An ideological assault on this uniquely syncretic site is an assault on our civilizational heritage and perverts the very idea of an inclusive India that you (PM Modi) seek to reinvigorate,” they added.
They said that the aspiration of a developed Bharat cannot proceed amid such communal disturbances and demanded PM Modi to ensure that chief ministers and the administrations under them adhere to the letter of the law and the Constitution. “You (PM Modi) are the only person who can bring a halt to all illegal, pernicious activities,” the letter said.
“We urge you to reassure all Indians, especially the minority communities that your Government will be firm in its resolve to maintain communal amity, harmony and integration,” they said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to respond to the letter. The copy will be updated when they do.