The feudalism of pradhan sevak's birthday celebrations

It was just two months back that the Prime Minister warned people against those who sought votes by distributing 'revadis'. This 'revadi' culture' was dangerous for the country's development, he declared.

But now, it's raining 'revadis' from gold rings to artificial limbs, and the occasion is the Prime Minister's birthday. The fortnight starting September 17 has been named "Sewa Pakhwara' in keeping with the "Pradhan sevak" title Narendra Modi gave himself after becoming PM. In fact, his birthday has been observed as "Sewa Diwas" since 2016.

Do BJP members save up all their "sewa" for their leader's birthday? Blood donation, tree plantation, and free medical camps are activities held regularly by NGOs. To mark the PM's birthday with such commonplace events seems incongruous.

But better this than what the Maharashtra government has planned to do. Their definition of sewa is attending to pending applications! So people's work that should anyway have been done, such as issuing ration cards and land records, clearing electricity connections and relief claims for rain-affected farmers, will be done in this fortnight, but in "mission mode", to use deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis' phrase, with the concerned departments having to send reports to the government. Those luckless citizens who must have been chasing these government officials will never forget the PM's birthday.

Surprisingly for an ideology-driven party, there's flexibility in the way state units define "sewa". The Tamil Nadu BJP unit, probably in keeping with the local tradition of showering goodies on potential voters, announced that babies born on September 17 in one government hospital in Chennai would get a 2 gm gold ring worth Rs 5,000. Fifteen babies were scheduled to be born on that day; their parents will forever remember the PM.

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Another unusual gift awaits a select section of Tamil Nadu voters. Since minister of state for fisheries L Murugan is the only one in Modi's cabinet from Tamil Nadu, 720 kg of fish are to be distributed to mark the PM's 72nd birthday, but only in CM M K Stalin's constituency. Murugan acknowledged that Modi was a vegetarian, but explained that the PM Matsya Sampada Yojna encourages fish consumption. Stalin won 61 per cent of the votes from North Chennai, defeating his BJP-backed AIADMK rival by a 41 per cent margin. One wonders how many of Stalin's voters will be seduced by the fish.

BJP members have other birthday duties to perform too during this fortnight: holding exhibitions on Modi; informing students in SC hostels about central schemes; adopting a TB patient for a year, and adopting another state's language and culture – but just for a day, not even the entire fortnight. This last may actually turn out to be fun.

It's not as if Narendra Modi is unaware of all this. Party units have been ordered to update their activities during this Sewa Pakhwara on the NAMO app, and the five judged best will get prizes. Then the BJP gushes that the PM never celebrates his birthday apart from meeting his mother - in the full glare of cameras, of course.

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Sonia Gandhi's birthday used to be celebrated by her party too when the UPA was in power, and even after that. But then, as Modi never tires of reminding us, she's a dynast. The one leader in recent times who didn't have dynasty backing, and whose birthday was celebrated as grandly as the PM's is now, was Jayalalitha. But the former Tamil Nadu CM was Amma, larger than life, in front of whom ministers prostrated, whose names AIADMK MPs invoked before speaking in Parliament. Narendra Modi on the other hand, never tires of reminding us that he's a fakir, whose mission is sewa.

Rulers in ancient and medieval India weighed themselves against gold, foodgrains and other valuable items on their birthdays and other auspicious occasions, and then distributed the latter among a select few. This practice of "tuladaan" is absent today, but not in spirit. Distributing largesse to the public on a leader's birthday smacks of the same feudal mentality that sees the leader as a benefactor and the people as subjects. It's the same mentality that describes those who receive rations and houses as "laabhaarthis", whereas food and shelter are part of the right to life guaranteed to all Indians by the Constitution.

Ironically, the Sewa Pakhwara is timed to end on October 2, the birthday of another leader. In 1947, on what was to be his last birthday, Gandhiji told his followers that the best way to celebrate his birthday was to ensure they were not "possessed by the madness" that Partition had aroused. Could the contrast between the two leaders be any starker?

(Jyoti Punwani is a senior journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.