Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s ‘Positivity Unlimited’ lecture last weekend seems to have fired up many in the Bharatiya Janata Party.
On Sunday, B.L. Santhosh, BJP general secretary (organisation), launched a blistering attack on Akhilesh Yadav, calling him a “political vulture” after the Samajwadi Party chief’s call for a national vaccination drive.
“What happened to you Ji ..!? The other day you refused to take this very same Modi vaccine ….Today you are championing vaccine drive. History will never forgive political vultures like you,” Santhosh quoted-tweeted Yadav.
Taking a cue, Amit Malviya, BJP’s IT cell chief, targeted the Arvind Kejriwal government for “under reporting” Covid deaths.
Their attacks on the opposition leaders came a day after Bhagwat called for national unity and impressed on the need to stop finger-pointing in times of a public health crisis. So, what was it in the RSS chief’s speech that got the BJP’s social media warriors into hyper-aggression mode against critics?
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The Sangh has ears to the ground
On the face of it, it seemed Bhagwat gave the benefit of doubt, if not a categorical clean chit, to the Narendra Modi government when it’s facing flak for Covid mismanagement. “Kya janata, kya shasan, kya prashasan, sabhi gaflat mein aa gaye,” he said, virtually holding everyone — the people, the government and the administration (read bureaucracy) — collectively responsible for being caught off guard.
When everybody failed to anticipate the second wave, nobody can be held accountable for the lapses, obviously.
This decentralisation and dilution of responsibility and accountability came at a time when there was growing discomfort in the Sangh about the near-absence of the government and the political leadership on the ground. Many Sangh volunteers succumbed to Covid-19. Unlike BJP leaders who seem to have started believing their own positive narrative, unmindful of the wails and clamours for help everywhere, the RSS’ feedback from the ground was much more sobering and disquieting. But Bhagwat’s perceived endorsement removed whatever qualms and inhibitions BJP leaders had about blustering. After all, the RSS chief wouldn’t blame its swayamsevaks and ex-pracharaks who are running the country and have already delivered the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and done away with Jammu & Kashmir’s special status (Article 370).
But BJP’s social media warriors are probably reading too much into Bhagwat’s positivity speech. He might have suggested collective responsibility and accountability, but his remarks about the government having been caught off guard repudiated the Centre’s stand as spelt out by Union minister Prakash Javadekar that the government dropping the ball after the first wave was a “myth” and “nothing is further from the truth.”
One may get a proper perspective from what Ram Madhav wrote in The Indian Express on Saturday. Madhav signed it as member, board of governors, India Foundation. Once a powerful BJP general secretary, Madhav was brought back into the RSS last March and appointed to its central executive council. Some top BJP leaders may not be comfortable with his outspokenness, but he is known to have the Sangh leadership’s ears and knows their mind.
The Modi government might have looked like a deer in the headlights initially but went full throttle in handling the challenge, Madhav wrote. He was all praise for Prime Minister Modi and his government’s Covid management after initial hiccups, but Madhav also gave a peep into the Sangh’s thinking: “A little more transparency, a little more engagement with the public by the political leadership and a little more openness to constructive criticism and enlightened expert opinion from outside the government would further help the government’s efforts.” It supplemented what Bhagwat left unsaid or vague in his speech.
One may argue that Madhav was being a little euphemistic. He should have used “much more” in place of “a little more”. But the message is well-delivered. The RSS is not very amused by the BJP’s back-patting and belligerence.
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BJP’s belligerence won’t work
Amit Malviya is not wrong. The Kejriwal government has a lot to answer on Covid data-fudging as also its incompetence in responding to the crisis in both the first and second waves. But the BJP’s information and technology department in-charge should be careful in selectively targeting one government. Many BJP-led governments — in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Assam — are facing similar allegations. In BJP-ruled Goa, there were deaths in a state-run medical college and hospital for four consecutive days last week with the death toll estimated to be 83. The state health minister suggested oxygen supply problem and demanded a high court probe, only for the government to obfuscate the reasons for death later.
Talking about transparency, the Centre extended the gap between two Covishield doses from 6-8 to 12-16 weeks citing “real-life evidence” from the UK. A day later, the UK reduced the interval between two doses from 12 to 8 weeks. It put a big question mark on the real reason for the Indian government’s decision. Millions of people awaiting their second dose deserve a clear answer, which isn’t forthcoming.
There are examples galore of the lack of transparency in Covid management, of the political leadership looking the other way when people need them most, and of jarring belligerence of ruling party leaders. BJP leaders may have lost touch with the ground, leaving it to PM Modi to get them votes, but the RSS is aware that the people at the receiving end aren’t amused by the message from their political leadership: What can’t be cured must be endured.
BJP leaders must read Ram Madhav and then hear Bhagwat’s speech again. It’s not a blanket endorsement.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Neera Majumdar)