The day after Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday, which the BJP marked as “Sewa Diwas” with the month-long Seva Sankalp Abhiyan outreach campaign and an “Ashirwad Ka Diya” at more than 500 prominent locations, Abhinandan Sekhri went out for his second “vibe check” (the first was at the CJP protest) to find out whether the people of Delhi were lighting diyas, donating blood or doing any of the hundred different things the ruling BJP were asking people to do on Modi’s birthday.
He started at Ekta Vihar, a colony in the RK Puram area of Delhi right opposite one housing some of the country’s most senior bureaucrats. The answers were mixed. Some residents lit diyas or put up lights; others didn’t know it was Modi’s birthday. Children said their school hadn’t invited them. A man recently arrived from Rajasthan hadn’t lit one and said he wouldn’t have even if he’d known. Another resident said, “We didn't do anything,” and pointed to a DTC drivers’ strike that had kept buses off the road.
