In a statement issued on Sunday, August 6, the CCG, a group of former civil servants firmly committed to the Constitution of India, and not affiliated to any political party has also demanded that immediate steps are taken.

The detailed statement highlights the dereliction of their fundamental duty by the Manipur state government and the state police in protecting the life and property of their citizens. This has created the conditions for a complete breakdown of law and order, with a deliberately orchestrated and targeted carnage that has included large scale arson, lynching, collective rape, vandalism, looting, mob violence and obstruction of central security forces from carrying out their duties, followed by armed attacks and retaliation by both communities. These atrocities have taken place under a double-edged internet ban, lifted only partially on July 25, that has prevented their horror and scale from coming out earlier, while also providing grist to rumour-mongering and spread of fake news.

The statement says that this total failure of the state has allowed the raiding of police armouries by perpetrators of the violence, reportedly resulting in around 4,500 weapons of varying sophistication and an estimated 5 lakh rounds of ammunition being looted, which is continuing even to the present day. Such looting is unimaginable and without precedent anywhere in India.

Therefore, the CCG has urged the Government of India to take the following actions at the earliest:

1) Impose President’s Rule in Manipur and appoint, as Advisers to the Governor, experienced former administrators and police officers who have knowledge of the region and can empathetically interact with the local populace. Every effort should be made to restore the trust of all sections of the citizenry in the local administration.

2) Provide relief and rehabilitation measures as well as compensation to affected individuals/families in a nonpartisan manner, with the aim of bringing back normalcy at the earliest.

3) Take severe punitive action against individuals and groups intent on fomenting unrest, including bringing to justice all the instigators and perpetrators of incidents of violence since the beginning of May, firmly checking hate speech, rounding up looted arms and ammunition and putting an end to offensive attacks against other communities. The message needs to firmly go out that no attempt by any non-state organisation to take the law into its hands will be tolerated.

 The statement urges that the Government of India as well as other stakeholders not to let issues of prestige and political expediency inform actions, when the imperatives of both internal peace and external security warrant mature responses.

The CCG states that what lends credence to the charge of the Chief Minister, N. Biren Singh, being partisan in his approach to tackling the tragedy is his demonisation and targeting of one community as ‘illegal migrants’, ‘poppy cultivators’, ‘encroachers’, ‘narco-terrorists’ and ‘terrorists’.

These “dog whistles”, which tend to smear an entire community, have served to excite the passions of the majority community to which the Chief Minister belongs. A high constitutional functionary, like the Chief Minister, is expected to restore the rule of law and take steps to cool inflamed passions, rather than stoke them further.

The failure to take strong action against militant organisations of the Meitei community, the Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, which openly issue threats of “annihilation” and “blowing up”  of the tribal Kuki-Zo minority, or the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), which advocates a “Manipuri national war against Chin-Kuki narco-terrorism” and the arming of civilians, only seems to confirm fears about the partisan approach of the state administration; the same applies to the approach of the law enforcement authorities of Manipur state to the aggressive actions of the Meira Paibis, which include their preventing the army from apprehending those engaged in violent activities.

What causes us even deeper anguish, as former civil servants who have dealt with surcharged law and order situations in the course of our careers, has been the largely passive role that the union government has played in this entire imbroglio.

The statement says that what was required at the very onset of the violence in May 2023 was the imposition of President’s Rule, given the abject failure of the state government to function in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. However, instead of invoking Article 356 of the Constitution to impose President’s Rule, a Security Adviser to the state and a new Director General of Police from the cadre of a neighbouring state were appointed, and a Unified Command constituted, all reporting to the Government of Manipur, headed by the Chief Minister. Apart from the visit to Manipur by the Union Home Minister end May-early June 2023, when he met with different sections of society, there has been no active political involvement of the centre in establishing peace between the opposing communities.

The union government also lost a golden opportunity to involve the opposition parties in trying to arrive at a political solution to the problem. Political expediency has won out: we are witness to the spectacle of a non-functioning parliament at a time of crisis, with the Prime Minister making no statement in Parliament on the Manipur crisis, which would enable the initiation of a dialogue on the issue.

Unconcern of the union government on sexual violence

The statement says what is even more appalling at the approach of the union government to the ghastly events of the stripping and parading naked of two women, the alleged gangrape of one of them and the murder of two male members, all of the same family, on May 4. While expressing his outrage over the incident, outside Parliament rather than on the floor of either House, the Prime Minister seemed to draw an equivalence between this incident in Manipur and other incidents in states like Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, though the incidents are not at all comparable. There was no explanation of how the Modi government and the Manipur state government were blissfully unaware of this heinous incident despite the filing of an FIR over two months ago.

The statement, once more, states that it would like to bring to the union government’s notice that the May 4 incident (along with other such similar incidents of sexual violence against women during the last three months in Manipur) represent the disgraceful phenomenon of Conflict Related Sexual Violence. The intent of the perpetrators of this violence and their instigators is to use womens’ bodies for signalling dominance. Failure to nip such perverted tendencies in the bud can lead to escalation in conflict and make reconciliation difficult.

While the Union Home Minister, during his visit to Manipur, announced the setting up of a panel headed by a retired High Court judge to investigate the reasons for the violence and to identify those behind the violence, this will not suffice to heal the wounds that have been caused by the ongoing violence and the severe trust deficit between the two communities, as well as the lack of confidence of the minority Kuki community in the impartial conduct of the state government and its police force. The nonpartisan and positive role played by the army, the Assam Rifles and central paramilitary forces, which has been appreciated, indicates that there is need to continue with the deployment of these forces in the buffer zones between the two communities, to forestall offensive attacks .

The immediate priority is to provide a healing touch to the affected persons of both communities. The lethargic relief measures taken by the state government have been very inadequate. Effective relief and rehabilitation measures as well as adequate compensation need to be provided to all affected individuals/families to enable them to rebuild their lives.

These should include:

(i)   providing suitable shelters to the affected, either in public buildings or in requisitioned private premises, with proper hygiene and security, for as long as a return to their homes is not feasible;

(ii)   providing free food supplies for those in the relief camps and free PDS rations for internally displaced people residing elsewhere ;

(iii)   starting MNREGA works that could provide income to those affected;

(iv)   providing childcare, health, trauma care and education services that would meet the needs of those in the relief camps, especially mothers and children, including newborns

(v)  in the medium term, providing assistance for rebuilding damaged houses and other public premises.

Finally, the statement concludes by saying that the underlying causes of the ongoing mayhem in Manipur need to be objectively identified and addressed within the bounds of constitutional parameters. Unsubstantiated charges and dangerous brinkmanship by all parties, and grave disruptions of the social fabric of Manipur, as well as sustained violence, could resonate and spill over not only into neighbouring states but also across international borders, where ethnic bonds exist. This would be a recipe for unimaginable strife which will not leave the rest of India unscathed.

Constitutional Conduct Group (113 signatories, below)

Related:

Manipur: Mass burial of Kuki victims deferred after MHA request, Zomarthanga intervention 

Schisms & divides among communities need resolution, mature peacebuilding need of the hour: Manipur

Behind the violence, strip-mining hills and forests for minerals: Manipur

SC on Manipur violence: “What stood in the way of police registering the FIR immediately on May 4?”

“246 churches burnt in 2 day, somebody strong is playing games in Manipur”: Father Jacob G Palackappilly

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“The bedrock of all civil services in any democracy worth the name is their independence, neutrality, non-adherence to any political ideology in the discharge of official duties, the freedom to articulate their views to the political executive and the security of knowing that they would not be subjected to arbitrary actions for adhering to these values.

“These foundational characteristics had been forcefully expressed by Sardar Patel in his address to the Constituent Assembly in October 1947 in the following words:

“There is no alternative to this administrative system…The Union will go, you will not have a united India if you do not have a good All India Service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has the sense of security that you will stand by your work…If you do not follow this course, then do not follow the present Constitution…Remove them and I see nothing but a picture of chaos all over the country.”

“Contrary to the above exhortation, we fear that the government, of which you are the constitutional head, is now attempting to distort this basic framework and historical understanding.  

Further,  measures are being taken that threaten the unique federal design of the IAS and the IPS, which underlies Sardar Patel’s vision of a permanent civil service that would  both bind the country together and enable it to maintain a balance between the interests of the Union and the interests of the States. There are noticeable attempts to pressurise officers to show exclusive loyalty to the Union rather than to the ‘parent’ state cadre to which they are allotted. On occasion, arbitrary departmental actions have been taken against those who refuse to do so. Service Rules are sought to be amended to compel central deputations without the consent of either the officers concerned or their state governments, effectively undermining the authority and control of Chief Ministers over their officers. This has disturbed the federal balance and left civil servants torn between conflicting loyalties, thereby weakening their ability to be impartial.

“In the past governments have permitted lateral recruitment at senior levels and many such officers have distinguished themselves. Lately, however, there has been opacity in the recruitment process at mid-levels and concerns that candidates are being chosen based on their ideological predilections. The consequences of this for the future of an independent civil service requires no comment.  

The CCG has also flagged certain concerning statements by high functionaries.

“The actions and words of some very senior functionaries of the central government increases our concern on the future of the civil service and the consequent danger to democracy in India.

“In this context we would like to mention that the National Security Advisor (NSA), while addressing IPS officers at their passing out function in 2021, had emphasised that they should treat civil society as the “fourth  generation of warfare, that can be subverted, suborned, divided and manipulated to hurt the interests of the nation”.  Such sentiments are antithetical to any democratic dispensation and aim at placing civil society in a position of conflict with the state.

“On the April 21, this year, the Prime Minister addressed a gathering of civil service officers on Civil Services Day. The address was unremarkable and comprised largely of a litany of the achievements of the present government over the past nine years, with a proforma acknowledgement of the contributions of the civil services. What was disturbing was his exhortation to the officers to be firm in dealing with malfeasance of political parties while in power. Though couched neutrally, the intent and objective were unmistakable.”

The bureaucrats have stated that their “concern about the future of the civil services is heightened by the reaction of some civil servants.

“The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie (LBSNAA) is the foundational training institute for All India Services and Central Services. In a recent op-ed, the Director of the LBSNAA wrote, “The task of defining an Indian ethos for the civil servants began in the 75^th year of India’s independence, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address where he spelt out the country’s vision….”. Such unwarranted encomiums to the Prime Minister, by the Director of the premier academy for training future civil servants, are deeply disturbing.”

The group states further that they” apprehend that moves are afoot to redact Sardar Patel’s vision of an independent and apolitical civil service and replace it with apparatchiks and foot soldiers whose loyalty shall be to the ruling party and not to the Constitution of India. “

Who is the CCG?

The CCG is a group of former civil servants of the All India and Central Services who have worked with the Central and State Governments in the course of our careers. Both as individuals and as a group, we believe in impartiality, neutrality and commitment to the Constitution of India. We do not owe allegiance to any political party.

At a time when politics is leaning dangerously towards a centralised, authoritarian, national security state with a leadership  seemingly amenable to abandoning, without demur, the fundamental principles on which our Constitution is based, it has become critical for citizens to ensure that institutions and systems like the civil services which can check this frightening erosion of constitutional values in the manner envisaged by the great Sardar are protected and strengthened. By virtue of their allegiance to the Constitution and not the government of the day, the All India Services, particularly the IAS and IPS, have a critical role to play. As the Constitutional Head of the Republic, we appeal to you to convey our concerns to the Union Government and caution them that this attempt to change the character of the civil services is fraught with extreme danger and, as Sardar Patel had warned many years ago, will spell the death of constitutional government in India.

Constitutional Conduct Group (82 signatories, as below)

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New Delhi: Former Mumbai police commissioner Julio Ribeiro, former chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah and 41 other retired bureaucrats have demanded that Union minister Jayant Sinha be sacked for felicitating eight convicts in a lynching case.
 
Minister and member of parliament for BJP from the Hazaribagh seat, Jayant Sinha had recently felicitated and garlanded eight convicts that were released from the prison on bail last week.
 
On June 29 last year, meat trader Alimuddin Ansari was beaten to death by a mob in Bazaar Tand area under Ramgarh police station on suspicion that he was carrying beef in his car.
 
In a public statement, the former civil servants said the message Sinha’s action sends out is that “there is a license to kill minorities” and people accused of such crimes will be “enthusiastically supported financially, legally and politically.”
 
Sinha had expressed happiness over the release of the convicts after being granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court recently, and garlanded and offered them sweets.
 
In the past, the former bureaucrats said, when there were protests against partisan support for such revolting actions, the central government “conveniently used the fig leaf” of constitutional separation of powers to argue that the locus standi lay with states, despite most of these states being ruled by the same party which was in power at the centre.
 
“Now that a Union minister has openly questioned a criminal case where his own party government in the state had, admirably in our opinion, prosecuted and brought to justice the accused, we would like to know what stand the Government of India proposes to take. We demand the immediate resignation/removal of Shri Jayant Sinha from the Council of Ministers and an apology to the people of India from the party he represents for brazenly sympathising with those convicted of murder,” they said.
 
They also said that they were shattered that such a message came from the Union Minister and were afraid of the message it sends to public servants protecting life and liberty.
 
A fast-track court on March 21 sentenced the 11 convicts to life imprisonment. Eight of the 11 convicts were granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court on June 29 this year. Two are in Hazaribag Central Jail and a juvenile is in a correction home. Another convict secured bail on July 4.
 
The full text of the statement is reproduced below:
 
Our group of retired civil servants has, over the past year, drawn the attention of the powers that be, particularly the Government of India, to the promotion of an environment that encourages violence, in both word and deed. Apart from reckless utterances at election times aimed at fostering a feeling of hate and enmity in the majority community about the ‘other’, a number of other specific instances have highlighted the horrifying apathy, if not implicit support, of various governments, at the central and state levels, to vigilante violence directed against individuals of specific communities. But what has been even more mind-numbing has been the open challenge to the rule of law by those entrusted with its protection.
 
The latest happening at Hazaribagh has been especially shattering for our group, coming as it did from a member of the Union Council of Ministers. Those convicted of the brutal lynching last year at Ramgarh (Jharkhand) are entitled to the due process of law, including getting bail pending a decision of the High Court on their conviction. It was, however, most unseemly of the Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Shri Jayant Sinha, to felicitate the convicts as though they were some revolutionaries in a freedom struggle. His subsequent feeble justifications on social media do not hold water. If he genuinely felt that the law should take its course, prudence (if not humanity) dictated that he should have been circumspect in his actions. We strongly condemn his action, which amounts to showing contempt for the rule of law and the Constitution of India, which he is duty bound to uphold.
 
The latest episode comes on the heels of repeated incidents which highlight the contempt which representatives of the ruling party and their followers have for the rule of law. Whether it is the act of a Union Minister draping the body of a riot accused in the national tricolour, the instigation by ruling party ministers of Jammu & Kashmir in the Kathua rape case or the efforts to subvert due process of law in the brutal Rajsamand murder case, all such cases only indicate a majoritarian mindset that believes it is entitled to use the law to meet its own narrow ends. The larger and chilling message that Shri Sinha’s action sends out is that there is a license to kill minorities and that those who are accused of such crimes will be enthusiastically supported financially, legally and politically.
 
In the past, when there were protests against partisan support for such revolting actions, the central government conveniently used the fig leaf of constitutional separation of powers to argue that the locus standi lay with the concerned states, despite most of these states being ruled by the same party which was in power at the centre. Now that a Union Minister has openly questioned a criminal case where his own party government in the state had, admirably in our opinion, prosecuted and brought to justice the accused, we would like to know what stand the Government of India proposes to take.
 
We demand the immediate resignation/removal of Shri Jayant Sinha from the Union Council of Ministers and an apology to the people of India from the party he represents for brazenly sympathizing with those convicted of murder. We also urge our colleagues in the civil services to firmly adhere to the rule of law and not be intimidated by the actions of powerful and influential groups which seek to spread the poison of disharmony and enmity in our multicultural society.
 
1. Salahuddin Ahmad IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan
2. G. Balachandhran IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal 
3. Vappala Balachandran IPS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI
4. Gopalan Balagopal IAS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary,  Govt. of West Bengal
5. Chandrashekhar Balakrishnan IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Coal, GoI
6. Dr. Pradip Bhattacharya IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
7. Meeran C Borwankar IPS (Retd.) Former DGP, Bureau of  Police Research and Development, GoI
8. Sundar Burra IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
9. Kalyani Chaudhuri IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
10. Anna Dani IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
11. Vibha Puri Das IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI
12. Nareshwar Dayal IFS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
13. Keshav Desiraju IAS (Retd.) Former Health Secretary, GoI
14. M.G. Devasahayam IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Govt. of Haryana
15. Sushil Dubey IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to Sweden
16. Tuktuk Ghosh IAS (Retd.) Former Special Secretary and Financial Adviser, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Shipping & Tourism, GoI
17. Meena Gupta IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI
18. Ravi Vira Gupta IAS (Retd.) Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India
19. Wajahat Habibullah IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, GoI and Chief Information Commissioner
20. Sajjad Hassan IAS (Retd.) Former Commissioner (Planning), Govt. of Manipur
21. Dr. M.A. Ibrahimi IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary (rank), Govt. of Bihar
22. Kamal Jaswal IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GoI
23. Ajai Kumar Indian Forest Service (Retd.) Former Director, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI
24. Arun Kumar IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, GoI
25. Brijesh Kumar IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary,  Department of Information Technology, GoI 
26. Harsh Mander IAS (Retd.) Govt. of Madhya Pradesh 
27. Lalit Mathur IAS (Retd.) Former Director General, National Institute of Rural Development, GoI
28. Aditi Mehta IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan
29. Sonalini Mirchandani IFS (Resigned) GoI
30. Deb Mukharji IFS (Retd.) Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh and Ambassador to Nepal
31. Nagalswamy IA&AS (Retd.) Former Principal Accountant General, Tamil Nadu & Kerala
32. Sobha Nambisan IAS (Retd.) Former Principal Secretary (Planning), Govt. of Karnataka
33. Amitabha Pande IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Inter-State  Council, GoI
34. Niranjan Pant IA&AS (Retd.) Former Deputy Comptroller &  Auditor General of India
35. Alok Perti IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of  Coal, GoI
36. T.R. Raghunandan IAS (Retd.) Former Joint Secretary,  Ministry of Panchayati Raj, GoI
37. N.K. Raghupathy IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Staff  Selection Commission, GoI
38. M.Y. Rao IAS (Retd.) 
39. Julio Ribeiro IPS (Retd.) Former Adviser to Governor of Punjab & Ambassador to Romania
40. Aruna Roy IAS (Resigned) 
41. Manabendra N. Roy IAS (Retd.) Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
42. Deepak Sanan IAS (Retd.) Former Principal Adviser (AR) to Chief Minister, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh
43. Umrao Salodia IAS (Retd.) Former Chairman, Rajasthan Road Transport Corporation, Govt. of Rajasthan
44. N.C. Saxena IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Planning Commission, GoI
45. Ardhendu Sen IAS (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
46. Abhijit Sengupta IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI
47. Aftab Seth IFS (Retd.) Former Ambassador to  Japan
48. Raju Sharma IAS (Retd.) Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh
49. Jawhar Sircar IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI, & CEO, Prasar Bharati
50. Ramani Venkatesan IAS (Retd.) Former Director General,
 
YASHADA, Govt. of Maharashtra

With inputs from PTI
 

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