By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: In the series of open letters, after hate speeches delivered between December 17 and 19, two more were added on Wednesday.
In one, 273 prominent citizens condemned the call for genocide of Muslims. The second, written by 32 foreign service officers, called for “condemnation” of hate speeches in all forms.
These letters follow another written on December 31. Five former service chiefs were among those who wrote that one.
Retired bureaucrats, activists, professors, journalists and other prominent citizens said speeches and calls for violence made by Hindutva-oriented organisations is a violation of law and everything the Indian Constitution stands for.
They further criticised police and public authorities, accusing them of whitewashing the events.
“The idea of India as a constitutional democracy with fundamental rights and secularism as part of the basic structure of the Constitution will no longer have any meaning and India as we know it may cease to exist. The parallels with what happened in Nazi Germany are chilling: to remain silent or inactive in the face of such abominable speeches is to be complicit in crimes against humanity.”
The letter added, “We, citizens of India from various walks of life, condemn in unequivocal terms hate speeches and the call for genocide of Muslims made between December 17 and 19, 2021, in Haridwar. These speeches and appeals to kill a community were made by Hindutva-oriented organisations.”
The other letter signed by 32 former Indian Foreign Service officers, including ex-foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal and former ambassadors Veena Sikri and Lakshmi Puri, called for condemnation of hate speech in all forms, regardless of its religious, or ideological origin.
They expressed worry that critics have made it a habit to attack the Narendra Modi government over hate comments by any fringe organisation or element, noting that “double standards and selective condemnation raise doubts about motives.”
