CIVIL SOCIETY: ENEMY OF THE STATE?

28 November 2021

Dear fellow citizens,

We are 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. As a group, we have no affiliation with any political party but believe in impartiality, neutrality and commitment to the Constitution of India.

A disturbing trend in the direction of the country’s governance has become discernible over the past few years. The foundational values of our republic and the cherished norms of governance, which we had taken as immutable, have been under the relentless assault of an arrogant, majoritarian state. The sacrosanct principles of secularism and human rights have come to acquire a pejorative sense. Civil society activists striving to defend these principles are subjected to arrest and indefinite detention under draconian laws that blot our statute book. The establishment does its best to discredit them as anti-national and foreign agents.

Civil society, a diverse mass of formal and informal groups pursuing their own interests, occupies the vast democratic space outside of government and business. As the locus of critique, contestation and negotiation, it is an important stakeholder in governance, as well as a force multiplier and partner in the project of meeting popular aspirations. But civil society is viewed through an adversarial prism today. Any entity, which dares to highlight deviations from the norms of Constitutional conduct, or question the arbitrary exercise of executive authority, runs the risk of being projected as a foreign agent and enemy of the people. At a systemic level, the financial viability of civil society organisations is being progressively undermined by tweaking the legal framework governing foreign contributions, deployment of corporate social responsibility funds and income tax exemptions.

Our anxiety with regard to the articulation of the state-civil society interface has been heightened in recent weeks by statements emanating from high dignitaries of the state. On the occasion of the Foundation Day of the National Human Rights Commission, its Chair, Justice (retd.) Arun Mishra, asserted that India’s creditable record on human rights was being tarnished at the behest of international forces. The Prime Minister, on his part, discerned a political agenda in what he felt was selective perception of human rights violation in certain incidents, while overlooking certain others. And quite shockingly, General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defence Staff, gave a fillip to the growing menace of vigilantism by endorsing the killing of persons believed to be terrorists by lynch mobs in Kashmir.

Taken together, these portents indicate a deliberate strategy to deny civil society the space and wherewithal for its operation. The contours of this strategy have now been revealed in the New Doval Doctrine propounded by the National Security Adviser (NSA).

Reviewing the passing out parade of IPS probationers at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad, Shri Ajit Doval proclaimed:

“The new frontiers of war, what you call the fourth- generation warfare, is the civil society. Wars have ceased to become an effective instrument for achieving political or military objectives. They are too expensive and unaffordable and, at the same time, there is uncertainty about their outcome. But it is the civil society that can be subverted, that can be suborned, that can be divided, that can be manipulated to hurt the interests of a nation. You are there to see that they stand fully protected.”

Instead of exhorting the IPS probationers to abide by the values enshrined in the Constitution to which they had sworn allegiance, the NSA stressed the primacy of the representatives of the people, and the laws framed by them.

It would be pertinent to recall here that the term “fourth-generation warfare” is normally employed in relation to a conflict where the state is fighting non-state actors, such as terror groups and insurgents. Civil society now finds itself placed in this company. Earlier, the term “Urban Naxal” was being used to denigrate individual human rights activists. Clearly, under the New Doval Doctrine, people like Father Stan Swamy would become the arch enemy of the Indian state and the prime concern and target of its security forces.

The NSA’s clarion call for an onslaught on a demonised civil society is of a piece with the narrative of hate targeting defenders of Constitutional values and human rights that is regularly purveyed by the high and mighty in the establishment.

The defining traits of the current dispensation are hubris and an utter disregard of democratic norms. These were manifest in the steamrolling of a discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act through Parliament, its linkage with the National Register of Citizens, and the ruthless suppression of the spontaneous protests that erupted in various parts of the country.

The same traits were in evidence in the enactment of a set of three farm laws without public debate, stakeholder consultations or endorsement by alliance partners, and the high-handed treatment accorded to the agitated farmers encamped at the gates of Delhi. Their heroic resistance over fourteen months elicited the choicest of epithets from the establishment. Dubbed variously as “Andolanjeevis” (professional agitators), “Left-wing extremists” and “Khalistanis”, they were accused of working at the behest of “Foreign Destructive Ideology”, in a bizarre word-play with the acronym FDI referring to Foreign Direct Investment. Electoral compulsions might have led the Prime Minister to announce the decision to repeal the hated laws, but the damage done to the nation’s polity and social fabric will be hard to repair.

Let us hope that the government will realize the pitfalls of demonising dissent and trying to suppress civil resistance by brute force. It is also hoped that the alumni of the National Police Academy, or indeed our security forces in general, will not be swayed by the NSA’s rhetoric and remember that their primary duty is to uphold Constitutional values, which override the will of the political executive. Even the laws framed by the legislatures have to be tested on the touchstone of constitutionality and accepted by the people. If this fundamental principle is not accepted, we may turn to the well-known satirical poem “The Solution”, written in a different context by the famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht, which concludes with the following words:

Would it not in that case be simpler
for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

SATYAMEVA JAYATE

(102 signatories, at pages 4-8 below)

	Anita Agnihotri	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Department of Social Justice Empowerment, GoI
	Salahuddin Ahmad	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan
	S.P. Ambrose	IAS (Retd.)	Former Additional Secretary, Ministry of Shipping & Transport, GoI
	Anand Arni	RAS (Retd.)	Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI
	Vappala Balachandran	IPS (Retd.)	Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI
	Gopalan Balagopal	IAS (Retd.)	Former Special Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
	Chandrashekhar Balakrishnan	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Coal, GoI
	T.K. Banerji	IAS (Retd.)	Former Member, Union Public Service Commission
	Sharad Behar	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh
	Aurobindo Behera	IAS (Retd.)	Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Odisha
	Madhu Bhaduri	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Portugal
	Meeran C Borwankar	IPS (Retd.)	Former DGP, Bureau of Police Research and Development, GoI
	Ravi Budhiraja	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, GoI
	Sundar Burra	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
	R. Chandramohan	IAS (Retd.)	Former Principal Secretary, Transport and Urban Development, Govt. of NCT of Delhi
	Rachel Chatterjee	IAS (Retd.)	Former Special Chief Secretary, Agriculture, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh
	Kalyani Chaudhuri	IAS (Retd.)	Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
	Gurjit Singh Cheema	IAS (Retd.)	Former Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Govt. of Punjab
	F.T.R. Colaso	IPS (Retd.)	Former Director General of Police, Govt. of Karnataka & former Director General of Police, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir
	Anna Dani	IAS (Retd.)	Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
	Surjit K. Das	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Uttarakhand
	Vibha Puri Das	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI
	P.R. Dasgupta	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chairman, Food Corporation of India, GoI
	Pradeep K. Deb	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Deptt. Of Sports, GoI
	Nitin Desai		Former Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, GoI
	M.G. Devasahayam	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Govt. of Haryana
	Sushil Dubey	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Sweden
	A.S. Dulat	IPS (Retd.)	Former OSD on Kashmir, Prime Minister’s Office, GoI
	K.P. Fabian	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Italy
	Prabhu Ghate	IAS (Retd.)	Former Addl. Director General, Department of Tourism, GoI
	Gourisankar Ghosh	IAS (Retd.)	Former Mission Director, National Drinking Water Mission, GoI
	Suresh K. Goel	IFS (Retd.)	Former Director General, Indian Council of Cultural Relations, GoI
	S. Gopal	IPS (Retd.)	Former Special Secretary, GoI
	S.K. Guha	IAS (Retd.)	Former Joint Secretary, Department of Women & Child Development, GoI
	H.S. Gujral	IFoS (Retd.)	Former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Govt. of Punjab
	Meena Gupta	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI
	Ravi Vira Gupta	IAS (Retd.)	Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India
	Wajahat Habibullah	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, GoI and former Chief Information Commissioner
	Deepa Hari	IRS (Resigned)
	Sajjad Hassan	IAS (Retd.)	Former Commissioner (Planning), Govt. of Manipur
	Kamal Jaswal	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GoI
	Brijesh Kumar	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GoI
	Ish Kumar	IPS (Retd.)	Former DGP (Vigilance & Enforcement), Govt. of Telangana and former Special Rapporteur, National Human Rights Commission
	Sudhir Kumar	IAS (Retd.)	Former Member, Central Administrative Tribunal
	Subodh Lal	IPoS (Resigned)	Former Deputy Director General, Ministry of Communications, GoI
	Harsh Mander	IAS (Retd.)	Govt. of Madhya Pradesh
	Amitabh Mathur	IPS (Retd.)	Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, GoI
	L.L. Mehrotra	IFS (Retd.)	Former Special Envoy to the Prime Minister and former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, GoI
	Aditi Mehta	IAS (Retd.)	Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan
	Shivshankar Menon	IFS (Retd.)	Former Foreign Secretary and Former National Security Adviser
	Sonalini Mirchandani	IFS (Resigned)	GoI
	Malay Mishra	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Hungary
	Sunil Mitra	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, GoI
	Noor Mohammad	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, National Disaster Management Authority, GoI
	Avinash Mohananey	IPS (Retd.)	Former Director General of Police, Govt. of Sikkim
	Satya Narayan Mohanty	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary General, National Human Rights Commission
	Deb Mukharji	IFS (Retd.)	Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh and former Ambassador to Nepal
	Shiv Shankar Mukherjee	IFS (Retd.)	Former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
	Gautam Mukhopadhaya	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Myanmar
	Pranab S. Mukhopadhyay	IAS (Retd.)	Former Director, Institute of Port Management, GoI
	Nagalsamy	IA&AS (Retd.)	Former Principal Accountant General, Tamil Nadu & Kerala
	Sobha Nambisan	IAS (Retd.)	Former Principal Secretary (Planning), Govt. of Karnataka
	P.A. Nazareth	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Egypt and Mexico
	P. Joy Oommen	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Chhattisgarh
	Amitabha Pande	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Inter-State Council, GoI
	Mira Pande	IAS (Retd.)	Former State Election Commissioner, West Bengal
	Maxwell Pereira	IPS (Retd.)	Former Joint Commissioner of Police, Delhi
	Alok Perti	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Ministry of Coal, GoI
	R. Poornalingam	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, GoI
	Rajesh Prasad	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to the Netherlands
	R.M. Premkumar	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra
	N.K. Raghupathy	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chairman, Staff Selection Commission, GoI
	V.P. Raja	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chairman, Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission
	K. Sujatha Rao	IAS (Retd.)	Former Health Secretary, GoI
	M.Y. Rao	IAS (Retd.)
	Prasadranjan Ray	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chairperson, West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission
	Satwant Reddy	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Chemicals and Petrochemicals, GoI
	Vijaya Latha Reddy	IFS (Retd.)	Former Deputy National Security Adviser, GoI
	Julio Ribeiro	IPS (Retd.)	Former Adviser to Governor of Punjab & former Ambassador to Romania
	Aruna Roy	IAS (Resigned)
	Manabendra N. Roy	IAS (Retd.)	Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
	A.K. Samanta	IPS (Retd.)	Former Director General of Police (Intelligence), Govt. of West Bengal
	Deepak Sanan	IAS (Retd.)	Former Principal Adviser (AR) to Chief Minister, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh
	G. Sankaran	IC&CES (Retd.)	Former President, Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal
	S. Satyabhama	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chairperson, National Seeds Corporation, GoI
	N.C. Saxena	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Planning Commission, GoI
	A. Selvaraj	IRS (Retd.)	Former Chief Commissioner, Income Tax, Chennai, GoI
	Ardhendu Sen	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of West Bengal
	Abhijit Sengupta	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, Ministry of Culture, GoI
	Aftab Seth	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Japan
	Ashok Kumar Sharma	IFoS (Retd.)	Former MD, State Forest Development Corporation, Govt. of Gujarat
	Ashok Kumar Sharma	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Finland and Estonia
	Navrekha Sharma	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Indonesia
	Raju Sharma	IAS (Retd.)	Former Member, Board of Revenue, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh
	Tara Ajai Singh	IAS (Retd.)	Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka
	Tirlochan Singh	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary, National Commission for Minorities, GoI
	Parveen Talha	IRS (Retd.)	Former Member, Union Public Service Commission
	P.S.S. Thomas	IAS (Retd.)	Former Secretary General, National Human Rights Commission
	Hindal Tyabji	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chief Secretary rank, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir
	Ashok Vajpeyi	IAS (Retd.)	Former Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi
	Ramani Venkatesan	IAS (Retd.)	Former Director General, YASHADA, Govt. of Maharashtra
	Rudi Warjri	IFS (Retd.)	Former Ambassador to Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica