More than 100 former civil servants on Tuesday wrote an open letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, urging him to withdraw his...
More than 100 former civil servants on Tuesday wrote an open letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, urging him to withdraw his government’s “illegal and atrocious” anti-conversion law that intends to curb “love jihad”, The National Herald reported.
They said the ordinance was being used “as a stick to victimise” especially Muslim men, and women “who dare to exercise their freedom of choice”.
“Love jihad” is a term Hindu right-wing groups use to refer to an alleged conspiracy that Muslims are luring Hindu women into marrying them with the sole purpose of converting their brides to Islam. The term was recently given credence in Indian law after Uttar Pradesh brought in the ordinance, which purportedly attempts to punish coercion into religious conversion. In a month since the law was passed, the state government has made a spate of arrests, targeting Muslim men.
The former bureaucrats said that Uttar Pradesh had become the “epicentre of the politics of hate, division and bigotry” as Hindutva vigilante groups “were acting as a power unto themselves in intimidating innocent Indian citizens”. The institutions of governance, on the other hand, were “now steeped in communal poison”, they said.
The signatories of the letter include, former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and former...
