Veins of Devotion

Published May 29, 2010 DNA

About a month ago, on the eve of Maharashtra Day, the Shiv Sena organised a mammoth blood donation camp, run with a startling efficiency that resulted in the collection of over 25,200 bottles of blood in a single day. It was a feat that earned it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and drew the wrath of rival party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, who called the drive a ‘blood-sucking exercise’, alluding to allegations that people were ‘forced’ to go to the drive and donate blood.

With a colourful record-breaking past involving newspaper columns, public rallies and a photo exhibition, the Shiv Sena is well-experienced in the power of numbers. The blood donation drive was fittingly titled Maha Yagna, or ritual sacrifice, to commemorate the martyrs who shed their blood for the formation of the state of Maharashtra. A simple biomedical procedure was thus transformed into an act of patriotic reverence, proof that the symbolism of blood can sometimes be as potent as its corporeal form.

After the Supreme Court banned paid blood donations in 1998, followed by the National Blood Policy in 2002 which called for the phasing out of replacement donation (where family members of a patient replace the blood withdrawn from blood bank), voluntary blood donation is considered the only legitimate and statistically, the safest method of collecting blood. Of the many organisations that were enlisted to help Shiv Sena organise and conduct its massive blood drive was the Shree Aniruddha Upasana Foundation (SAUF), a devotional order with a sizeable presence in the state’s voluntary blood donation sphere.

Back in 1998, during the organisation’s first blood drive, they were able to collect 800 units of blood. Since then, thefoundation has collected over 48,000 units of blood in its regularly conducted blood camps across the state.

The spiritual head of the organisation, Shree Aniruddha Bapu, is himself an interesting amalgamation of a man of science and charismatic godman. Dr Aniruddha Joshi was a practicing rheumatologist and lecturer at Nair Hospital before he found his true calling.

Today, he preaches Bhakti Marg, or the path of selfless devotion, to his followers from different faiths, running into lakhs across the country and beyond. As Sunilsinh Mantri, chief executive officer, SAUF-ASP, says, “For naamsmaran (recitation of God’s name), Bapu feels his followers can take any name they want to, as long as they do it with complete sincerity.”

Shunning the saffron robe for a secular get-up of shirt and trousers, Aniruddha Bapu’s spiritual rhetoric rests as much on notions of hygiene and provision of medical care as it does on the importance of virtue and religious service. A social reformist who exacts the power of a saint, his blood donation camps offer followers the possibility of what social anthropologist Dr Jacob Copeman terms virtuous utility.

In his book Veins of Blood: Blood Donation and Religious Experience in North India, Dr Copeman explains how devotees rearticulate the utility aspect of blood donation and load it with complex devotional logic. And although the act of donating blood is positioned as one that denotes service to humanity, or manav seva, devotees see it as a kind of guru seva — an act of allegiance to their master by offering him the most precious and intimate gift of all.

Vinay Shetty of Think Foundation, an NGO which organises voluntary blood donation drives and co-ordinates between blood banks to meet blood requirements in the city, is well-experienced in the fervour that such blood camps elicit. He says, “We have a difficult time with such drives. If they can’t donate because of a low haemoglobin count or some other reason, they get so fired up and insist on donating.” As a panacea for irate devotees, Aniruddha Bapu’s blood camps now offer rejected donors an opportunity for Charkha Seva, the spindled thread used for the explicit cause of making school uniforms for under-privileged children.

While Shetty partially attributes such behaviour to the cult status of these public figures, he feels the issue ultimately boils down to that of identity. “For example, the Kutch Yuvak Sangh appeals to young Kutch men to donate blood. Be it in churches, corporates or colleges, blood donation camps see people volunteering to donate blood to show their loyalty to the group they belong to,” he explains.

Voluntary blood donation can also underline the significance of an occasion. During Lent this year, the archbishop of Mumbai issued a directive to all churches that one of the ways that parishioners could seek penance was by donating blood. Consequently, almost every church in the city organised a blood drive, and the people as expected, attended in large numbers. The same goes for the Shiv Sena blood camp conducted on Maharashtra Day.

What is most interesting is that the act of donating blood engages both the seeker and the giver in a mutually beneficial exchange. While the donor is fuelled by a sense of purpose which transcends the practical, the blood he donates only adds to the credibility of his guru or leader, for whom the final amount collected stands as testament to his eminence.

The amenability of blood donation to varied kinds of signification makes it a powerful tool for discourse where the merits of blood donation itself can sometimes be lost. However, as Shetty sees it, every drop still counts. He says, “At the end of the day, no matter what the intentions of the group organising it, as long as blood is being collected, something good is coming out of it.”