Integrity and Ethics in the Civil Service

Dr M N Buch 

(Visiting Fellow, VIF)

In order to understand the topic of this paper perhaps it would be best to have clearly before us the definition of the issues we are addressing. For this purpose resort was had to the new Oxford Dictionary of English. There are four words whose definition I sought and they are ethics, integrity, honest and moral. The dictionary definitions are as under:

1. Ethics – Moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conduct of an activity.
2. Integrity – The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles
3. Honest – Free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere
4. Moral – Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour

It might be noticed that none of these four words mention legal, lawful, according to rules, etc. All four relate to a person’s own principles, his respect for truth and his own innate judgment of his own conduct which keeps him on the path of right behaviour. He is expected to do this regardless of what the law says, out of his own conviction and free of the pressure of either his peers or his superiors watching him and then pulling him up for wrongful behaviour. Ethics and integrity, therefore, have to come from within and cannot be superimposed. To help a person to behave ethically we have laws, codes of conduct, systems of checks and a standard of what is acceptable to society, but these by themselves cannot create morality, uprightness, honesty or ethical behaviour. That has to come from within the individual.

In discovering ethics where does the theory of the Social Contract, whether as enunciated by Thomas Hobbes or proclaimed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, stand? Is man by nature ethical or do circumstances make him ethical? Hobbes had a very poor opinion of the state of nature. According to Hobbes unless there was a coercive power to ensure the basic security upon which political, sociable, civilised life depends, there would be, “… no place for Industry…; no Navigation…; no Arts; no Letters; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. In other words, without strong government there would be virtually the law of the jungle and life would be worthless.

Rousseau, on the other hand, was a humanist. He recognised that man was no longer living in an absolute state of nature and, therefore, we do need civil society in order to create a social contract. This is how he puts it, “The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does man, who so far had concerned only himself, find that he is forced to act on different principles and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations”. (Discourses on the Arts and Sciences). This is followed up by his most famous pronouncement as given in his article, Discourse on Political Economy. The opening lines of the treatise are, “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they”. Rousseau was the philosopher of the democratic state and Hobbes of the authoritarian state. In both, however, there is an underlying streak of similarity in that both recognise that orderliness in society is vital and the bounds which, by giving freedom of action and thought, also prescribe the limits whereby the exercise of one man’s freedom does not impinge on the freedom of someone else, are of the essence. This, then, is the real social contract and in a democracy this is the contract according to which the State must exist and its servants must function. In other words, together with ethics which guide the conduct of every civil servant there is also the social contract which binds civil society, of which the officials are both the servants and functionaries.

In 1957, that is, just ten years after India became independent I joined the Indian Administrative Service and became both a part of civil society and a functionary whose job was to ensure that society remained civil. If we adopt the reductio ad absurdum method of deducing what is expected of a civil servant we would come to the following conclusions.

1. An unrepentant and unreformed criminal cannot provide us with a crime free society.
2. We must have the Magistracy and the Police to ensure law and order, prevent, detect and prosecute crimes and to create an environment of security in which citizens can go about their lawful business peacefully.
3. If a criminal cannot ensure law and order and freedom from crime and this duty devolves on the Police, then by definition the Police has to be a servant of the law and because most laws are based on sound moral principles, a policeman cannot afford to behave dishonestly, immorally, without integrity and ethics which, therefore, are built into the police and into every individual policeman. Ethics and integrity, therefore, should be as natural to a policeman as is breathing.
4. A democratic state is required to function justly and to ensure to its citizens good government, equal protection of laws and to establish a social order which promotes their welfare. The Preamble to the Constitution which states that the republic will provide social, economic and political justice, the liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, equality of status and opportunity and promote fraternity mandates that the State and its functionaries will act with integrity and ethics because a dishonest or unethical State or civil servant cannot promote any of the basic principles laid down in the Preamble. Article 14 mandates equality before law and equal protection of laws within the territory of India. This equality is not restricted to Indian citizens only and would be enjoyed by every single person residing within the territory of India. How can an unethical State functionary ensure equality? Article 38 of the Constitution requires the State to secure a social order for the promotion of welfare of the people. Immoral behaviour by public servants will invariably be inimical to the welfare of the people and, therefore, Article 38 makes it mandatory for public servants to behave ethically. I have referred to these three provisions of the Constitution especially because according to me the Constitution demands that there will be ethical behaviour and total integrity on the part of public servants.

The scheme of government in India is that the Constitution provides for separation of the three constituents of the Indian State, the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. These organs do not operate in a vacuum or in watertight compartments and obviously there is interaction at different levels. However, this is not an essay on separation of powers and I shall leave aside that argument here. The organ of the State which interacts on a day-today basis with the citizens is the Executive. There is the President in whom all executive powers vest, but who is required to exercise this power through officers subordinate to him and, in exercising these powers, he is constitutionally required to go by the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers consists of Members of Parliament appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister and constitutionally the Council is collectively responsible to the House of the People. India being a representative democracy, Parliament represents all the people of India and because the Council of Ministers is accountable to the House of the People its members are, through Parliament, accountable to all the citizens of India. In other words, the Ministers, too, are bound to respect the social contract in which civil society appoints them and they, in turn, serve the civil society with integrity. The civil servants, who help the President to exercise executive power on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, are also expected to adhere to the same code of ethics and of integrity as would be applicable to a Minister, only more so. The Council takes policy decisions on the basis of the mandate of the electorate, the ideology of the party to which its member belongs and the programme given by the party in its manifesto at the time of the election, subject to such decisions being within the framework of law. There will be political bias in such decision making, but that has to terminate at the level of policy. Implementation is the responsibility of the civil servants and they are totally precluded from allowing any political bias to qualify their judgement when implementing policy. Article 14 of the Constitution specifically prohibits civil servants from denying equality to any citizen and, therefore, in implementation of policy the civil servant is required to be totally fair and without prejudice. He will be guided by the policy, by the law, by the rules and by his much higher accountability to the principles of integrity and ethical behaviour.

I served the Indian Administrative Service for twenty-eight years and I left eight years before my date of superannuation. I left the Service on an issue where I totally disagreed with the Chief Minister because I was convinced that he wanted me to do something which was contrary to law and I, therefore, appreciate the kind of pressure put on civil servants to do things which a politician feels would be beneficial to him, even though it is ethically wrong and legally untenable. After all we are living in an environment in which after 1967 defections were engineered through bribery in order to gain power. This has corrupted our polity almost beyond repair, in which the politician tries to subvert the State in order to get the money to buy and retain power and, for this purpose, to tame the civil servants first into submission and then into acting as the provider of illicit funds. Civil servants who resist this are side-tracked, browbeaten, humiliated and worse and it becomes difficult for them to resist or to follow a higher code of ethics. Many civil servants have succumbed and there are several who have both become willing partners and the instigators of corrupt practices which would benefit both the politician and the civil servant. This is in an unenviable situation for civil servants who are under pressure to do things which are neither honest nor ethical. Prior to 1967 it was easy for us to practice both honesty and ethics because the politicians would not pressurise us to do something which they knew we would not do and had they done so, we ourselves would reject that which was unacceptable. After 1967 the politician has not listened to either to the voice of reason or to the voice of morality. Does that release civil servants from their bounden duty to follow the principles of integrity and ethics?

When I am in doubt I refer to the Constitution, a practice I would commend to all civil servants. Because Articles 53 and 154 vest the executive power of the Union and the States in the President and the Governor respectively because the power is required to be exercised by the officers subordinate to the President or the Governor and because these officers together constitute the Civil Service, the Executive is divided into two equal parts. The first consists of the Council of Ministers who are elected members of the Legislature and on whose aid and advice the President or Governor would be required to take executive decisions. This part of the Executive, the Council of Ministers, would be the elected executive. Because the elected Executive is required to function through civil servants the Civil Service would be the permanent part of the Executive. This part of the Executive does not exist at the mercy of the political executive. Part XIV of the Constitution provides for the Civil Services, including recruitment through the Public Service Commission, guarantees against arbitrariness under Article 311 and the very special provisions under Article 312 for All India Services appointed by the President, under the ultimate rule making control of the Central Government but constituted into State Cadres for serving both the Centre and the State at senior levels. The permanent part of the Executive, therefore, has an independent existence under constitutional guarantee and, therefore, the Civil Service is not permitted to quote the orders of superiors as an excuse for wrongdoing. After Second World War during the Nuremberg Trials the War Crimes Tribunal ruled that there was a higher ethical responsibility which required public servants to disobey orders which were crimes against humanity and, therefore, the orders of superiors could not be offered as justification for war crimes. This principle is actually enshrined in our Constitution because it is the only Constitution in the world which provides this kind of protection to the Civil Service. No other Constitution has the equivalent of Article 311, which provides almost total immunity against arbitrary behaviour of the political executive. The Civil Services in India can never be forgiven for unethical behaviour or for deviation from integrity because the constitutional guarantees presuppose that they will be honest. If they are not they cannot expect constitutional protection.

How has the system actually functioned? By and large where the Congress or the BJP have ruled or where the Left Front has been in power, the Civil Services have been under pressure but not of the type which would break their morale. Where governments have fallen through defection and where regional parties have ruled, the Civil Services have been under immense pressure, partially because politicians are corrupt and partially because they need to corrupt other politicians so that they themselves can retain power. There has also been an attempt to marginalise the Civil Service, not through legal devolution of powers to local government but through a method of working whereby the civil servants are humiliated, muzzled and prevented from doing their duty impartially. Because civil servants themselves are human many have succumbed to pressure, in clear violation of their duty under the Constitution and their accountability to a much higher code of integrity and ethical behaviour. The worst culprits are the All India Services which, despite the escape route available to them of central deputation or the ultimate protection of the Central government, have gone along with politicians who practice a very low kind of politics. How can such officials ever be forgiven? My personal view is that the All India Services have sunk to such a depth that we need drastic action in order to bring them back on the rails. I have expressed the view more than once that we need to publicly hang ten percent of the most corrupt IAS and IPS officers and dismiss another fifty percent of those who do not enjoy a well earned reputation for integrity. This would leave behind a Spartan elite who would together constitute the best Civil Service in the world. Somebody cynically pointed out to me that considering how the system works in India we would probably hang ten percent of the innocent, dismiss another fifty percent who are honest and what would be left would be a group of criminals who would govern this country. The fact remains, however, that laws, rules, the Constitution, peer pressure, fear of punishment apart, the Civil Service has to remind itself whether integrity and ethics should not govern its behaviour. Being ethical sometimes brings unpleasant moments, but the sheer sense of satisfaction and pride one gets on gaining a public reputation for integrity is compensation enough.

Perhaps I have excessively emphasised the negative aspects of integrity and ethics. There is a very positive side to it also. An officer’s reputation is made in the first two years of service if he shows himself to be keen to learn the nuts and bolts of his job, if he insists from the beginning on living within his means and not taking the petty favours that almost automatically come to government officers, if he is open and available to people, he is at all times polite but firm and if his attitude is one of helping people rather than obstructing them, he will be respected by the people. If he is even handed he will be looked upon as just. If he refuses to be swayed from the path of correctness politicians will also begin to respect him. They may not like him but they would also know that they cannot pressurise him. Every politician is not bad and since they all have to depend on grass-root support most of them do speak for their constituency and have a right to be heard positively. Let me give an example. In Ujjain where I was Collector forty-seven years ago, we had the only CPI (M) MLA in Madhya Pradesh, Bhairav Bharti. He was in opposition, he could be awkward and difficult, but he was dead honest and he knew his constituency like back of his hand. Despite being a gadfly for the administration I liked him and we had a cordial relationship. One day he came to me to report that there had been an incident in his village, Bhatisuda, in which nine people had been killed and sixteen were arrested. He wanted me to do something to restore normalcy. The next day I went to Bhatisuda with Bhairav Bharti and could sense the tense environment. I went to the site of the incident, which was located in some fields almost on the village boundary. It seems that the cattle of one party would go along the field bunds of the other party’s land in order to reach a pasture on the village boundary. The field owners objected to this because they felt that the cattle caused damage to the crops. The wajib-ul-arz, or the record of customary rights of the villagers, permitted people to use field bunds to move around. Therefore, when the field owners stopped the movement of cattle the cattle owners became annoyed, a fracas developed and nine of the field owners were killed. Sixteen of the cattle owners were in custody on a murder charge. I asked the villagers whether anyone could object to cattle coming up to where we stood and they said that because this is a village road no one could object. When I asked whether there would be any objection if the village road went up to the pasture at the village boundary, they said that this was perfectly in order because anyone could use a public road. I then ordered the Patwari to measure off a twenty feet width of land up to the village boundary and directed that the land stood acquired by the State. I then told the cattle owners to pay as compensation an amount, fixed by me then and there to the field owners whose land was being converted into a public road. This was done, the land records were amended and the cause of the quarrel eliminated. Suddenly the environment changed and Bhairav Bharti told me that I could not leave the village till I feasted with everyone and that so long as I headed the district he would never oppose me. He kept his word. I also persuaded the police to reduce the charge from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which meant that the arrested person could be bailed out by the Court of Session. Bhairav Bharti became a friend for life.

Another example is of the then Chief Minister Shyama Charan Shukla, wanting to extend nistar facilities (timber, bamboo, etc. given to villagers virtually free of cost as a matter of right) to the villagers in seventeen non forest districts where they were not so entitled. Because this would benefit the farmers I readily agreed in my capacity as Secretary of the Environment Group of Departments, which included Forests. He asked me how soon we could start supplying forest produce to these districts and I told him that our first lorries could move the next morning. It was my duty to implement this pro people policy of the Chief Minister and our first vehicles left our forest depots with material for these seventeen districts the next morning. I then sent a note to the Chief Minister through the Chief Secretary stating what action I had taken and requesting an appropriate change in the Nistar policy which would extend Nistar facilities to non forest districts, asking for a contingency fund advance of rupees five cores to cover initial costs and submitting that I could not immediately give a budget estimate for supplementary grants because that had to be worked out and that all this was being done without consulting the Finance Department. The Chief Secretary recommended my suspension for violating every norm of financial and official propriety and procedure. The file returned from the Chief Minister with the following remarks; “There is no question of suspending Buch for the initiative shown by him. In fact I want this file to be circulated to all Secretaries as a model of how a Secretary to Government should implement the welfare oriented orders of the Chief Minister. The Nistar policy is hereby amended as required by Buch, the contingency fund advance of rupees five crores is sanctioned, the Forest Department may submit a proposal for a supplementary grant in due course and all this is done in anticipation of orders in council”. I mention this case as a pointer to how a civil servant should work to promote welfare. Had Shyama Charan Shukla asked me to give a businessman or industrialist free timber I would not have obeyed him even if he had hung himself upside down. A civil servant, whilst adhering to the highest code of integrity and ethics, must still rapidly implement a welfare policy and not act as an obstructionist. Obstructionism is itself a deviation from both integrity and ethics because it prevents government from performing its primary task of delivering welfare to the people. Ultimately integrity, ethics, decisiveness all come from motivation and if an officer is correctly motivated to serve the people, then he is bound to be honest and ethical.

Let me end with a story. I spent the whole of 1980 without a post in Delhi after I had been thrown out of DDA. I very often went to the India International Centre, a haven for people who had temporarily fallen foul of government and desperately needed a place where one could think, discuss and write. I had illustrious companions such as Ved Marwah, Jagdish Jetli and Hari Pillai for company. One day I had walked to the Centre from my house in Teen Murti Lane and when I came out of the library to walk back home I found it was raining. At the gate was a Sikh auto rickshaw driver who agreed to take me home. He did not ask for and I did not tell him my destination but he still took me home to 18, Teen Murti Lane. He then refused to accept any fare from me. On being asked why he said, “You do not remember me but I had come to see you in DDA. I had registered for a house which I should have been allotted years ago but despite my wearing out several pairs of shoes I got no remedy. One day I came to Vikas Minar and found no guards, no security personnel. I entered the office building and asked someone where I could meet the Head. I was told to go to the fifth floor and your name plate was at the door. I asked the orderly how I could meet you and to my surprise he told me to open the door and walk in. You were doing some work and asked me to sit down. After you finished the file you asked me my problem. I, a mere auto rickshaw driver, was not only heard but the Housing Commissioner was sent for and two hours later I walked out with my allotment order and my occupation order. I can never forget my debt of gratitude to you and will never take any fare from you”. What had I actually done for this man except to hear him and give him what was due to him? His accolade was my Bharat Ratna. I narrate this story because if civil servants follow the path of integrity and ethics each one of them would earn a similar Bharat Ratna.

The Justice System and the Secular State

Dr. M.N. Buch

Visiting Fellow, VIF

Gujarat has been touted around as a State steeped in communalism, with a government which is right wing, extremist Hindu, anti Muslim and totally communal in outlook. The Congress, on the other hand, projects itself as the party which is secular, pro-minority and, in particular, totally protective of the Muslims. The pro-Muslim secular stance of the Congress formed the main plank of its election campaign in the recent elections in Uttar Pradesh, the end result of which was that the Congress got only twenty-six seats in the State Legislative Assembly and trailed behind BJP to emerge as number four in the electoral race. By contrast in the allegedly communalised State of Gujarat the Mephistopheles of Indian politics, Narendra Modi gave tickets to and was able to have elected over a hundred Muslim candidates in local government elections. Anti Sikh riots took place all over the country in 1984 and at that time the Congress ruled at the Centre and in many other States in India. Not a single conviction has been obtained for these horrendous riots in which in Delhi alone three times more Sikhs were killed than the Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. The entire Hindu Pandit population of the Kashmir Valley was driven out and they became refugees in their own country. Not even one of the culprits of this ethnic cleansing has even been prosecuted, leave alone been convicted. The Pandits even today are either living in refugee camps or are scattered throughout the country. Neither the activists who claim secular credentials nor government has raised a finger to help these refugees.

In 1992-93 the worst rioting post Babri Masjid demolition occurred in Maharashtra, notably in Bombay city. The State was then under Congress rule. No one has been convicted for these riots and the Commission headed by Justice Shri B.N. Srikrishna gave a very categorical report, in which officers who failed in their duty were identified and named, but has been completely ignored by government. Both the Congress and NCP in their election manifestos promised to implement the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission, but nothing has happened in this behalf despite the fact that it is a coalition of the Congress and NCP which is in power in Maharashtra.

The latest in the series is the complete break-down of law and order in four districts of Assam, with Bodo tribals being in direct conflict with Muslims. Allegedly these Muslims are illegal migrants from Bangladesh whose presence is resented by the Bodos, which has resulted in direct ethnic conflict. Several hundred villages have been burnt down and lakhs of people displaced. There have been Bodo casualties also but, as happens in many communal conflicts, it is the Muslims who had suffered the most. Even the international community has taken note of what has happened in Assam, with unfavourable comments about how we have handled the situation. The Chief Minister of Assam, who is a Congress man, had at an early stage reacted to press reports that Assam was burning by stating that the media had exaggerated as usual and that only three districts were aflame. Considering the size and population of an Indian district the Chief Minister virtually confessed that an area containing a population of five to six million people was seriously affected and that he considered this as a fairly minor event. This could only be expected of a Chief Minister who, in order to win the election, had played the contrary communal card by ignoring the Muslims to win the Hindu votes which might otherwise have gone to the BJP. Can such a government be considered secular?

What about our friends from the Left? Undoubtedly the Left Front Government in West Bengal had a popular image of secularism, so much so that in 1984-85 the Sikhs as a community publicly honoured the then Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, for ensuring security for the Sikhs and maintaining communal harmony. It is also a fact that West Bengal remained relatively free of Hindu-Muslim conflict during the Left Front rule. Towards the end this image had begun to change and that is because massive land acquisition in Nandigram largely affected Muslim cultivators and the Trinamool Congress was able to project this, at least partially, as the anti Muslim policy of the Left Front. The fact that this was not true is not really relevant in the electoral politics of the India of today. However, in Kerala the Left Front had no inhibition whatsoever in playing the communal card and when it suited LDF it allied itself with the Indian Union Muslim League. Surprisingly in a State in which the BJP has a poor political presence RSS is quite strong, partly because of communal Muslim politics¸ which is why there have been a number of communal clashes in Kerala, especially in the old Madras Presidency Malabar District (now divided into several districts). LDF did little to oppose such communalism, which does not speak well for its secular credentials.

Let us revert to Gujarat. No one can be an apologist for what happened in 2002 and in one letter to the Prime Minister I have said that had I been Governor of the State I would have strongly advised the Chief Minister and actually ordered the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police to restore order immediately. I would have also gone around the State and if I saw any rioting I would have ordered my escort to fire on the mobs and disperse them. This would not have gone down well with the Government of India and would have probably resulted in my immediate removal, but nevertheless this is how I would have interpreted Article 154 of the Constitution which vests the executive power of the State in the Governor and also acted according to the oath sworn by me under Article 159 which required me to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law. I would have seen it as my duty to remind the Chief Minister that the law required him to maintain law and order and I would certainly consider it a breakdown of the Constitution if the State itself became a party to lawlessness. At the same time it is equally a fact that neither in Delhi, nor in Maharashtra, nor in Assam, nor in Rajasthan during the recent conflict between Jats and Meos has any worthwhile judicial action been initiated and large-scale conviction of wrongdoers obtained. No doubt Nitish Kumar in Bihar, who is truly secular, has been able to take effective legal action. Otherwise Gujarat is the only State in India where six successful cases have been fought against the perpetrators of the 2002 riots and a large number of people have been convicted. This is as true of the Best Bakery case as it is of the Naroda Patiya case in which thirty-two persons, including an ex-minister, have been convicted. A great deal of credit must go the Supreme Court which has forced the Gujarat Government to act, has activated the Gujarat Police which bore the brunt of the investigation and set up an impartial Special Investigation Team (SIT) which has spearheaded the investigation. Everyone is considering the convictions as a set back to Narendra Modi. I disagree with this because the Gujarat Government has, however reluctantly, gone along with investigations, has not obstructed them, nor interfered with the course of justice. Even in the Sohrabuddin case, where the ex-Minister of State for Home, a DIG and other police officers are facing murder trials, the Gujarat Police has not destroyed the evidence and, therefore, the relevant SIT has been able to proceed with the investigation. The encouraging thing about Gujarat is that a largely Hindu Supreme Court, an overwhelmingly Hindu Gujarat Police and the SIT set up by the Supreme Court, Hindu judges such as Jyostna Yagnik have brought justice of the victims of the 2002 riots and convicted a large number of persons involved in these riots. So long as we have this example we can be assured that India has institutions which are secular, though unfortunately none of these are political. Real secularism requires the political class to also be on board.

How communal is Narendra Modi? To his opponents he is the communal devil incarnate, who is unrepentant about what happened in 2002, who refuses to apologise to the Muslims and whose ministers interfered with the maintenance of law and order during that crucial period. But is there another side to Modi? In the State of Gujarat in 2002 the whole of Saurashtra remained largely peaceful and the district administration and the police intervened strongly and effectively to keep the area peaceful. This was true of Kutch also. North Gujarat, mainly Sabarkantha and Banaskantha Districts, remained peaceful despite the substantial Muslim population there. The Central and Southern Districts of Gujarat, in particular Ahmedabad, Kheda, Baroda, Panchmahals, Bharuch and to some extent, Bulsar and Surat were the focus of rioting. This region has had communal conflict even during British days and the worst communal riots in the history of Gujarat occurred in 1969 in Ahmedabad when Hitendra Desai was the Chief Minister. I had written to Dr. Manmohan Singh when he became Prime Minister that the history of this part of Gujarat is such that regardless of which party in power, this region will remain prone to communal tension. I suggested that a person of the calibre of P.S. Appu, IAS should be asked to hold a free ranging administrative enquiry into the causes of communal unrest in these districts and to look into why the district administration and the police did not react strongly and positively to a communal situation. If the root cause of Hindu-Muslim animosity could be identified and then removed Gujarat would be peaceful. Narendra Modi was a phenomenon but he was not the cause of communal strife in these districts of Gujarat. The underlying cause is much older and deeper. The Prime Minister responded favourably but did nothing and, therefore, we still do not know why this region of Gujarat has Hindu-Muslim animosity.

Narendra Modi has not reached out to the Muslims as such, but he has kept RSS, VHP, BKS and the Bajrang Dal under strict control since 2002, which is one reason why rabble rousers such as Pravin Togadia dare not open their mouths in Gujarat. Since 2002 there have been no communal riots in Gujarat and whatever his detractors might say, Gujarat is a relatively corruption-free State with a service oriented, efficient government which has accelerated the pace of development. Whereas there is no special effort to bring the Muslims on board, Muslims have not been denied the fruits of development and many of them have prospered. Whereas the Muslims are hardly ever likely to forgive Narendra Modi for the 2002 riots there are many of them who believe that one must not remain in a period mourning for the past and must move forward to a new future. That is why paradoxically Gujarat is the one State with a BJP Government where at least some Muslims have participated in local government elections and a small section has even voted for Narendra Modi’s party. They certainly did not do so for Sonia Gandhi’s allegedly secular Congress in Uttar Pradesh.

Amongst so-called secular parties there is a mistaken notion that any secularism which is not pro Muslim loses votes. The vast majority of the people of India are Hindu and if a polarisation of their votes takes place in which the present fragmented Hindu votes become concentrated, can we ever keep extremist Hindu parties out of power? Therefore, India’s best bet is the politics of genuine secularism in which government follows policies which give equal opportunities to all communities, without singling out one for opprobrium and another for appeasement. Narendra Modi says that he does not speak for any community but is concerned only about the ‘asmita’ of five and a half crores Gujaratis. Is it not about time that political parties begin talking about the ‘asmita’ of 110 crores Indians without dividing them into religion, caste, class, or region?

The Bharat Ratna is an individual award given to individuals who have achieved high distinction and merit in the service of the country. The George Cross is the highest gallantry award during peace time for defence personnel and for civilians during war and peace, which the British can give. It is an individual award and is equivalent to the Ashok Chakra in India. However, because the people of the Island of Malta stood collectively with the British against the Germans in the Second World War and exhibited the highest degree of gallantry under massive bombardment, the Island of Malta was collectively given the George Cross. On this analogy the Supreme Court of India deserves the Bharat Ratna for the manner in which it has upheld, protected and enhanced the status of the Constitution of India and in particular the secular nature of this republic. My respectful submission to the President and to the Government of India would be that in the Republic Day awards to be announced on 26^th January 2013 they may collectively award to the Supreme Court the Bharat Ratma as a token of gratitude of this nation for being the one pillar of the Constitution which has remained true to its salt. No greater tribute could be paid to what I consider the best Supreme Court in the whole world.