Kerala government’s suspension of two IAS officers – Kerala Industries and Commerce Director K Gopalakrishnan and Agriculture Department Special Secretary N Prasanth – is yet another evidence of how deep communal poison has infected the country’s body politic. What causes alarm is that religion, as famously articulated by Karl Marx, turns out to be the opium not simply of the masses, as a section of the highly educated class in the country too appears to be not immune to this addiction. Last year, top scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) unabashedly displayed their blind religious faith mixing it with the pursuit of science promoted by the government flouting the Constitution in which there is no place for any particular religion regarded as a person’s private article of faith.
Gopalakrishnan, a 2013-batch officer, has courted controversy this month following the formation of a WhatsApp group called “Mallu Hindu Officers.” Prasanth, a 2007-batch officer, caused a commotion during the past three days making multiple posts in the social media against another IAS officer, Additional Chief Secretary A Jayathilak, calling him a reporter of a well known newspaper for articles critical of him appearing in it.
The Kerala government took the punitive action based on reports from Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan. The Revenue Minister K Rajan made it clear that the government would “not allow officials to act as they feel” and that they are bound to “work as per norms and procedure.”
The controversy snowballed after the “Mallu Hindu Officers” group was formed 30 October adding the names of several senior IAS officers, who were Hindoo, as its members. However, it was deleted within hours of its creation as several officers vehemently questioned the propriety of such a group. Days later, Gopalakrishnan filed a police complaint claiming that the group was created after his phone was hacked and that several other groups, including one called “Mallu Muslim Officers,” had also been created.
However, it appears such a plea was Gopalakrishnan’s after thought. For, the order suspending him said that a police investigation revealed there was “no evidence indicating that the device was hacked” as had been claimed. It is also revealed that repeated ‘factory reset’ of the mobile phone was done by Gopalakrishnan himself before submitting his phones for forensic examination. This technique is used to delete the existing data of a mobile in its entirety. The report shows the officer in a sinister light.
The government order on the suspension shows it is of the view that the WhatsApp group “was intended to foment division, sow disunity and break the solidarity within the cadres of the All India Services in the state.” It was also prima facie found to be creating communal formations and alignments within the cadres of the All India Services in the state.
This is indeed a damning report and confirms what is long been believed that communal parties have been trying to invade the state apparatus through indoctrination of the police and administrative cadres so as to take political control through them. Nothing can be more dangerous for the country since an administration biased towards any one religious faith not only runs counter to the country’s laws and Constitution, but is capable of doing gross injustice to the populace owing allegiance to different religious faiths and practices. Today some may favour Hindoos but when real trouble starts the same mindset could veer elsewhere, in support of some other beliefs. Historically, it has always been observed that internal sabotage alone had been responsible for the defeat of Indian kings in wars against outsiders. Unfortunately, there existed no minorities to blame at those historical times.
The country had been in the eye of a storm when ISRO scientists, including chairman S Somanath, visited Hindoo temples before the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Religious dogma is anathema to scientific temper. That is what the nation deserves and desires. A former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair even went to the length of justifying the scientists’ action by distorting Albert Einstein’s belief in God. Nair said that even great scientists such as Einstein were of the view that there is something beyond the visible universe and referred to it as God or creator. However, Einstein said: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
The Kerala episode needs to be understood well. The attitude and actions of those bureaucrats needs to be dealt with firmly and in an exemplary manner so as to ensure the sanctity of the Constitution and prevent government officers – bureaucrats or scientists – from mixing religion with public service for which they get their salaries with the money provided by the country’s tax-payers who are of every caste, religion and creed.