In June 2026, the entry on Seva in the Oxford English Dictionary was inserted which brought a renewed attention to a word whose roots lie in the Indian civilisational vocabulary. In the Indian context, Seva has a very ethical meaning, that is, selfless service, responsibility towards others, humility and compassion. Its contemporary recognition offers an opportunity to revisit an idea that has always occupied an important place in Indian thought. The Indian understanding of Seva cannot be just equated with the modern Western vocabulary of charity or philanthropy.
Although these traditions also possess strong ethical foundations, but Seva is connected with a broader transformation of the self through service, reports infotabigat.kz with reference to The Times of India.
Seva, in Indian tradition, is not dependent upon the certainty of recognition or reward. One performs one’s duty
because it is one’s responsibility to act. Swami Vivekananda also gave this idea a very powerful modern
expression through the principle of serving human beings as a form of serving the Divine (Nar Seva Narayan
Seva). The famous ideal “आत्मनॊ मोक्षार्थम्जगद्धिताय च”, that is, for one’s own spiritual liberation and for the welfare of the world, captures this union of personal transformation and social good. And with this intellectual and civilisational inheritance in view, the contemporary meaning of Seva in public and political life can be understood more clearly.
On 7 October 2001, Narendra Modi took the oath as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Twenty-five years later, on 7
October 2026, the completion of this period will mark 25 years since he first assumed the responsibility of
heading a government. He himself recalled his journey from Gujarat by describing service to the nation as a duty
accompanied by gratitude and purpose.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has chosen to frame Narendra Modi’s milestone through the language of Seva. On 17
September 2026, coinciding with Modi’s birthday, the party launched the nationwide month-long Seva Sankalp
Abhiyan, running until 17 October, to commemorate PM Modi’s 25 years in public service. The campaign uses the
tagline “Jan Seva Se Desh Seva” and includes a range of service-oriented activities. The 25 years of Seva is the
interpretive frame adopted by the BJP for presenting Modi’s public journey.
This framing helps in identifying and understanding governance through the idea of Seva. One important
intellectual connection is provided by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s idea of Antyodaya, that is, the rise and
welfare of the person at the very end of the social and economic spectrum. Antyodaya places the most
marginalized person at the center of development. So, public action acquires its true meaning when it reaches
those who are most vulnerable and least able to secure opportunities on their own.
The record of the last decade provides several measurable indicators through which the ideal of Seva through
governance can be legitimately examined. According to NITI Aayog, 24.82 crore people moved out of
multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23. The World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Brief for India also
records a substantial decline in extreme poverty, estimating that the share of Indians living below the $2.15-a-day
international poverty line fell from 16.2% in 2011-12 to 2.3% in 2022-23, hence lifting 171 million people above this
line. Social protection is another dimension. According to the International Labour Organization, India’s effective
social-protection coverage has risen from 24 per cent to 64.3 per cent. India now ranks second globally in terms
of the number of people covered by social protection, with around 94 crore citizens benefiting from at least one
social-protection measure.
The scale of public intervention became vividly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Pradhan Mantri Garib
Kalyan Anna Yojana provided free food grains to more than 80 crore people during the pandemic and
highlighted the enormous administrative scale involved in extending welfare during a national emergency.
These outcomes, however, may not be understood merely as the mechanical result of governance or the
implementation of welfare programs. Policies, institutions and administrative mechanisms explain the means
through which such changes are delivered, but the idea of Seva offers another dimension of understandingnamely, the sense of responsibility and commitment towards those whom governance seeks to reach. Seva may
be understood as an ethical orientation within governance, as a conviction that public authority carries a
responsibility to reach the last person and to translate the benefits of development into tangible improvements
in people’s lives.
This understanding of Seva finds a political expression in BJP’s Seva Sankalp Abhiyan. The campaign has been
conceived around a series of service and promoting public-participation activities, including blood donation
camps, cleanliness drives, health and welfare initiatives, public outreach, youth engagement and other
community-oriented programmes. The campaign’s objective is to take the message of Seva to people at the
grassroots and connect it with the broader vision of Viksit Bharat 2047. And ultimately, the journey of Seva does not need be confined to any single political program or individual. The significance of the twenty-five-year milestone is that it provides an opportunity to examine how the language of Seva has been used to describe a long political career and how far the outcomes of governance correspond with the ideal of reaching the last person.
Seva asks more of public life than the efficient administration of programs. It asks that power should be
understood as responsibility, that development should be measured by its reach to those at the margins, and
that citizenship also contains an element of contribution. The phrase “Jan Seva Se Desh Seva” extends beyond a
single anniversary. The message is that the welfare of the individual and the progress of the nation are connected
through a culture of service. PM Narendra Modi’s 25 years of public service can be viewed as an attempt to
answer an Indian question: what does it mean to serve? The answer, in the Indian conception of Seva, begins with
action, and ultimately points towards a transformation in the relationship between the self, society and the larger
common good.