contributed by Malini Bhattacharjee, 23 December 2022

“But when it is considered that the natives of this country, naturally averse to all innovation, have yet no affection for the new practice; that the most authoritative class of them oppose it from interested motives; that the circumstances of its coming originally from the cow, an animal so highly revered by the Hindoos, so far from operating, as was at first expected, in its favour, has directly the contrary effect; and that the great body of the natives, the labouring class, are absolutely so stupid and insensible, as to have no perception of its inestimable value to mankind; I should hope it would still appear, that some benefit has already been derived from it, and that no inconsiderable steps have been taken to insure its permanent residence in this quarter of the globe.” (Emphasis added)

The above excerpt is taken from a report written by the Superintendent General of Vaccine Inoculation in Bengal, John Shoolbred, and published in 1804. As is well known, smallpox, considered one of the most destructive of all epidemic diseases by British physicians, claimed several million lives in the Indian sub-continent during the colonial regime. Despite being a life-threatening disease, the smallpox vaccine that had been introduced in Bombay in 1802, faced considerable resistance from the natives. The grounds of resistance were many; the requirement of a small fee for the vaccine, the imagination of the disease as a manifestation of the wrath of Goddess Sitala (a local deity), discomfort with the use of calf lymph as Hindus felt that it entailed cruelty to an animal that they deeply revered, faith in the practice of variolation and resistance from the tikadars or inoculators who feared losing their jobs. But most importantly, as David Arnold (1993) reminds us, the greatest objection to vaccination was its ‘raw secularity’. Vaccination was primarily perceived as an ‘irreligious act’ as it was devoid of any dietary or ritual preparation or appeal to Goddess Sitala.

Clearly frustrated at the resistance offered by the ‘stupid’ and ‘insensible’ natives to the smallpox vaccine that had been introduced to the Indian colony less than two years before this report was published, Shoolbred demonstrates a sentiment that is not uncommon to contemporary governments of our age. The underlying schism between the secular and the ‘other’ which lies at the heart of Shoolbred’s lament, continues to frame modern governmentality, albeit in different forms. In the contemporary moment, non-compliance to vaccines has become a convenient trope for states to build discourses around citizenship and nationalism. Questions of who a loyal and dutiful citizen is or who is a true nationalist has become a function of how compliant one is, to state directives.

The onset of the COVID-19pandemic exacerbated authoritarianism across the globe and India, the world’s largest democracy, was no exception to this trend. There is a vast body of literature that documents how a ‘state of emergency’, recurrent lockdowns, the amendment of the 1897 Epidemic Diseases Act and the indiscriminate use of the draconian Public Safety Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act paved the way for the Indian state to usurp power and become more authoritarian during the pandemic. What remains underanalysed is the specific ways in which the vaccination programme made way for affective governmentality to thrive, in and through which the state could revamp its image as a benevolent and charitable agent. While doing so, the state also sought to ‘tame’ and ‘control’ the behaviours of ‘recalcitrant’ citizens instead of using this opportunity to build active collaborations with them, thus further reiterating forms of marginalisation that had existed since pre-pandemic times.

‘Affective’ Governmentality through Nationwide Vaccination Drive

India’s Nationwide Vaccination Drive was launched by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi through video conferencing on January 16, 2020. The Prime Minister in his speech underlined how this was the world’s largest vaccination drive and congratulated scientists for developing two ‘made-in-India’ vaccines in record time. He also drew attention to how in the very first phase “30 million people, which combines the population of at least 100 countries in the world”, would be vaccinated.

It is important to note that throughout the early stages of the vaccination programme, the government persistently highlighted important milestones as its accomplishments on social media. On April 10, 2021, the Ministry of Health, Government of India, tweeted that on the 85^th day of COVID-19vaccination, “India becomes the fastest country to administer 100 million doses”. The Government of India’s Citizen Engagement Programme, ‘MyGov’ provides a considerable amount of Information, Educational and Communications (IEC) material regarding Covid- 19 Vaccines. Some of the major milestones highlighted include how it was the world’s fastest vaccination drive– “2 billion doses were delivered in 1 year and 6 months”– and how the “world’s highest single-day vaccination of 2.5 crore doses” were given on 17 September 2021 (the Prime Minister’s birthday). On October 21, 2022, PM Modi took to Twitter to congratulate all Indians on the occasion of reaching the administration of one billion vaccine doses, calling it the ‘triumph of Indian science’. In September 2021, PM Modi announced at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, that India had developed the world’s first DNA vaccine (Zydus Cadila's Covid-19 vaccine) which could be administered to all persons above the age of 12. In his own words, "India, which lives on Sewa Paramo Dharma (service is the main duty), is engaged in vaccination development and manufacturing despite limited resources”. On another occasion on July 13, 2022, the BJP’s (ruling party) President JP Nadda tweeted, “From 15th July 2022 for the next 75 days, citizens above 18 years of age will be given booster doses free of cost. This is one of the many gifts by our PM Narendra Modi to the nation to celebrate 75 years of our independence and a testament to his care for every citizen.” (Emphasis added). The repeated invocation of the idea of ‘seva’ (‘selfless service’), ‘gift’ and ‘care’ served as a form of political communication that projected a benevolent and charitable image of the state.

‘Seva’ becomes a particularly interesting category to invoke, given its embeddedness in the Hindu tradition and its resurgence and appropriation in the public domain with the rise of the Hindu Right in India. Several studies ( Pandya, 2014 and Bhattacharjee 2019)have shown how the deployment of ‘seva’ by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (the cultural fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party) and its affiliates, has enabled covert, and non-confrontational modalities of mobilization both in times of crisis and even otherwise.

It is little wonder therefore that Modi’s approval rating soared from “76% in January 7, 2020, to 83%, by April 21, 2020”, according to Morning Consult, a US-based survey and research firm. Another survey, the IANS-C Voter Covid-19 tracker, similarly showed that trust in Modi’s leadership rose to 93.5% as of April 21 from 76.8% on March 25, 2020. A third survey conducted by Lokniti-CSDS confirmed that an overwhelming majority of rural Indians (74%) expressed satisfaction with the steps taken by Narendra Modi’s government and the state governments to fight the pandemic despite facing gruelling economic hardships during the series of lockdowns.

An analysis of India’s vaccination drive provides an interesting opportunity for us to reflect on the modes of governmentality that one witnesses in modern states in crisis situations. An analysis of the political communication around the nation-wide vaccination drive reveals that it provided the government with an opportunity to establish mass contact with citizens and in the process, craft a positive discourse about itself. The framing of the vaccine as a ‘gift’, a form of ‘care’ from a benevolent state to its vulnerable citizens during a life-threatening pandemic helped foster feelings of relief, gratitude and appreciation towards the incumbent government. Further, the public relations surrounding the marking of important milestones in the vaccination journey and frequent messaging on social media by senior members of the ruling party, including the Prime Minister himself, further helped in projecting the Indian state as a nationalist, self-reliant, efficient and important global player to be reckoned with.

“Jaan Hai to Jahan Hai”

Despite its significant achievements, the Nationwide Vaccination Drive in India encountered several hiccups on its way, of which, vaccine hesitancy emerged as an important obstacle. Perhaps as a response to this, on June 21, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India, launched a vaccination awareness drive named ‘Jaan Hai toh Jahan Hai’, to fight vaccine hesitancy in rural and remote areas of India. The expression loosely translates to “Life exists the world”. The Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of the Ministry of Minority Affairs announced that the campaign would be started along with various social, educational institutions and self-help groups. He also mentioned that the campaign would draw upon the support of prominent leaders from across religious minority communities and personalities from film and television. In a written response in the Rajya Sabha, India’s Upper House of Parliament,  on August 9, 2021, the Minister further added that several organizations associated with the Ministry of Minority Affairs like State Waqf Boards, State Haj committees, State Channelizing agencies and Programme Implementing Agencies (PIAs) empanelled in the Ministry for the implementation of various schemes had been urged to reach out to the people and work towards getting rid of the vaccine hesitancy amongst the local communities. Given that it was anchored by the Ministry of Minority Affairs, the campaign was obviously aimed at tackling vaccine hesitancy amongst religious minorities.

The Indian state has seldom invoked religion directly into any public policy given that it is a secular state. Even a cursory review of the Indian government’s five- year plan reports and other policy documents, reveals that the state’s engagement with religious institutions has been negligible except in those cases where the regulation of religion has been required. Given this ambivalent attitude of the Indian state towards religious institutions in resolving developmental issues, this campaign may come across as a refreshingly surprising move.

A closer examination of this initiative however reveals that the content and terms of engagement were decided unilaterally by the secular epistemic authority, in this case the state and its representatives and allies, without paying attention to the grounds of apprehensions that people were manifesting. Neither expert policy knowledge nor community-based knowledge were considered while designing the initiative. Despite being launched by the Ministry of Minority Affairs with the objective of fighting vaccine hesitancy, none of the key informants, interviewed by the author, barring one, had heard about the same. The most revealing insight demonstrated by the failure of the “Jaan hai to Jahan hai” campaign is that the success of public health campaigns or more broadly any public policy is a function of public trust. All key informants to this study mentioned that for Muslims in particular, the lack of trust of the current government emerged as a major ground for refusing to get vaccinated. Several informants mentioned that Muslims were convinced that the vaccine was a conspiracy by the government to either kill them or make them impotent so that their population could be reduced. What was in conflict therefore was not a schism between ‘faith’ and ‘secularity’, but rather between a certain political identity (in this case a religious identity) vis-à-vis a government that the community deeply distrusted.

After years of being marginalized, religion, as an institution, as a marker of political identity and as a system of faith, is slowly being re-acknowledged as an important stakeholder in the development discourse by secular authorities like the state. In the context of the Covid 19 pandemic too, the World Health Organization was quick to encourage the participation of religious institutions and leaders in providing relief. In designing campaigns particularly directed towards religious minorities therefore, it is essential that community knowledge be drawn upon, respected and a patronizing or condescending tone be abandoned.

References

Pandya, Samta (2014.) ‘Seva and Institution Building in Hindu Inspired Faith Movements’, Global Journal of Human Social Science: C, Sociology & Culture, Volume 14 Issue 3.

Bhattacharjee, Malini (2019). Disaster Relief and the RSS: Resurrecting ′Religion′ Through Humanitarianism. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

 

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the blog editorial team or the Asia Research Institute.

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