Covid-19: For the BJP sangathan, it is time to deliver on seva
As India grappled with the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership had a message for its party functionaries and the estimated 180 million-strong cadre — seva hi sangathan (organisation means service). The message to the party machine was clear — step out and step up in helping those in need. Targets were set for the party to feed people, distribute masks and sanitisers, and offer whatever help was required.
State units of the party, even where the BJP is not in power, competed with each other as they set about distributing food, medicines and essentials to those in need, especially the vulnerable who were left to fend for themselves during the lockdown. Videos and photographs were produced as evidence of the help that ordinary people were accorded by the party.
Addressing party workers in June last year, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi referred to the relief work being carried out by the party workers as the biggest “seva yajna”, act of service, in history and also called for documenting this work in all Indian languages.
This seva was not entirely altruistic. The work done by a political party during a crisis has a significant impact on its electoral fortunes. For instance, in Bihar, which went to the polls during the pandemic and accounts for the highest percentage of migrant workers, relief work was redoubled. It was used as a balm to placate anger at the apathy that met hundreds of thousands as they undertook a treacherous journey back home on foot, or by paying exorbitant fares to private vehicleowners during the lockdown between March 25 and May 31 last year.
The seva, the BJP claimed, was an endorsement of its unwavering commitment to antodaya — the concept of welfare of the last person in the queue that is at the heart of the party’s ideology. The BJP’s response has been starkly different during the ongoing second wave. Though state leaders have been asked to ensure their booths are Covid-19-free and set up helplines, only a few ministers and youth wing leaders are visible and vocal in facilitating help to people distraught by the lack of essential health services, oxygen and even facilities for last rites. The party behemoth is largely missing from the frontlines.
There are no leaders showing up at hospitals; people in rural areas complain that their calls for help are going largely unheeded. It is no surprise then, that in some instances, BJP leaders have been booed in public. With families of BJP workers being affected too, the anger against the government’s failure in mitigating the crisis is mounting. A section of party leaders are, instead, criticising those who have put out complaints about the lack of medical care on social media. They view these complaints as a conspiracy to tarnish the image of the Union government. And their response to any criticism of public policy is acerbic and aggressive. It is pertinent to remember that the PM himself urged his party colleagues to remain unfazed if people came to them with memorandums, complaints, demands and suggestions.
Instead of preparing for the second wave, which scientist warned about, the party leadership invested more time first in contesting the assembly polls, particularly in West Bengal, displaying reluctance to call off rallies even as the cases multiplied, and now over the post-poll attacks against its cadre allegedly by the Trinamool Congress. Violence cannot be condoned, but when large parts of the country are being ravaged by the pandemic, made worse by systemic deficiencies, the continued discourse about West Bengal is disconcerting.
Social media is flooded with pleas for help. At a time like this, to concentrate on organising pan-India protests against the violence in Bengal or to focus on the government’s image-building could well be read as misplaced priorities. The state has a mechanism to deal with law and order issues; the party can put pressure on the government to prevent the violence from escalating, but it does no one a favour by organising protests in the midst of a pandemic. For the BJP, it is time to revisit the idea of