L’affaire Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chief Minister of Assam, suggests the land where the Brahmaputra flows is becoming a rogue state. The term, normally used in international affairs, refers to a ruling entity that is keen to deliberately and purposefully commit transgressions and break laws and policies meant to ensure peace and amity. The chief minister’s actions – he launched a tirade against Harsh Mander, a former civil servant and highly regarded peace activist – fit this definition.How else does one interpret Sarma’s brazen threat, made in a media interview: “Who is Harsh Mander? I have seen many such people in my life. He damaged the NRC [National Register of Citizens] in Assam and if I had been in a position then, I would have taught him a lesson. Now that he has filed a case against me, just watch how many cases will be filed against him … At least 100 cases will be filed against him. I have material to initiate cases. Since he has targeted Himanta Biswa Sarma, he will get a response. He will know when I target him.”What is the provocation for this statement from a constitutional functionary heading a government in the Union of India?According to Mander, he had filed a police complaint against Sarma over the latter’s public statements made on January 27, 2026, that “promote hatred, harassment and discrimination against Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam”.Mander has sought prompt action and the registration of an FIR under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita, 2023, including sections 196 (promoting enmity between groups and doing acts prejudicial to harmony), 197 (making assertions prejudicial to national integration), 299 (malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 302 (uttering words intending to wound religious feelings) and 353 (statements conducing to public mischief).Also read: These Threats Will Not Have Any Effect on My Work,’ Says Harsh Mander After Himanta Warns of ‘100 Cases’On that day in January, at an official event in Digboi in Tinsukia district, Sarma had termed Bengali-speaking Muslims “Miya” and made statements encouraging their harassment and discrimination – including deleting their names from the voter rolls. Mander has requested a proper investigation and immediate steps to prevent such statements in the future as the special revision of electoral rolls proceeds in Assam. The complaint has been filed at the Hauz Khas Police Station in New Delhi and there is no word that the police have taken further steps in the matter.Besides, Sarma’s heavy-handed tactics are not limited to Mander. His statements related to the Election Commission of India (ECI) are equally plain and blunt, and he appears to have commandeered the institution itself. At the same official event, he said his job was to “make the Miya people suffer”, and then he declared that Muslims would not be allowed to vote in Assam. According to him, the special revision was a preliminary step – when the SIR [Special Intensive Revision] will be conducted, “four to five lakh” Muslim votes would be deleted in the state.The ECI has not responded to the chief minister who has openly declared he was working to take away the voting rights of a section of Indian citizens. The three eminent former civil servants who occupy the exalted position of Chief Election Commissioner and election commissioners seem to have allowed politicians to take the lead instead of them.It looks as if the civil servants of Assam have also let go of their responsibilities in favour of their political bosses. How else could a person occupying a transient political position, who has no legal, executive or judicial authority to launch criminal proceedings, intimidate a citizen with “100 cases” for providing legal human rights assistance to [Muslim] victims in search of justice?Possibly emboldened by past victories, this politician appears to treat Assam’s IAS and IPS officers as little more than instruments to be directed.Something similar happened a quarter-century ago in another state, and its thunderous reverberations are still being felt throughout the country. Mander was the first to call out the Gujarat massacre of 2002 as a pogrom and to say that the bureaucracy and the police (civil servants) had been complicit in the targeted violence against Muslims in the state. He then left the IAS for good, saying, “My heart is sickened, my soul wearied, my shoulders aching with the burdens of guilt and shame.”Also read: Himanta-led Assam Government’s Policies ‘Bear Signatures of Ethnic Cleansing’, Warn ActivistsI experienced a similar moment while at the Lal Bahadur Sastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie, sometime in March 2002. I had been invited by Wajahat Habibullah, director of the academy at the time, to deliver a few lectures to the IAS probationers on government and civil society. Believing that the Gujarat tragedy would still be fresh in the minds of the young probationers, I briefly explained the horrid events to them and sought their reaction.Despite repeating my words, and even making efforts at provocation, I faced a deadly silence – not one probationer opened their mouth to express anguish or question the communal carnage. I gave up and went through my routine lecture.The skyline of Ahmedabad filled with smoke as buildings are set on fire by rioting mobs in 2002. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Aksi great (CC BY-SA 3.0)Worse was to come later the same day at an assembly of probationers at the auditorium, where actor and civil rights activist Nandita Das spoke about the same pogrom and screened a blood-chilling short film about it. Even stones would have melted at what she presented, but there was still no reaction from the audience. I intervened and spoke about the significance of the presentation and how important it was for young administrators to learn lessons from the events, gruesome as they were. But there was neither anguish nor anxiety – and still no questions. Only deadly silence.It appeared as if the young minds of these probationers were immune to communitarian hatred and the cruel killings, rape and vandalism it had sparked. At the time, reports coming from Ahmedabad were saying that several civil servants had colluded with the perpetrators of the carnage and some, who had wanted to protest, had been denied a venue to meet. I was crestfallen.And today, it appears as though being communal and anti-minority is the new normal for civil servants. Not just that. They are being amply rewarded for it. A typical example would be Manisha Patankar Mhaiskar, a senior IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre, who wrote a lengthy Facebook post (on January 22, 2024), starting with the slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’. She wrote, “Life had come a full circle” – a reference to the Ram temple being inaugurated that day in Ayodhya on the site of the demolished Babri masjid.Also read: What’s Behind the Lure and Abuse of IAS?She recalled the cold day of December 6, 1992, the day of the demolition, when she had been in Mussoorie’s LBSNAA, attending the foundation course with her batch. How she had celebrated the demolition that day! “I remember eating one full kesar peda [a sweet usually consumed on auspicious occasions] and at that moment on the very cold night of December 6, 1992, I knew that the happenings at Ayodhya were the beginning of something very positive, very powerful, very auspicious,” she wrote.This openly communal officer, who was then additional chief secretary in the Public Works Department in Maharashtra, ended her post writing that she ate the same sweet on the eve of the consecration ceremony at the temple in Ayodhya, remembering the “seminal 6th December moment” and the positive and auspicious feelings it had invoked. A few days ago, Mhaiskar was transferred to the crucial home department in the state, as additional chief secretary.Most civil servants appear to be shaping themselves in Manisha’s mould. Had they been loyal to the Constitution of India, Mander’s anguished question – would a chief minister of a state consider helping Muslim victims “a crime”? – would not have arisen at all. They fail to realise that officers of the All-India Services are themselves creatures of Article 312 of the constitution, and are responsible to safeguard it – including from the whims and vicissitudes of ruling politicians, who often represent only a small subset of the citizenry.To drive this point home, every civil servant takes a solemn oath at the time of entering the service:I do swear/solemnly affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to India and to the Constitution of India by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India and that I will carry out the duties of my office loyally, honestly and with impartiality.An integral part of this loyalty is safeguarding and protecting the interests and rights of the minority communities – a right and duty embedded within the Constitution of India. When this role is abdicated, nothing can stop the states from going rogue against their own citizens.MG Devasahayam, formerly of the IAS, is coordinator of Citizens Commission on Elections.