As many as 108 former bureaucrats have written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to end the politics of hate in the country

New Delhi: As many as 108 former bureaucrats have written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to end the politics of hate in the country.

In the letter, the signatories said the country is witnessing a frenzy of hate-filled destructions where at the sacrificial altar are not just Muslims and members of the other minority communities, but the Constitution itself.

Former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, ex-Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh, former Home Secretary G.K. Pillai and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Principal Secretary T.K.A. Nair were among the prominent names who signed the letter.

“As former civil servants, it is not normally our want to express ourselves in such extreme terms, but the relentless pace at which the constitutional edifice created by our founding fathers is being destroyed compels us to speak out and express our anger and anguish,” the letter read.

They also said that the escalation of hate violence against the minority communities, particularly Muslims, in the last few years in many BJP-ruled states such as Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand has acquired a scary new dimension.

Urging the Prime Minister, the letter said, “We appeal to your conscience, taking heart from your promise of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas‘.”

“It is our fond hope that in this year of ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav‘, rising above partisan considerations, you will call for an end to the politics of hate that governments under your party’s control are so assiduously practising.”

The former bureaucrats said they believe that the threat is unprecedented and at stake is not just constitutional morality and conduct, it is 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”.

“Your silence, in the face of this enormous societal threat, is deafening,” the letter said.