Arvind Gunasekar 
New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led Union government which revoked the ban on government servants from joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on July 9, 2024 has “classified” all the documents and files pertaining to the said decision.
The RSS is the ideological fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party which leads the National Democratic Alliance government at the centre.
As per the ‘Manual of Departmental Security Instructions’ issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, a file can be classified as ‘Top Secret’, ‘Secret’, ‘Confidential’ and ‘Restricted’ based on appropriate criteria.
A retired bureaucrat clarified that files are usually classified as ‘Top Secret’, ‘Secret’, and ‘Confidential’ when there are “national security or national interests” involved.
While the July 9 Office Memorandum revoking the ban on government servants from joining the RSS has been made public on the Website of Department of Personnel and Training under the Establishment Section, the files pertaining to the said Office Memorandum has been kept under the wraps.
The July 9 office memorandum.
The Office Memorandum revoking the ban was issued as the Madhya Pradesh high court was hearing a plea by a retired government servant challenging the ban. In its judgement, the high court had asked the government to display the contents of the Office Memorandum to “ensure public knowledge and information” on it. In addition, it also directed that within 15 days of the judgement, the Office Memorandum be transmitted to all the departments and undertakings of the central government across India.
Today, the MHA issued an order to display a copy of the Office Memorandum on the removal of the ban on the participation of government employees in the activities of the RSS on the ministry’s website.
The MHA’s notification.
Thus, while the order revoking the ban has been put on public websites, the file on which this order was based has been classified.
‘Cannot be disclosed’
In response to an RTI application filed by The Wire, seeking a copy of the file cited in the said Office Memorandum, the DoPT refused to share the information, stating “File No. 34013/1(s)/2016-Estt.(B) is classified in nature, hence, cannot be disclosed.”
Though the Office Memorandum revoking the ban on government servants from joining the RSS was issued in the heels of the Madhya Pradesh high court hearing the plea challenging the ban, sources in DoPT told The Wire that “matter was under the consideration of Government for quite sometime.”
Even the ‘file number’ cited in the Office Memorandum of the DoPT mentions the year 2016 which confirms that the file originated way back in 2016 but the final decision was taken in July 2024 ahead of the Madhya Pradesh high court hearing.
The Union government filed an affidavit in the Madhya Pradesh HC on July 10, 2024, informing the court that the ban on government servants joining RSS has been revoked vide the Office Memorandum dated July 9, 2024. Notwithstanding, the high court went on to pass a detailed judgment questioning the rationale behind imposing the ban in 1966.
Through a similar ‘Office Memorandum’ issued in 1970 by the MHA, the then Congress government at the Centre had justified the ban on government servants joining RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami. “In the context of the current situation in the country the need to ensure secular outlook on the part of Government servants is all the more important. The need to eradicate communal feelings and communal bias cannot be over-emphasised,” it had said.
While revoking the ban, the Madhya Pradesh HC also ordered that “any such exercise of proposing and restoring its name back in the of ‘don’t join’ list ever in future must be preceded by a profound thought process, intensive deliberations at the highest levels of the rule making authority, backed by persuasive data, compelling evidence and material as to why RSS as an umbrella organisation along with all its subsidiary organisations need to be banned from participation by any of the Central Government employee.”