What are the implications for secular democracy of the recent decision of the union government to lift the decades-old ban on civil servants and judges joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh?

This is the subject of the latest episode of Yeh Daag Daag Ujala, the Karwan e Mohabbat series with Scroll of discussions on the state of the Indian republic.

Ashok Sharma, retired diplomat andambassador to Kazakhstan and Finland; Nilanjan Mukhopadhya, writer and journalist with particular interest in Hindutva nationalism and writer of a definitive biography of Narendra Modi and on the icons of the RSS; and Akshaya Mukul, journalist turned writer, researcher, scholar and author of the milestone Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India; discussed this with Harsh Mander, peace and justice worker and writer.

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The discussion reflected on the true nature of the RSS, and its myriad associated formations, which we call the Sangh Parivar. All agreed that the official defence of this decision with the claim that the RSS is a cultural and not a political organisation is a brazen falsehood.

The panellists underlined the paramount duties of civil administrators, the police and the judiciary to defend the constitutional rights – including of life, property and worship – of religious and caste minorities. This entails an intensely humanist fairness and a steadfast adherence to the constitution.

Recognising that caste, religion, gender are critical fractures of Indian society, the participants expressed deep disquiet at the government order that allows officials and judges who are tasked with defending secular democracy and minority rights to openly declare their allegiance to an organisation that is avowedly opposed to both of these.

The name of Karwan e Mohabbat’s Yeh Daag Daag Ujala series is a tribute to the iconic poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.