As he completes three years at Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Ram Nath Kovind, like other heads of state, has had to modify the requirements of protocol and visibility to the new challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic that emphasises distance and remoteness. And he has done the modification in his own quiet style.
For weeks after the all India lockdown was announced, President Kovind’s family, including first lady Savita Kovind, prepared and sent across meals for 150 people every day from the private kitchens in their quarters to the nearby Gurdwara Rakab Ganj to feed the indigent. This was done for at least 8-10 weeks at a stretch and were quietly merged with the gurdwara’s own efforts at running a community kitchen for free food. At least 30% of President Kovind’s salary every month is also being sent across to the PM CARES Fund for COVID-19 relief.
Mrs. Kovind’s move to take to her sewing machine and stitch cloth masks during a COVID-19 awareness workshop in Rashtrapati Bhavan was also an endorsement of the benefits of mask wearing from the top most office in the country, and an unambiguous championing of a behavioural change that hasn’t had an easy acceptability the world over.
Message to Governors
While these were some private initiatives of the President, those in the know say that even publicly, his effort had been to project the unity of India’s response to the pandemic whether participating in the initiatives announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, or telling the Governors that their efforts should be to complement the work of the elected government, rather than work at cross purposes.
In a meeting of Governors called during the lockdown period, the message of supplementing the efforts of the State governments by facilitating the work of the Red Cross etc was emphasised by President Kovind. Notwithstanding differences, in West Bengal, for example, between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Governor Dhankar.
Reinventing protocol in the times of COVID-19 has also been important, with oath-taking ceremonies now being very restricted, as was seen when India’s new Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Sanjay Kothari took oath. At least 10 diplomats posted to India, presented their credentials in two different videoconferences to President Kovind. After averaging meeting 20 people a day in his presidency, the number of visitors has been curbed to a large extent.
Heads of states depend on their visibility and ceremony in their jobs as living symbols of the State. For President Kovind, his third year in the job has been a tightrope between negotiating the thin line between being physically present in a pandemic that privileges remoteness.
