Narendra Modi Government Accused of Misusing Bureaucracy and Military for Political Gain

The Narendra Modi government's intention to publicize its accomplishments via the employment of bureaucracy and the military forces has drawn severe opposition from the Congress, which claims that all agencies, institutions, arms, wings, and departments are now officially referred to as "pracharaks."

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to the Prime Minister, expressing his worry about a problem of major public significance that affects not just the Indian parties but also the general public. This is related to the flagrant abuse of the nation's government apparatus that occurs now in support of the governing political party.

Kharge said, "I would like to draw attention to a recent public letter dated October 18, 2023, which says that top officials, including joint secretaries, directors, and deputy secretaries, are to be assigned to each of India's 765 districts. In order to "showcase achievements of the last nine years of Government of India," they will be used as "Rath Prabharis." The previous nine years overlap with your term in office, and this is no accident. This is quite concerning for a number of reasons.

An order dated October 18 of the department of revenue in the finance ministry regarding the nomination of officers of the ranks of joint secretary, director, and deputy secretary pertaining to various services to be deployed as "Rath Prabharis" (rath in-charge) in each of the 765 districts in the nation, covering 2.69 lakh gram panchayats, was posted on X by Pawan Khera, the head of the Congress media department, on Saturday night.

The action was denounced by Congress communications head Jairam Ramesh, who said, "This is Narendra's Another Megalomaniac Order." Regarding displaying or celebrating the accomplishments of the previous nine years of the Modi administration via the "Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra," which is scheduled to take place throughout the nation from November 20 to January 25, the directive cited an internal email from the agriculture secretary dated October 14.

The directive said, "They have decided to deploy joint secretaries/directors/deputy secretaries of Government of India as Rath Prabharis in order to coordinate for the preparations, planning, execution, and monitoring of the Rath Yatra."

In his letter, Kharge stated: "It is blatantly against the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964, which provide that no employee of the government may engage in political activities. While information dissemination by government employees is appropriate, forcing them to publicly "celebrate" and "showcase" their accomplishments essentially transforms them into political campaigners for the governing party. The fact that only "achievements" from the previous nine years are being taken into account makes it obvious that this is a clearly political system leading up to the federal elections in 2024 as well as the five state elections.

"In addition, I refer to an order passed by the ministry of defense on October 9, 2023, directing soldiers on annual leave to spend time on promoting government schemes, making them'soldier-ambassadors,'" the Congress president said, arguing that the deployment of senior officers of departments for marketing activities of the current government will grind to a halt the governance of the country for the next six months. The Army Training Command is busy writing training manuals and scripts on how to advance government initiatives, when they should be concentrating on equipping our soldiers to protect the country.

"It is crucial in a democracy that the Armed Forces remain out of politics," Kharge said. Every jawan has two allegiances: the Constitution and the country. It would be harmful to push our troops to promote government programs and turn them into political front groups inside the armed forces. In addition, our soldiers deserve total freedom during their yearly vacation to spend time with their families and replenish energy for future duty after months or years of arduous devotion to our country. It is not acceptable to use their leave for political gain.

Kharge stated, "It is crucial that the government machinery is kept out of politics in both cases, of civil servants and soldiers, especially so in the months leading up to an election," in an attempt to get the two orders revoked. The aforementioned directives cause the whole government apparatus to function as if it is the governing party's agent, in addition to the Enforcement Directorate, the Income Tax Department, and the CBI already functioning as BJP electoral departments.

J.P. Nadda, the head of the BJP, said that the plan's objective was to engage the recipients. "I find it incomprehensible that the Congress feels that going out to the grassroots to guarantee scheme saturation is a problem for public employees. What else is the fundamental principle of government if not this?