Withdraw order allowing govt servants to join RSS: former civil servants' group

On 21 July, the Congress drew attention to a purported Union home ministry order dated 9 July, which claimed to have lifted a ban on government employees' active participation in activities of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the ideological mentor of the BJP. This would, of course, include civil servants too.

Matters were compounded when the BJP's IT department head Amit Malviya owned the directive, sharing a screenshot of the order in an X post and writing that an “unconstitutional” directive issued 58 years ago had been withdrawn by the Modi government.

On 30 August, 115 members of the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a civilian initiative comprising retired civil servants from across India, issued a statement condemning the ministry directive and demanding for it to be withdrawn, expressing “profound concern about the implications for secular democracy of the recent order of the union government to lift the decades old ban on civil servants becoming members of or participating in the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)”.

The CCG — whose members include former IAS, IPS, IFS, IFoS, IRS, and IRAS officers — has often issued statements or written letters highlighting areas of concern for the Union government. In April this year, weeks before the commencement of the Lok Sabha elections, the group had issued an open letter to the chief election commissioner pointing out a “disturbing pattern of harassment of Opposition leaders on the cusp of the polls”, calling into question the motivation of Central agencies.

In its latest statement, the CCG has said: “The paramount duty of civil administrators and the police is to defend and uphold the Constitution. This includes, centrally, the protection of the Constitutional rights — including of life, liberty and worship — of religious and caste minorities. For a fair discharge of these duties, civil servants must, at all times, demonstrate their humanism, impartiality and adherence to the values enshrined in the Constitution of India.” 

Pointing out that “caste, religion and gender continue to be critical fractures in Indian society”, the statement expresses “deep disquiet about this government order that allows government servants, who are tasked with defending secular democracy and minority rights, to openly declare their allegiance to an organisation that is ideologically opposed to both of these”.

The RSS was first banned in February 1948 by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Subsequently, the ban was withdrawn on assurances of good behaviour. On 30 November 1966, the Union government issued an order banning the association of all government servants with the RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami. However, various states, including Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, removed the restrictions on government employees associating with the RSS.

“The import of this government directive is that from now on, a district magistrate, a police officer, a secretary to government, a professor, a teacher or a government doctor, can be openly a member of or participate in the activities of an organisation which rejects the pluralist, secular core of the Indian Constitution. We also note with regret the recent statements of High Court judges on the cusp of retirement of their ideological affinity with the RSS as well as the unequivocal judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court upholding the lifting of the ban,” the statement reads.

The CCG statement also highlights the essentially political nature of the RSS, contradicting its claim of being a cultural organisation. “The goal of a Hindu Rashtra lies at the core of the ideology of the RSS, as articulated by its founders and leaders since its formation 99 years ago. This goal of a theocratic state in which people of some religious identities have lesser rights is in direct opposition to the principles and pledges of the Indian Constitution, which guarantee equal citizenship rights and freedoms to people of every faith and identity,” the statement reads.

It also says, “As former civil servants, we focus specifically on the import of this order on the civil services during communal or caste mass violence. In such times, the role of the district magistrate and the police leadership is decisive. If these public officers are free from religious and caste prejudices, if they are courageous, compassionate and fair, they can douse, in a matter of hours, the most fearsome fires of communal and caste savagery.

"But instead, if they buckle under illegal orders from their political superiors or, worse still, if they, too, are tainted by communal or caste bias, they would bear direct responsibility for the ensuing violence entailing the loss of innocent lives and livelihoods.”

As the statement says, “civil servants are servants first of the Constitution; and only after this, of the elected government under which they serve”.