Former bureaucrats demand PM Modi’s intervention amid growing communal tensions | Latest news India

A group of retired bureaucrats and diplomats wrote to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling for an interfaith meeting to be convened and reassuring the government’s determination to maintain community harmony and integration amid concerns over “extremely tense” relations between Hindus And Muslimsand to some extent Christian, over the past decade, which they say has left minority communities in “extreme anxiety and insecurity.”

Acknowledging that inter-communal relations have suffered blows several times in the past, including following the post-independence partition and the periodic riots that followed, the former senior officials said the incidents over the past decade years were “markedly different” and showed the “obvious partisan role” of many state governments and their administrative apparatus is “unprecedented.”

“In the recent past, there have been calls for boycott of Muslim business establishments and restaurants, non-renting of premises to Muslims and rampant bulldozing of Muslim houses at the behest of the chief ministers themselves- themselves, run by a ruthless local administration,” they said, citing media reports. 154,000 establishments were affected and thousands of people, mostly Muslims, found themselves homeless.

Sambhal violence

The letter comes amid communal tensions over the conduct of a probe into a Mughal-era mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal district following a local court order and ‘a request to investigate the famous 12th century dargah of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Rajasthan.

“The very idea that a mendicant saint, a fakir who was an integral part of the Sufi/bhakti movement unique to the Indian subcontinent and a model 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 attack on this particularly syncretic site is an attack on our civilizational heritage and perverts the very idea of ​​an inclusive India that you (Prime Minister Modi) seek to reinvigorate,” they added.

They said the aspiration of a developed Bharat cannot be realized amid such communal unrest and asked Prime Minister Modi to ensure that chief ministers and their administrations follow the letter of the law and the Constitution. “You (PM Modi) are the only person who can stop all illegal and pernicious activities,” the letter said.

“We urge you to reassure all Indians, especially 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 this letter. The copy will be updated when they do.