Gujarat ban on staff joining RSS goes

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, JAN. 4. The BJP Government in Gujarat has amended the Gujarat Civil Servants Conduct Rules, lifting the ban on participation by Government employees in the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The Minister of State for Home, Mr. Haren Pandya, said that with the lifting of the ban, membership or volunteering to work for the RSS would no longer be treated as an act of indiscipline for these employees including police personnel.

He said the State Government had acted on the basis of a letter from the Union Home Ministry, quoting a report of the Unlawful Activity Prevention Tribunal. According to the letter of July 13, 1999, in response to a query from the State Government, the Tribunal in its report submitted to the Centre in 1993 had not found anything unlawful in the RSS activities, Mr. Pandya said.

The RSS as well as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Anand Marg, the All-India Muslim Majlis-E- Mushawarat, the Sati Pati Creed and the Mass Movement (Madhok faction) were among the 30 or so organisations in the list of the Centre participation in which were banned for the State and the Central Government employees. Mr. Pandya said the list was being revised by the Centre from time to time but there had been no review since 1986 when the existing list was last prepared.

Under the Central list, State Government employees were accordingly restricted from having any connection with the RSS and such other banned organisations under the Gujarat Civil Servants Conduct Rules, 1971. Since then, many of these organisations from time to time had been requesting the Centre for removing their names from the banned list, but no review of their activities had been taken up.

Justifying the State Government's decision, Mr. Pandya described the RSS as a ``patriotic, service-oriented, nation- building organisation'' and said it had ``proved its credentials''. The issue was discussed with the Centre before it was decided to amend the rules. The requests of many other such organisations were also under the Centre's consideration.

Gujarat was the first State to give freedom to its employees to become members or volunteered of the RSS. Though the request had come from several other organisations, at present it had only legitimised the RSS.

The decision comes in the wake of a scheduled three- day closed- door ``sankalp shibir'' of the state RSS on the outskirts of Ahmedabad from January 7 which is expected to be attended by about 25,000 volunteers.

The decision came in for flak from the Congress(I) and other organisations. Some senior Government officials also expressed apprehension. ``The most vulnerable groups could be the policemen and the Government teachers. If coloured by saffron and the RSS ideologues, the police may not be able to carry their duties impartially and the teachers may pass on the wrong ideology to the impressionable young minds,'' a Home Department official commented.

Cong.(I) threatens stir

The former Congress(I) Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Mr. Amarsinh Chaudhary, has threatened an agitation if the decision was not rescinded.

Another former Chief Minister, Mr. Shankarsinh Waghela, himself a former RSS card holder who merged his Rashtriya Janata Party with the Congress(I) last year, saw in the Government's decision the BJP's ``real agenda''. The BJP, he said, wanted to ``saffronise the whole country''.

The United Christian Forum for Human Rights convener, Fr. Cedric Prakash, felt that the lifting of the ban would further increase the insecurity felt by the minorities who already felt threatened under the BJP rule.

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