Two Open Letters Accusing One Another Of Spreading Hate Crime

New Delhi, April 30: Four days after the Constitutional Conduct Group issued an open letter to the Prime Minister of India on the increasing communal violence incidents in the country, a counter open letter has been issued by a collective of former judges, bureaucrats and armed officers, accusing CCG for spreading politics of hate.

Several regions in India have reported communal incidents violence, especially against minorities in the past few months, which has raised criticism against the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party. In an open letter issued by the CCG on April 26th, it states the worrisome situation that has been created due to 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). The open letter has been signed by 108 retired bureaucrats.

The excerpt from the open letter states, "It is no longer just the politics of an assertive Hindutva identity, nor the attempt to keep the communal cauldron on the boil – all that has been going for decades and in the last few years had become a part of the new normal. What is alarming now is the subordination of the fundamental principles of our Constitution and of the rule of law to the forces of majoritarianism, in which the state appears to be fully complicit."

Condemning the "deafening silence" of India's P.M over the increase in communal violence incidents, the CCG letter further says" Prime Minister, we, the members of the Constitutional Conduct Group – all of us are former civil servants who have spent decades in the service of the Constitution – 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."

On Saturday, a counter open letter has been issued by 197 signatories which includes former judges, bureaucrats and armed officers who have called upon for condemnation the sordid manipulations of the vested interests (of CCG) and "urge all right-thinking citizens to expose them to preserve the unity and integrity of our great nation."

The pro-Modi collective has stated in its open letter that CCG's ""anger and anguish" is not only empty virtue-signaling, they are actually fueling the politics of hate that they seek to combat by attempting to engineer hate against the present government with their patent prejudices and false portrayals."

According to the signatories in the counter open letter, instances of "major communal violence" have palpably decreased under the BJP government. It further alleges that decrease in incidents of serious communal violence has instigated groups like the CCG to highlight beyond proportion sporadic instances of communal violence that no society can entirely eradicate.

"The so-called intellectuals, the same set of retired civil servants and their backend international lobbies seek to capitalize on this narrative to create political and social fissures in India and weaken the country from within on the pretext that they are serving some higher constitutional cause, when they are serving their own egos," the counter open letter mentions.

On one hand the counter open letter has said that constructive criticism is an essential feature of democracy provided such criticism is not selective. The letter has been signed by eight former judges, 97 retired bureaucrats and 92 armed forces veterans supporting P.M Narendra Modi and his party.

"If the CCG is genuinely concerned about the people and the nation its members should free themselves from their personal biases and propose viable solutions rather than spread fear and falsehoods, seeking to fan the flames of religion based separatism and even balkanization," the letter states.