Dear Express reader, A report in today’s Indian Express says that the BJP has asked its rank and file to go out to the people. It has asked them to be visibly more “empathetic and sympathetic”. And a video went viral of the uncivil behaviour of the District Collector, Surajpur, Chhattisgarh, slapping a young man, throwing his phone to the ground, ostensibly for violating Covid-19 lockdown norms on Saturday. Something important is certainly missing in the responses of the political party and the government establishment to the pandemic. It shows in the absence of a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on, on the ground, belatedly recognised by the BJP. It also shows in the repressive presence of those like the Surajpur Collector. Of course, much of this could probably be laid at the doors of a “System”, political and bureaucratic, that routinely walls itself off from the people and carries on with the old colonial habits and structures. It rules more than it governs, and treats the people as subjects. It continues to do just that as people struggle for life-saving oxygen, vaccines, ventilators and hospital beds in a pandemic that has mercilessly overwhelmed a crumbling infrastructure of health care. But the problem today is not just a lingering left-over from a past that should have been given a more complete burial. The lack of empathy and sympathy for the suffering of the people that we see in the pandemic also points to the specific failures of today’s parties and politicians, MPs and MLAs, ministers and bureaucrats. It is a failure, primarily and most conspicuously, of the BJP-led government at the Centre, whose task it was to set the tone for a coordinated national response to a virus that respects no borders. It has, instead, tried to brazen it out, by accusing the Congress of fishing in Covid waters, and by passing the blame to the states. We wrote in an editorial at the beginning of the week that “barring a few, the country’s elected have gone missing from public spaces. Switch off Twitter, and where’s the Cabinet, the 700-plus MPs, the MLAs?” And that “The appearance of absence begins right at the top.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed the nation four times in four weeks in March-April 2020, has mostly kept to himself as the country is lashed by the second wave. Of course, the political and governmental challenge this time is far more daunting. The second coming of Covid has caused death and destruction that is untold — literally. Several reports suggest that Covid cases and deaths are being severely undercounted. The growing magnitude of the toll is an indictment of the government for declaring victory over the virus far too early, and of a political and scientific establishment that was not nearly as vigilant and agile as it should have been. Given the enormity of the problem, then, is it any wonder that the politicians are not being seen or heard much in public? But it is terribly disillusioning. “The inability of government and leader to find the language of empathy for the angry and grieving adds to the pandemic’s daily toll”, our editorial said. Because “Walking the ward or holding the hand matters”. Let’s hope the BJP party high command’s belated direction to leaders and cadres to reach out to the people is a first step towards acknowledging and addressing a gnawing gap. Take care, Vandita | 
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