‘Bhakts’ and ‘kam-bhakts’ continue to blame Nehru for shortages of beds and oxygen

As the COVID crisis in the country spirals out of control and bhakts discover that the virus knows no boundaries, that it loves those who love to hate as much as those they hate, I notice one thing is becoming clearer. The semi-bhakts, who still have a modicum of grey cells in their brains, are howling in outrage at the sheer incompetence of those in power that has got us all, including them and their loved ones, into such a sorry pickle.

The frequent grumble that I hear from such semi-bhakts is – we did not vote for them to be so abandoned in our hour of need. And, yes, in state after state across India, everybody is being abandoned by the BJP, not just the central leadership but also local BJP leaders who are nowhere to be seen. If they are seen at all, it is to be discovered with stocks of life saving drugs that are in short supply at hospitals or medical stores and they are completely unreachable as constituents frantically try to seek their help to secure hospital beds, oxygen supplies or other support. They are now having to turn to other remedies that they had hated a short while ago.

And by remedies, I mean the political alternatives which, in this day and time, is just one – the local Congress leadership (and this includes every one infused with the Congress culture, like the Nationalist Congress or the Trinamool Congress) in whichever state ruled or not ruled by the BJP. By the Congress culture, I mean two things – that you help everybody who might be in trouble, whether or not they voted for you and, two, even if you are not in power, you have connections that you call in even when you are out of it. So, there will always be a doctor, a hospital, a lawyer, a social worker, even a drug store owner who will be returning a favour long overdue and that favour is now being used to help the distressed, many of who will disappear after they have sought help and benefitted from the aid.

Will they vote against the BJP or for these parties the next time round? While I am not quite sure of that, one thing that I notice is the semi-bhakts beginning to talk sotto voce – and the whispers are growing louder by the day -- about the sheer incompetence of the current dispensation.

A friend recently during an academic discussion on how Narendra Modi packaged and sold hate as a golden formula to correct centuries of perceived historical wrongs, expressed his relief that hate might be taking a back seat in view of the sheer love for life on the part of these bhakts. “I think love might finally be winning over these bhakts because it is only the love of fellow human beings that is compelling us to come to each other's aid and they love themselves too much to continue to hate those helping them in their hour of crisis,” he said.

But I think I disagree. Love is too wishy-washy an element beside hate to compel these, well, haters to cease hating others in similar situations as them. But what is driving these haters to somewhat change their perspective is, I think, the sheer incompetence of the ruling dispensation to prevent a bad thing from becoming even worse.

Last week, in this column, I asked, in view of Narendra Modi's steadfast refusal to cancel his election rallies, what was the use of a victory if the people you are victorious over are all dead? Now I believe the semi-bhakts are realising that continuing to hate those they perceive as wrong-doers will fetch them no gains if they cannot remain alive to continue hating those alleged wrong doers. And it is not as though the recipients of their hate mongering are in any way insulated from similar afflictions resulting from that very same incompetence.

It is those semi-bhakts who recognise the enormous price they and the nation are having to pay because of that incompetence who might be finally on the way to setting aside their hateful ways and recognising that there is a value to education, ability, management and proper administration that goes far beyond anything that could be accomplished by the mere propagation of hatred. For, if the kabristans have no more room for Covid bodies, neither do the shamshan ghats -- there have been blood chilling images of relatives lighting funeral pyres on pavements in states governed by haters who are proving to be the most incompetent of them all.

These semi-bhakts are now the ones who are beginning to reluctantly acknowledge that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might have done a far better job of managing the pandemic and that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been right every time, starting from February 2020, that the ruling dispensation has been too lax in its handling of the Covid crisis.

I have a feeling thus that this incompetence will finally defeat the hate unleashed in the country, though the haters are fighting back to keep that sentiment alive. While the semi-bhakts can now be found sitting on the fence, the bhakts are still blaming it all on Nehru. He never set up a proper health care system to take care of a pandemic of this nature, they say, quite forgetting that he set up IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and other institutions that should have been deftly utilised by the current dispensation to fight back the pandemic.

We may soon hear the ministers begin to blame the system rather than themselves for their incompetence. That is like one blaming one's mother for one's inability to cook – after she set up a very modern kitchen with all the implements and even cookbooks for you despite the fact that you had no inclination to learn how to cook or feed your family. You wanted only to eat what others had laboured over so hard – and then find fault with the salt in the meat or sugar in the pudding.

That is what this government reminds me of. And, many of their supporters who are going hungry or dying of the disease agree.