Ban on Government Employees being RSS members lifted in Gujarat

Date: 
Friday, January 7, 2000

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued the following statement:

While the BJP government at the centre has shabbily dealt with the plane hijacking episode without keeping in view the national interests, the state governments controlled by the party have taken certain steps during the last few days which once again demonstrate that, while all along professing that the BJP adheres to the NDA agenda, it has not really given up its own hidden agenda; rather it is doing everything possible to implement the same. The notification issued by the BJP government in Gujarat, which lifts the earlier ban on the state government employees to take part in RSS activities and allows them such participation, cannot be termed as anything but a move to infiltrate and communalise the whole administration in the state.

It will be noted that the central government has not reprimanded the Gujarat government on this score. On the contrary, by stating that the central ban on employees' participation in RSS activities remains, the BJP-led centre has only indirectly approved the state government's move.

On the other hand, during the just concluded four-day session of the state assembly and ignoring the opposition's protests, the BJP-led government of Uttar Pradesh has enacted a law, according to which from now onwards no place of worship can be constructed in the state without the prior permission of the state government. The move is clearly directed against the minority communities. The move, which is patently against the freedom of religion granted by the constitution, comes on top of the chief minister's recent directive to the state officialdom that they have to take note of what the RSS workers want them to do.

Another disturbing feature is the opinion expressed by the RSS chief, Professor Rajendra Singh, in the wake of the plane hijack episode. While castigating the way the BJP-led central government dealt with the issue, in an interview given to the RSS Hindi weekly Panchjanya, Professor Singh has unfortunately given the whole incident a Hindu-Muslim colour. He expressed the opinion that the Hindus as though behaved as cowards during the whole episode. He also sought to depict the problem of terrorism from a communal angle; according to him, it is the non-Hindu communities that are behind this menace.
The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) appeals to all the secular and democratic forces of the country to take note of these and similar moves of the BJP-led governments which pose a grave threat to national unity and the secular fabric of our polity and unitedly move to foil the BJP-RSS game.