SPECIAL ISSUE

www.indiatoday.in may 31, 2021 `75

covid 2.0

REPUBLIC OF
SELF-HELP
C I T I Z E N H E RO E S W H O B E CA M E A L I F E L I N E F O R T H E D E S P E R AT E
W H I L E T H E G OV E R N M E N T WA S M I S S I N G I N A C T I O N
We tell the story
Not the moral of the story
FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
I
ndians, in many ways, are accustomed to deal with the
failures of the State. Over the years, we have dealt with
power shortages by installing generator sets, compen-
sated for the lack of public transport by using personal
vehicles, travelled on pot-holed roads, made up for the
absence of clean drinking water through water filtration
devices or bottled water and, more recently, installed air
purifiers to deal with urban pollution. The public health
infrastructure was always ramshackle at best, but we
managed. There was no panic.
Yet, the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic exposed
the appalling inadequacy of health infrastructure in cities
and the abject failure of governments at the Centre and in
the states to anticipate, plan or speedily respond to emer-
gencies despite having a year to prepare after the first phase
of the Covid crisis. There was sufficient evidence across the
world that the coronavirus returns in some
way, especially if Covid protocols are not
followed and if most of the population is
not vaccinated. We saw the virtual collapse
of the healthcare system in cities across the
country as it was overwhelmed by waves of
infected patients. There were no ambu-
lances to transport the sick to hospitals,
hospital beds and oxygen were in scarce
supply and there was a shortage of medical
staff to tend to patients. Crematoriums,
too, were overwhelmed and, in many cases,
where entire families tested positive, there
was nobody to perform the last rites for the
dead. Now that the virus has spread to the May 18, 2020
smaller towns and the villages, where the
government is the main provider of health-
care, the truly appalling conditions have been laid bare.
The State has either vanished or has been too leaden-footed
to respond effectively.
Just as it takes a crisis to uncover the heroes in our
midst, this pandemic too has revealed a whole set of Indians
who rose to the occasion to fill the vacuum left by the State
in helping the afflicted. In the first wave, it was a remarkable
group of doctors, health workers and government servants
who went beyond the call of duty to care for the sick. In the
second wave, they were joined by another extraordinary
group of men and women who made up for the missing
State. From arranging for ambulances and life-saving drugs
to looking for hospital beds, oxygen and food for the needy
to even serving as volunteers in crematoriums—our heroes
were everywhere. Disregarding the grave risk to their lives
and their families, they stepped up to the challenge.
A mother and son duo in a Kerala village transports
Covid-19 patients to hospitals; the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara
Management Committee runs ‘oxygen langars’ for the
needy; a group of IITians runs Mumbai’s largest ambu-
lance aggregator; a lady in Lucknow handles the funerals of
pandemic fatalities; a young theatre artist in Kolkata cooks
and delivers food to Covid patients. Many are individuals of
modest means—the autorickshaw driver from Kolhapur who
provides a free transport service for Covid patients is finan-
cially supported by his wife and daughter-in-law. Some were
survivors themselves who channelled personal suffering into
altruism and compassion. Patna’s ‘Oxygen Man’, Gaurav Rai,
who provides cylinders for free, gasped for breath as a Covid
patient last year. The houseboat owner from Srinagar’s Dal
Lake, ostracised by his neighbours when he contracted the
virus, went on to build a floating ambulance to help them.
All our heroes are linked by a common thread—a deep empa-
thy for their fellow citizens. “Having suffered myself, I know
what gasping for air means. And seeing someone recover, the
relief on his face and that of his family, it’s
like a gift from God,” says Rai.
O ur cover story, ‘Republic of Self-Help’,
compiled by our bureaus, documents
the stories of 31 extraordinary individu-
als and organisations that have made a
difference during the second Covid wave.
We have taken people who helped others
in five key areas—providing medical as-
sistance, oxygen, transport, food and with
the last rites. Our list is only illustrative
of thousands of people like those we have
covered across the country who lent a
helping hand to their fellow citizens in the
worst natural disaster of our times.
As heartening as it sounds, this inspi-
rational phenomenon has its flip side: a State that has failed
its citizens. Citizens should not, and indeed cannot, replace
the State with its vast resources and manpower. They can,
at best, fill in the gaps. It should be a matter of shame for the
government of India that people were left to their own devic-
es in such an emergency. We all must demand accountability
from our elected representatives and not let them shirk their
responsibility to provide good governance, especially when
we continue to be faced with the prospect of rolling waves of
the pandemic. Being labelled the ‘Republic of Self-Help’ is
no badge of honour for our nation. We are proud to be ‘The
Republic of India’, which is bigger than all of us. However, its
citizens need to be treated better. n
(Aroon Purie)
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 3
 INSIDE
UPFRONT LEISURE
BENGAL: CHRONICLES Q&A WITH RANDEEP
OF NARADA PG 6 HOODA PG 76

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Volume XLVI Number 22; For the week

May 25-31, 2021, published on every Friday

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 UPFRONT
RUMBLINGS IN THE
SANGH PARIVAR
PG 10
INFLATION: A
WORRYING UPTICK
PG 16
STANDING HER GROUND
Mamata Banerjee emerges
from the CBI office in
Kolkata, May 17
CHRONICLES OF NARADA
T
hough it put a brave face on
its rejection by the people,
the BJP is unlikely to forget
its electoral humiliation in
West Bengal in a hurry. The
saffron camp first escalated the post-
poll violence into an issue meriting
President’s rule. But when it realised
the move reeked of political vendetta,
the party pulled out another old weap-
on in its arsenal—the Narada scam.
It began with West Bengal gover-
nor Jagdeep Dhankhar acceding to
the CBI’s (Central Bureau of Inves-
tigation) request to prosecute four
6 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
W EST BENGA L
By Romita Datta
Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders on
May 7. Strangely, the CBI had made
the request sometime in January this
year. The governor chose to respond to
it three days before Mamata’s cabinet,
which included two of the accused
ministers, was to be sworn in.
Ten days later, on May 17, in an
early morning swoop, the CBI picked
up the four TMC leaders—the current
panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee,
transport & housing minister Firhad
Hakim, Madan Mitra and ex-Kolkata
mayor Sovan Chatterjee—all of whom
were part of Mamata’s cabinet between
THE IMMINENT
RETURN OF RAHUL
GANDHI PG 12
ISRAEL-PALESTINE:
INDIA’S TIGHTROPE
WALK PG 19
DEBAJYOTI CHAKRABORTY
2014 and 2016. They now stand charged
under Section 120B (criminal conspir-
acy) of the Indian Penal Code, and Sec-
tions 7 (gratification by public servant)
and 13 (criminal misconduct by public
servant) of the Prevention of Corruption
Act (PCA). However, the marquee defec-
tor and recently-anointed leader of the
opposition Suvendu Adhikary and BJP
national vice-president Mukul Roy have
been left out in the chargesheet. A lower
court granted the TMC leaders bail, but
the Calcutta High Court stayed the bail
order. Mamata herself sat on a six-hour
dharna at the CBI’s Nizam Palace office
SEARCH FOR
EDITORIAL IMAGES
ENDS HERE
UPFRONT
in Kolkata, urging them to release her
partymen or arrest her too. TMC sup-
porters clashed with security personnel.
T
his is not the first time that the BJP
has used the Narada bogey against
the TMC. It was at the BJP office
in Kolkata that the Narada videotapes
first surfaced on March 14, 2016, just as
campaigning for the 2016 assembly poll
was getting under way. A sting operation
by ex-Tehelka reporter Mathew Samuel,
conducted for his news website Narada
News, showed 12 TMC leaders accepting
cash for favours promised to his fictitious
company, Impex Consultancy Solutions.
Among them were seven MPs (Saugata
Roy, Kakoli Ghosh-Dastidar, Prasun Ba-
nerjee, Aparoopa Poddar, Suvendu Ad-
hikary, Mukul Roy and Sultan Ahmed),
four ministers (Firhad Hakim, Subrata
Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan
Chatterjee) and deputy mayor Iqbal
Ahmed. Former Burdwan SP H.M.S.
Mirza was the 13th person implicated.
However, all attempts to embarr-
ass Mamata came to nought when her
party returned to power in 2016 with a
resounding 211-seat win, a two-thirds
majority in the 294-member House. The
issue was brushed under the carpet. It
resurfaced a year later when Brajesh Jha
of the BJP, Amitava Chakrabarty of the
Congress and lawyer Akshay Kumar Sa-
rangi filed three independent PILs (pub-
lic interest litigation) asking for a CBI
probe. The Calcutta High Court ordered
the agency to start preliminary investiga-
tion and register FIRs (first information
reports). The CBI did so within a month.
A few MPs like Adhikary and Poddar
in their individual capacity, and the state
government appealed the Supreme Court
on March 20, 2017 against the high court
order but it was turned down. The TMC
initially denied involvement, alleging the
videotape was doctored, forged and part
of a political conspiracy. However, after
the CBI in its preliminary findings stated
that ‘the accused either accepted illegal
gratification in cash or had agreed to ac-
cept illegal gratification via someone else
on their behalf’, the party said the money
was accepted as part of political dona-
tions to contest the election. The Central
Forensic Science Laboratory also ruled
out any ‘tampering [with] or editing on
8 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
JACK-IN-THE-
[the] movie files’. BOX NARADA
Armed with forensic evidence, cen- ...or a precision stick
tral agencies CBI and ED (Enforcement
that picks its targets
Directorate), which started a parallel
investigation on misappropriation of
funds under PCA—kept up the heat on MARCH 14, 2016
the TMC leaders, summoning them for Narada sting video released from
interrogation every now and then. As BJP HQ in Kolkata
the agencies closed in on him and he
was summoned for questioning, the BJP This was in the run-up
allegedly offered Roy a way out. He left to the 2016 West Bengal
TMC in September 2017 and joined the assembly election, held
BJP about two months later, triggering a from April 4 to May 5; TMC
spate of defections from the TMC. won 211 of 294 seats
The Narada stick was brandished
again in June 2018, a year ahead of the MARCH 16, 2016
Lok Sabha election. This was the time Matter referred to the Lok Sabha
the TMC supremo was getting stri- ethics committee, of which L.K.
dent in her criticism of Prime Minister Advani is the chairman, to consid-
Narendra Modi’s policies, be it demon- er action against the sitting MPs
etisation, GST or Aadhaar. In a striking named in the FIR; the panel does
move, the ED arrested TMC MP Sudip not convene even once
Bandyopadhyay in connection with the
Rose Valley chit fund scam on January AUGUST 5, 2016
4, 2017. Meanwhile, CBI special director High Court stays Kolkata Police
Rakesh Asthana, who was tasked with probe initiated by the state govt;
filing the final chargesheet by 2018-end, probe was based on the FIR of
forgery against Mathew Samuel,
stepped up the pressure to complete the
who floated a fictitious company
investigation in view of the upcoming
ostensibly to entrap public ser-
general election. But both CBI and ED
vants accepting bribes for favour
officers stepped back after being ac-
cused of taking sides in a political battle. MARCH 17, 2017
The Narada chapter remained firmly High Court orders preliminary
closed for the next couple of years, as CBI probe against 12 TMC lead-
the BJP met with great success in the ers and an IPS officer—among
2019 general election and took that them Suvendu Adhikary (now
confidence into its preparations for the Opposition leader in the state
recently-concluded assembly poll. By assembly and then a Lok Sabha
December 2020, it had managed to bait MP of the TMC) and Mukul Roy
Adhikary, allegedly with the assurance (another prominent defector
that the central agencies would leave to the BJP, then a Rajya Sabha
him well alone. Others needed even less MP of the
persuasion to desert the sinking ship TMC). Sovan Mamata’s
they thought the TMC was. Mission Chatterjee, criticism of
Bengal seemed on course, and the party Firhad Hakim, Prime Minister
gave the project everything it had—a Subrata Narendra Modi’s
high-decibel polarising campaign with Mukherjee, demonetisation
Madan Mitra, move 4 months
party heavyweights Modi and Shah in
who were earlier (on
starring roles. May 2, then, came as a
arrested on November 8,
rude shock. With 213 seats, Mamata
May 17, also 2016) was partic-
won even more seats than she had in her
figure on this ularly strident
previous two terms, stopping the BJP list
juggernaut abruptly in its tracks.
Even before the dust had settled on a APRIL 16, 2017
bitterly fought election battle, governor CBI files FIR against the 12 TMC
Dhankhar cranked into action. He gave leaders (7 MPs, 4 state ministers,
CBI the go-ahead to move against the one deputy mayor) and an IPS
officer on four different charges
NOVEMBER 3, 2017
Mukul Roy joins the BJP

JUNE 2018 four accused TMC leaders even as the win has not only shattered the myth of the
CBI special director Rakesh agency awaits sanction from the Lok Sab- invincibility of the Modi-Shah duo, she
Asthana tasked with submitting ha Ethics Committee to name the accused has also emerged as a rallying point for
final chargesheet by year-end MPs in its chargesheet, four years after Opposition forces to line up against Modi.
making the request. According to a CBI The prime minister’s image is already
The 2019 general officer who does not wish to be named, taking a beating at home and abroad for
elections are
due a year later, the permission for consent and subse- misjudging the corona situation, leaving
and BJP lead-
ing lights Modi an quent reminders were sent both to then the country unprepared to handle the
d Shah make
Narada a centerpie Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and crisis, and the people to their own devices.
ce again of
their election cam current Speaker Om Birla, but the files do This has left the BJP unit in the state in
paign
not seem to have moved. Bikash Ranjan tatters. The silence of the central leader-
APRIL 2019 Bhattacharya, CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP ship has made things worse. The many
CBI seeks Lok Sabha Speaker Om and one of the counsels in the PIL in the factions within the party’s state unit—led
Birla’s permission to prosecute case, says he personally met Birla in July by Dilip Ghosh, Mukul Roy, Rahul Sinha
TMC MPs. Adhikary has, by now, 2020 and inquired about the status of the and Suvendu Adhikary—have started
joined Mamata’s cabinet sanction. “He assured me it would be done asserting themselves, leaving the cadre
within a month. Unfortunately, it never confused. As a BJP leader, who did not
JULY 2020 happened and I filed another PIL in the wish to be named, says, “It’s a peculiar
Rajya Sabha No action, Calcutta High Court challenging the need situation. If Dilip Ghosh calls a meeting,
MP Bikash after promis- for consent,” he says. Bhattacharya is well Mukul and Suvendu do not attend. The
Bhattacharya ing to do so aware why that consent never came: the meeting called at the party headquarters
of the CPI(M) within a month. stage was being set for Suvendu’s entry. at Hastings two days ago also saw thin
urges Speaker Rumours attendance. There’s chaos, confusion and
Om Birla to give abound at the

D
hankhar, on the other hand, a sense of demotivation.” Several Muslim
his consent to time of more displayed extraordinary alacrity leaders, who had defected to the BJP
the CBI to pro- possible defec- in granting sanction. The TMC along with Roy and Adhikary, now want
ceed against tions from the called his action unilateral, and violative to return to the party. Among them are
the MPs TMC to the BJP
of the constitutional provision that the state minority cell vice-president Kashem
DECEMBER governor must act on the ‘aid and advice Ali, its member Kabirul Islam, former
19, 2020 of the council of ministers’. Dhankhar, the TMC MLA from Hooghly Parvez Rah-
Adhikary joins BJP TMC said, had consulted neither the chief man and Alamgir Mollah.
minister nor her council of ministers. Reopening the Narada chapter, then,
MAY 7, 2021 The governor offered a tweet in is nothing but a morale-boosting exercise
West Bengal governor Jagdeep defence: ‘Governor accorded sanction for for the cadre. Playing up the post-poll
Dhankhar gives consent to prosecution of Firhad Hakim, Subrata violence was one such attempt. “It is
the CBI to prosecute four TMC Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and Sovan nothing but disrespect of the popular
ministers Chatterjee being appointing authority of mandate,” says Rajya Sabha TMC MP
ministers@MamataOfficial under Article Sukhendu Sekhar Ray. “The governor is
MAY 17, 2021 164 and thus competent authority’. Ex- trying to create a situation for President’s
CBI chargesheets—and perts, however, point out that Dhankhar rule. He’s flying in a BSF chopper and
arrests—Firhad Hakim, Subrata issued the sanction on May 7 because the visiting areas hand-picked by BJP MPs
Mukherjee, Madan Mitra and council of ministers was not in existence and crying hoarse against the collapse of
Sovan Chatterjee (who quit the
at the time and in order to sidestep the re- law and order and constitutional break-
BJP again in March 2021, after
quirement to act on their ‘aid and advice’. down. The intention is more than clear.”
being denied a party ticket)
TMC leader Kalyan Banerjee says the The TMC is also asking why Adhikary
permission of the Speaker of the assem- and Roy have been spared. The somewhat
ndu bly was mandatory to prosecute MLAs, lame defence of Adhikary’s exclusion is
Conspicuously, Suve which was also overlooked. Bhattacharya, that he was a Lok Sabha MP when the
Mu ku l Ro y of
Adhikary and however, points out that as per Section 19 video was shot and his prosecution would
e no t na me d in the
the BJP ar of the PCA, it is not necessary to obtain
ge sh ee t. Ab ou t Ad hikary’s require the Lok Sabha Speaker’s consent.
char
or Ja gd eep the sanction of either the governor or the Roy, on the other hand, was seen not
exclusion, Govern
o sa nc tio ne d the Lok Sabha Speaker. The plea for sanction, accepting the cash himself but directing
Dhankhar, wh
on of the 4 TM C minis- he feels, is nothing but shadow-boxing where it could be taken. However, while
prosecuti crim-
e of the between the TMC and the central forces. Adhikary and Roy have been granted
ters, said at the tim bha
s a Lo k Sa Having decisively lost the electoral immunity, Sovan Chatterjee, who quit
inal offence, he wa en t to
ea ke r’s co ns battle, why is the BJP resurrecting the the BJP shortly before the poll over ticket
MP and the Sp nd -
s still pe
chargesheet him wa en
Narada ghost now? For one, Mamata’s distribution, has had no luck. n
s no t se
ing. Roy, he says, wa
mera
accepting cash on ca
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 9

RSS VS BJP
DISCORD IN
THE FAMILY
By Anilesh S. Mahajan
A
t the end of his seventh year as
the country’s prime minister,
Narendra Modi would never
have thought his relation-
ship with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) would be on such slippery
ground. After all, pracharak-turned-
politician Modi has delivered on at
least two of the Sangh’s obsessions—the
Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and the aboli-
tion of Art. 370 and with it Jammu &
Kashmir’s special status. Yet, the second
Covid surge—where the country has
officially reported some 40,000 deaths
in the first 10 days of May—has caused
much friction between the Modi regime
and the Sangh.
The focus of Sangh affiliates right
now is on relief work but there is grow-
ing discomfort about the near-absence
of the government and the political lead-
ership on the ground. Unlike last year,
the prime minister has not addresed
the nation about the situation, while
10 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
his ministers seem to be active only on
social media. “India’s second wave has
been catastrophic, claiming many more
lives than in 2020. Everyone is worr-
ied—but now is not the time to criticise,”
says a top RSS leader. However, the
unease is palpable, reflected in sarsang-
hchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks:
“Kya janata, kya shasan, kya pra-
shasan, sabhi gaflat mein aa gaye (the
people, the rulers, everyone was caught
off-guard)”. Known to weigh his words
carefully, Bhagwat’s choice of the Urdu
word ‘gaflat’ (it can mean inattentive but
also laxity) raised eyebrows.
Many in the BJP immediately star-
ted hyping this as a clean chit from the
Sangh, but no one was fooled. Some
dissected the statement further: why
did the sarsanghchalak use an Urdu
expression, a language he rarely uses in
his speeches? And the comment came
at an Akshaya Tritiya day lecture, dur-
ing which Bhagwat also announced the
ANI PHOTO
Sangh’s own big effort to step into the
Covid-management breach, via its newly
floated Covid Response Team (CRT). The
Sangh CRT plans to touch base with 10
million families (see box: A parallel task
force). Now figure another part of the
puzzle: Bhagwat’s close confidant Ram
Madhav—who was recently rehabilitated
in the RSS national executive after being
unceremoniously dumped from the BJP
national team—authors an article the
same morning in a prominent English
daily underlining the need for more
transparency, more engagement, more
openness to constructive criticism and
expert opinion on the part of the political
leadership in the battle against Covid.
The Sangh has a tradition of being
measured in its public pronouncements.
Every word is uttered after careful con-
sideration, so Bhagwat and Madhav’s
comments cannot be taken lightly. On
condition of anonymity, several top
RSS leaders have made sharply critical
observations about the way in which an
honoured tradition of collective leader-
ship has been hijacked by the “extreme
centralisation of the decision-making
process”, so much so that even senior min-
isters are not consulted on crucial issues.
This is when cabinet ministers are push-
ing the line that health is a state subject
and the Centre cannot be held account-
able for the current mess. “Oxygen was

UPFRONT
THE RIGHT JAB
RSS workers helping out at a Covid
inoculation drive in Bhopal, May 13
never a problem, but there were logistics
and distribution challenges,” says one
cabinet minister.
With the situation getting out of
hand, the Modi regime is relying on six
empowered groups of bureaucrats to
deal with the Covid situation. “Today,
they are talking about a third wave (ref-
erence to principal scientific advisor K.
VijayRaghvan’s statement); why didn’t
they predict the second wave in time?”
asks sah sarkaryavaha Arun Kumar.
“I didn’t read any piece, statement or
paper from them, even in end-March,
when independent scientists started
alerting the administration.” Another
top RSS leader pointed out the contra-
dictions within the government: “The
Piyush Goyal-led commerce ministry
is trying to convince the WTO mem-
ber countries to get the TRIPS (Trade
Related Intellectual Property Rights)
waiver; meanwhile, officials in the
pharma ministry submit an affidavit in
the apex court that the country will not
go for compulsory licensing to make
vaccines affordable. Why isn’t everyone
on the same page?” he asks.
This is not the first time the RSS
has complained about the overdepen-
dence on bureaucrats and consultants.
It happened during the protests against
the farm laws too. In fact, after RSS
leaders intervened at the coordination
committee meeting in Ahmedabad (in
January this year), the government
offered to suspend the laws, initially
through the apex court and later via
an open offer to the farmers. The RSS
is also unhappy with the way the Modi
regime is pushing largescale privatisa-
tion of public sector enterprises.
All those grave reservations not-
withstanding, the Sangh is not keen to
force the issue beyond a point. Arun
Kumar says, “It’s a disaster, and we need
to give the government time to get its
house back in order and provide relief
to the affected families.” But time is also
running out. In February next year, five
states—Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand,
Goa, Manipur and Punjab—go to the
Graphical Icons by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
A PARALLEL
TASK FORCE
Clearly unimpressed with the govern-
ment’s Covid management, the Sangh has
instituted a parallel Covid Response Team
(CRT). Officially positioned as back-up
infrastructure, it will be fairly hands on. A
dozen-odd verticals have been identified
to look at different aspects of the national
pandemic response. The main ones are:
MEDICAL
Studying efficacy of drugs and
vaccines currently in use and to
assess lab infrastructure
HOSPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Disseminating data on Covid bed
availability, coordination with
back-up infrastructure like iso-
lation centres; exploring tie-ups
with DRDO for make-shift hospitals
MEDICINES
Assessing requirements of ess-
ential medicines, more specifi-
cally for the third wave
OXYGEN
Assessing medical oxygen
requirements and tying up for
supplies with manufacturers;
availability of cryogenic tankers for trans-
port, feasibility of their fabrication in India
RELIEF WORK
COUNSELLING ‘POSITIVITY’
Organising psychological coun-
selling of patients, setting up
talks with spiritual gurus
SUPPORT FOR COVID-HIT
FAMILIES
Collaborating with the state and
charities like Matri Chaaya, Vat-
salyagram to rehabilitate orphaned children
CREMATION/ LAST RITES
Arranging honourable cremation
of Covid victims and exploring
alternative cremation tech-
niques that use less wood and save time
ROLE OF AAYUSH
Identifying homeopathic,
ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani
medicines effective in managing
mild, moderate and severe Covid
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Coordinating with other verticals
on resource requirements;
mobilise donations, grants and
gifts in cash or kind
TEMPLE COORDINATION
Involving the temples in Covid
relief, promoting Covid-appro-
priate public behaviour
POLICY INTERVENTION
Drafting policy-intervention
representations to be made to
the Central/ state government
polls. The BJP is in power in four of these
states. Among them, UP is critical for
both the BJP and the RSS. The party
returned to power here after a hiatus of
15 years; the state also sends the larg-
est number of lawmakers to Parliament.
But more than that, Uttar Pradesh is the
heart of the country’s cow belt, and is cru-
cial in the BJP’s campaign for the 2024
general election.
T
he Sangh understands that Modi—
and his image of being “a doer”—is
still their best bet for expansion
and to push their cultural and sociologi-
cal agenda. So it is important for both the
BJP and RSS to salvage the image of PM
Modi. The hope is that the vaccination
programme, checking the spread of Covid
in rural areas, and improving communi-
cation with the people will turn the tide.
The desperation today in India’s rural
hinterland is a big threat to the party.
Welfare schemes like free health insur-
ance, electricity, cooking gas and access to
toilets had won them considerable supp-
ort among the poor, but the rampaging
pandemic threatens that goodwill.
“So far (during the second surge),
we have not been able to take the people
along. We need to do more, show the
people the government is working for
them and their better health,” says a BJP
parliamentarian. On May 14, when Modi
finally spoke to the farmers while disburs-
ing the eighth instalment of the PM Kisan
Scheme, he talked about Covid and its
spread in rural areas. On May 18, on the
news the country saw him talking to the
district administrators.
RSS leaders believe the tide may
have turned already, with the Covid sec-
ond wave peaking and oxygen supplies
strengthened. BJP chief J.P. Nadda is
holding virtual meetings with party lead-
ers every day on the ground situation. The
next electoral test will come in February
2022, but public memory of the man-
agement of this ongoing Covid crisis will
certainly play a hand in the outcome. The
RSS knows only too well that its fortunes
are linked inextricably to the BJP’s and its
onward electoral journey—and will hope
the government gets a hold on the situ-
ation sooner than later. It has certainly
thrown its full might at the problem. n
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 11
 A
CONGR ESS t the May 10 Congress Working Committee
(CWC) meeting, party president Sonia Gandhi

THE
announced that the Central Election Authority
(CEA) of the Congress was ready with the sched-
ule for the presidential election. An earlier CWC meeting, on
January 22, had set an end-June target to complete the pro-
cess of electing the next party president. Accordingly, June

IMMINENT
23 was fixed as the date for the election.
But given the ongoing Covid wave, all CWC members
unanimously favoured a further deferral at the May 10 meet-
ing. K.C. Venugopal, Congress general secretary (organisa-

RETURN OF
tion), clarified that the deferral would not extend beyond two
or three months. Surprisingly, the resolution to postpone
the election was initiated by CWC members from among
the ‘Group of 23’ that had in August 2020 written to Sonia
Gandhi demanding an organisational overhaul and account-

RAHUL
able leadership in the Congress.
While these leaders maintain that their sole objective was
the party’s revival, their opponents and Gandhi family loyalists
claim the letter was an indirect attack on Rahul Gandhi, who
apparently did not consult the G23 leaders before taking key
decisions that concern the party. Rahul, who is the Lok Sabha
By Kaushik Deka MP from Kerala’s Wayanad, remains the de facto leader and
face of the Congress even two years after quitting as president
following the party’s debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
The drubbing in the recent assembly polls has handed

FAMILY
CONCERN
Sonia Gandhi
and Rahul
Gandhi at the
CWC meeting
to elect
an interim
president of
the Congress,
Aug. 2019
VIKRAM SHARMA
Rahul’s detractors another opportunity
to question his leadership, for he had
campaigned quite intensively in Kerala,
Tamil Nadu and Assam. Anticipating
this, Sonia not only reiterated her com-
mitment to hold the presidential elec-
tion but also formed a five-member
panel to explore the reasons for the
party’s poor performance in the polls.
REVIVAL DREAMS
The G23 leaders, though, have so far
refrained from raking up the poll rout
on party forums. Congress insiders
see two reasons for this—the changing
socio-political situation in the country
and, more importantly, the fact that
getting a president of their choice was
not the real aim of the G23. Senior lead-
ers believe the pandemic has offered
the Congress an opportunity to recon-
nect with the people as an alternative
to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
the BJP, at a time when his popularity
is seen to be waning due to the central
government’s mishandling of the Covid
UPFRONT
crisis. “India is witness to how Rahul
Gandhi kept warning about the Covid
situation and how PM Modi kept ignor-
ing it. By ignoring the warning, Modi
heaped unprecedented suffering on
Indians,” says Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury,
the Congress leader in the Lok Sabha.
Though many of Chowdhury’s
colleagues do not see any significant
improvement in Rahul’s image as an
alternative to PM Modi, they agree he
may benefit from the public ire building
against the incumbent government over
Covid. “It’s a natural course correction.
Rahul Gandhi may still be ‘Pappu’ (a BJP
coinage for the Gandhi scion), but even
‘Pappu’ will look good against a prime
minister who has failed to save lives,” says
a former Congress chief minister.
Even dissenters feel the pandemic
offers the party a chance of revival with-
out having to effect any serious organ-
isational revamp. “Indians vote to throw
someone out of power. When they are
angry, they don’t really see who they are
voting for. So, any non-BJP force could
get lucky,” says a G23 leader. The group
is also certain that Rahul will contest the
presidential election. “Rahul Gandhi has
been saying he will do whatever the party
asks him to. This is a clear hint [that he
will contest],” says a CWC member close
to him. So, instead of challenging him,
the G23 has been exploring ways to find
a place in Rahul’s scheme of things.
Earlier, there were murmurs that the
Gandhi family may back a loyalist for
the post of Congress president—possi-
bly Mallikarjun Kharge, Randeep Singh
Surjewala or Mukul Wasnik. Attempts
were made to nudge Rajasthan chief
minister Ashok Gehlot and former
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal
Nath, but both reportedly declined.
Some in the Congress want to project
MANY IN THE
CONGRESS PREFER
PRIYANKA FOR PARTY
PRESIDENT OVER
RAHUL, WHO HAS
FAILED TO DELIVER
ELECTORAL SUCCESS
Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra as the presiden-
tial choice. They say the party must not
project a leader (read: Rahul) who has
failed to deliver electoral success. A CWC
member recalls how Congress lead-
ers from Assam and West Bengal had
requested for more rallies by Priyanka
than Rahul. Family loyalists, however,
say Priyanka is an unlikely candidate
because: a) her success could end Rahul’s
political career and b) her failure might
prematurely exhaust the Gandhis’ other
option. Besides, the gamble may backfire
if the Congress fares poorly in the 2022
assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, of
which Priyanka is AICC (the All-India
Congress Committee) in-charge.
THE GANDHI FACTOR
Given these scenarios, Rahul’s return to
the top is now a matter of ‘timing’. “The
Congress is used to having a Gandhi
as the leader while others keep fight-
ing among themselves. A non-Gandhi
president would mean an implosion
in the party,” cautions a CWC mem-
ber. The Congress has had successful
non-Gandhi presidents, most famously
P.V. Narasimha Rao, but most observ-
ers concur that he could hold the party
together while he was prime minister.
“Once out of power, Rao lost his grip on
the party. The Congress regrouped and
stabilised only after Sonia took over the
reins,” says a Congress Rajya Sabha MP.
Aware that the Congress needs a
Gandhi as the glue, the dissenters were
never eyeing the top chair. Rather, they
wanted greater say in decision-making
through the electoral route. Though
the G23 leaders had expressed concern
about the “uncertainty” prevailing on the
leadership issue, their five-page letter
did not call for election of a new presi-
dent. Their most significant demands
were election of CWC members, revival
of the party’s Central Parliamentary
Board (CPB) and reconstitution of the
Central Election Committee.
In the Congress constitution, the
25-member CWC, the highest execu-
tive authority of the party, consists of the
party president, the leader of the party
in Parliament and 23 other members,
of whom 12 are elected by the AICC and
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 13

the rest appointed by the party presi-
dent. The elected members cannot be
dismissed by the president, which means
they don’t need to function as cheerlead-
ers of the Congress president. Election to
the CWC is an opportunity for those who
have lost Rahul’s patronage to stay rel-
evant in the Congress. “If all members are
nominated, they remain in office at the
mercy of the president and lack authority.
It means they may not speak their mind
in party deliberations,” Ghulam Nabi
Azad, one of the G23 leaders, told india
today last September.
DIVIDE AND RULE
The last CWC election was held in 1997
at the AICC session in Kolkata, where
stalwarts like Ahmed Patel, Pranab
Mukherjee and Azad were elected. After
taking charge in 1998, Sonia contin-
ued the trend of nominating all CWC
members, a strategy employed by Rao
in 1992. When three of his detractors—
Arjun Singh, Sharad Pawar and Rajesh
Pilot—got elected to the CWC, Rao got
the entire CWC to resign on grounds that
no woman or member of the SC/ST com-
munity had been elected. He reconsti-
tuted the CWC but nominated Singh and
Pawar as members. “The logic behind
nomination was that the election process
provided some demographic advantage
to the populous north Indian states,” says
CWC member Ajay Maken.
CWC members are elected by the
AICC through a preferential voting
mechanism. Since the AICC consists of,
among others, an eighth of the Pradesh
Congress Committee members, the
north Indian states, which have more
PCC members, hold an advantage.
This has often resulted in leaders from
certain states getting more representa-
tion in the CWC. Ironically, at the 84th
AICC plenary session in 2018, Azad had
argued against CWC elections, saying
that the president needed to include
leaders from different regions.
Rao had disbanded the CPB too,
provisioned in the Congress constitution
to regulate and coordinate the party’s
parliamentary activities. The body
should have 10 members, including
14 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
THE CONGRESS
COMMAND STRUCTURE
The party last held a presidential election
in 2017 after a gap of 20 years. No elections
have been held for over two decades to any
decision-making body of the party
 President: To be elected
by AICC (All India Congress
Committee) delegates
 Congress Working
Committee: The highest
decision-making body with 25
members, of which 12 are to be
elected by the AICC
 Congress Parliamentary
Board: The 10-member
body coordinates the party’s
parliamentary activities; has not
been constituted since 1992
 All India Congress
Committee: Consists of the
Congress president, former
presidents who have completed
a term of one year, leader of the
the Congress president, leader of the
Congress party in Parliament and eight
others nominated by the president. All
CPB members and nine others elected
by the AICC constitute the Central
Election Committee (CEC), which
decides party candidates for the assem-
bly and Lok Sabha elections. By seeking
a revival of the CPB, the G23 is seeking
entry into the CEC and eyeing a big-
ger role in the electoral politics of the
party. Even Congress veterans outside
the G23, such as P. Chidambaram, have
called for a revival of the CPB.
Sonia has sought to deflate the chal-
lenge to Rahul’s authority by playing
OF LATE, THERE HAS
BEEN NO COLLECTIVE
SHOW OF STRENGTH
BY THE G23. AN
UNEASY CALM
PREVAILS OVER AN
UNSTATED TRUCE
Congress in Parliament, Pradesh
Congress Committee presidents,
leaders of the Congress in state
legislatures, one-eighth of the
total PCC members, 15 members
elected by the Congress
Parliamentary Party and
members co-opted by the CWC
from special categories
 Central Election
Authority: Conducts all internal
elections of the party. Members
are nominated by the president
 Central Election
Committee: Decides party
candidates for assembly and
parliamentary polls. Nine of its
members are elected by the AICC.
Other members include all CPB
members
divide and rule. Following the G23’s
letter last year, she reconstituted the
CWC and accommodated four of the
letter writers. The strategy was to
placate some of them as well as cre-
ate a rift in the group. So, while Azad,
Wasnik and Sharma were retained in
the new CWC, Jitin Prasada was not
only inducted to the top body but also
given charge of Bengal, where elections
were due. Prithviraj Chavan was made
chief of the screening committee for the
Assam election. Manish Tewari has now
been included in the five-member post-
assembly poll committee. On the other
hand, the likes of Shashi Tharoor and
Kapil Sibal have been sidelined.
The tactic seems to have worked, in
some part. In February, when Azad held
a function in Jammu, he could assemble
only seven of the 23 letter writers. Since
then, there has been no collective show
of strength or utterances by the group.
The pandemic has given both sides time
and opportunity to regroup and plan
their next move. As of now, an uneasy
calm prevails over an unstated truce. n
UPFRONT
BOOKS
INDIA’S
BACKYARD
T.C.A. Raghavan
S
hivshankar Menon’s book is
a complexly woven discourse
on how India has seen itself,
Asia and the great powers for
the past 75 years. But this is no primer:
Menon has spent his entire adult life
studying China; he was ambassador
there, as well as to Israel, Sri Lanka and
Pakistan, and was Foreign Secretary
and National Security Advisor. This ex-
perience, combined with a wide reading
of extant literature, makes for a cerebral
and deeply rigorous treatment.
The first part of the book, roughly
covering the period from decolonisa-
tion to globalisation, is more historical
in its treatment and broadly follows a
chronological framework. The second
part looks at contemporary Asia and
inevitably highlights China and its in-
terface with others, in particular India.
The focus is principally about India
interacting, influencing and being in-
fluenced by Asia; this a ‘broader’ Asia—
both a vast continental land mass and
an even larger maritime universe. It is,
moreover, a geography in which outside
powers—Europe, the US, Russia—are
key players integral to its geopolitics. In
Menon’s telling, this Asia always was
connected to wider geographies and is
INDIA AND ASIAN
GEOPOLITICS
The Past, Present
by Shivshankar Menon
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
` 699; 416 pages
now more connected than ever before.
India’s own story is inseparable from
this ‘broader Asia’ and is ‘most success-
ful’ only when most connected to it.
The first part tells India’s story in
this wider context. This is a history of
decolonisation and the emergence of
new nation-states in Asia, the world
war, the dynamics of the US-USSR-
China triangle, the end of the cold war
and two decades or so of globalisation.
The breakup of Pakistan, the tacit US-
China concert against the USSR and the
Indochina wars are part of this story.
India entered the world stage as an
independent country in a radically new
geopolitical environment. This differ-
ence arose from two profound chang-
es—Pakistan’s creation and China’s
entry into Tibet—both implying that
“independent India’s geopolitical future
is different from that of any previous
regime or state in the subcontinent”.
Nehru inevitably figures prominently
in the chapters describing how India
grappled with this environment as a
cold war set in. Menon is an admirer but
not an uncritical one: “Nehru’s ideas,
prioritising legitimacy over power,
also led him to ignore real threats and
ultimately to failures, as in his dealings
with China.” The tactical mistakes and
even more significant policy errors—not
investing in defence capacity for one—is
a story Menon narrates as a raconteur
with a real feel for the subject.
The second part, addressing current
issues and processes, is more contem-
plative and reflective. The moment
dividing the globalisation phase from
our current realities was the 2008
financial crisis. If China was the biggest
beneficiary of the globalisation dec-
ades, India and many others did not do
badly either. As the globalisation phase
ended, China’s rise transformed the
balance of power in Asia: “China is a
status quo power in the world economy
but is politically revisionist, wishing
to change the political order in Asia to
reflect its primacy.” China’s rise, along
with others, made the world economy
‘multipolar’, but it still remains unipolar
in military terms with the US predomi-
nant, but the latter’s will to power is no
longer as evident as China’s and Rus-
sia’s. China’s rise has provoked natural
strategic responses from other states in
the region. Menon’s point is that there is
no longer a simple organising principle
as during the bipolarity of the cold war
or the unipolarity of the post-cold war
age. World affairs are today in-between
orders and that much more anarchic.
For India, this means enormous issues
and the book is at its most valuable
precisely here. For the first time in
centuries, China finds itself secure on its
land frontiers and therefore free to reor-
der its maritime universe. The balance
of power with India has shifted China’s
way since the ’80s. Finding the answers
through this conundrum is, therefore,
India’s key foreign policy challenge.
Menon is at his most insightful when
he looks inwards at India. He finds it
adrift in terms of vision because of the
violation of the fundamental principle
that external status, power and recogni-
tion must follow, not precede, success in
building a stable and prosperous India.
As we look around our Covid-ravaged
landscape, it is difficult to disagree. n
T.C.A. Raghavan is a former High Com-
missioner to Singapore and Pakistan
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 15

I N F L AT I O N
THE COST
OF COVID
CONTROL?
By M.G. Arun
A
s India’s second wave of Covid
cases began to surge in late
February/ early March, policy-
makers and bankers were con-
cerned that the lockdowns states were
implementing to combat the virus could
stoke inflation. As the data for WPI
(wholesale price index) inflation—which
tracks pre-retail prices of goods—flowed
in, these concerns proved well-founded.
In April this year, WPI inflation
spiked to an 11-year high of 10.49 per
cent, compared with the same month
last year. It rose from 7.39 per cent in
March, on the back of price increases
in basic metals, power and fuel, the last
two of which are at four-year highs.
One reason for the high reading in April
is the ‘low base effect’—in April last
year, following the national lockdown
imposed on March 25, WPI inflation
had crashed to -1.6 per cent.
This rise in commodity prices is
16 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR
worrisome as it could stoke retail price
inflation in the coming months when
the increased fuel, power and raw
material costs are passed on by com-
panies to consumers. Transportation
and production costs are already ris-
ing, and experts expect WPI inflation
to remain high in the short term due
to rising global commodity prices and
the low base effect. However, unless
these impact retail inflation, they are
unlikely to have any bearing on the
Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) policy
on interest rates. On April 7, the RBI
left the repo rate (the rate at which
banks borrow from the central bank)
untouched at 4 per cent. With infla-
tion touching 5 per cent in February,
the RBI did not want to risk cutting
rates, as that could have stoked infla-
tion by increasing the money supply
ON THE RISE
Wholesale price inflation (year-
on-year percentage change)
25
All commodities
20
Manufactured goods
15
10
5
0 to 20.9 per cent compared with 10.3 per
-5
Fuel and power
-10
Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr
2020 2021 2021 2021 2021
Source: Office of the
Economic Advisor,
Government of India
UPFRONT
PRICEY PRODUCE
East Delhi’s Ghazipur vegetable market
in late October 2020
in the economy via cheaper loans. At
the time, an increase in international
crude oil prices had caused a spike in
headline inflation, with even core infla-
tion (which excludes volatile items like
food and fuel) remaining high, at 6 per
cent in February. However, RBI gover-
nor Shaktikanta Das had announced
that the apex bank would continue its
“accommodative policy”—that it would
cut rates if it became necessary to inject
more money into the system to drive
growth. One consequence of the high
inflation numbers in April is that such
a rate cut is probably not on the RBI
radar at this point. Meanwhile, retail
inflation, measured by the CPI (con-
sumer price index), eased to 4.29 per
cent in April. This is the fifth consecu-
tive month that the CPI has remained
within the RBI’s targeted inflation ceil-
ing of 6 per cent.
“A key reason for the rise in WPI
in April is the 20.9 per cent [year-on-
year] rise in the fuel and power costs,
primarily due to the spurt in retail prices
of petroleum products, particularly
over the last three months,” says Suman
Chowdhury, chief analytical officer,
Acuité Ratings & Research. The sequen-
tial momentum in WPI is also high,
which highlights steady increase in pric-
es of primary commodities. The steady
rise in prices of manufactured products
may start pushing CPI inflation upward
on a month-on-month basis, he adds.
A note from Care Ratings says non-
food goods saw inflation of 15.6 per cent
in April, compared with 11.8 per cent in
March. Inflation in food products also
rose from 9 per cent in March to 12.6
per cent in April, mainly because of a
considerable uptick in the prices of veg-
etable and animal oils and fats. In April,
inflation in fuel and power also jumped,
cent in the previous month. ‘[This] can
be ascribed to the rigidity in internation-
al crude oil prices on account of bright
prospects for global oil demand outlook
and a low base effect’, the note adds. n
Graphic by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
 EXPOSUR E

INTO THE STORM

The most severe cyclonic storm recorded in the Arabian Sea since the early 1900s, cyclone Tauktae
made landfall in Gujarat on May 17 and has devastated three coastal states in India—the other two
being Maharashtra and Goa. The cyclone, according to unconfirmed reports, has claimed 60 lives and
destroyed property at a humongous scale. Over the past week, the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast
Guard have mounted several joint search and rescue operations to bring to shore stranded crew mem-
bers from adrift barges. As Tauktae gradually weakens in intensity, the country, already dealing with a
devastating second wave of Covid, must start picking up the pieces.

RESCUE FORCE
During a rescue operation mounted by the Indian Navy on May 18,
stranded workers are airlifted from a barge in the Arabian Sea that
had gone adrift after being hit by cyclone Tauktae

INDIAN NAV Y / AFP

 UPFRONT
GL ASSHOUSE

COVID WARRIOR
B
JP MP Subramanian Swamy recently
demanded that Union minister for
road transport Nitin Gadkari be asked
to lead India’s Covid-19 task force. He had
perhaps heard of Gadkari’s behind-the-scenes
Covid-relief work in Maharashtra. In April,
Gadkari persuaded pharma company Gentek
Lifesciences to produce 100,000 units a day
of Remdesivir at Wardha, near his home
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

town Nagpur. This is expected to take care

of the shortfall in the Vidarbha region. More
recently, he got the same company permis-
sion to produce 75,000 units of a medicine to
treat mucormycosis, a post-Covid complica-
tion. A seasoned campaigner, Gadkari knows
his good turn in Vidarbha is also a political
investment that will fetch handsome returns.

CM SPEAKING Duty Calls

O n dialling the Tamil Nadu government’s
Covid-19 helpline, Archana Padmakar Uchief secretary Awanish
ttar Pradesh additional

was confused when the person who Awasthi, tasked with

answered said he was Chief Minister M.K. monitoring oxygen deliveries
Stalin. Suspecting a prank, she redialled, in the state, lost his father to
only to be told that it was actually the chief Covid-19 recently. The officer,
minister, on an unannounced tour of the handpicked by Chief Minister
state government’s Covid war room at the Yogi Adityanath for the job,
late night hour. He assured Padmakar that was however back on duty
a hospital bed would be provided for her monitoring oxygen shipments
cousin, who needed oxygen. Within half an just hours after his father’s last
hour, an ambulance arrived to transport rites. The grapevine is drawing
the patient to the hospital. The Stalin fan parallels with the chief minister
club has grown. himself, who didn’t attend
JAISON G. his father’s funeral last April
because he was immersed in
preparations to handle the first
O Brother,
ANI

wave of Covid-19 cases.

Where Art Thou?

C ontroversial politician Pappu Yadav,
recently arrested in a kidnapping case,
reached out to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar for help on May 15 while admitted
to a hospital in Darbhanga. Declaring
himself to be the CM’s “achha bhai (good
brother)” he sought the “CM’s support in
saving people.” Sadly for him, the Bihar chief
minister is not known to go out of his way to
I

help self-styled “brothers” in legal trouble.

AN

—Sandeep Unnithan with Kiran D. Tare, Amarnath K. Menon, Amitabh Srivastava and Ashish Misra
 GUEST COLUMN

India Walks the

NAVTEJ
SARNA
Tightrope, Again
I
n East Jerusalem, tensions run barely below the surface at The tonal discord between bilateral India-Israel ties and
the best of times. During Ramadan, the slightest provoca- our multilateral positions is a reality. Since the establishment
tion can lead to a conflagration. This year, there was plen- of diplomatic relations in 1992, Israel has become a close part-
ty: the barricading by Israeli police of the steps outside ner in defence, security, telecommunications, counter-terror-
Damascus Gate, where Palestinians gather for the iftaar meal ism, agriculture and water, and has been responsive to India’s
and, recently, to protest; the attempted eviction of Palestinian needs, including during the pandemic. Israel would like to see
families—1948 refugees settled there by Jordan in the fif- this warmth, espoused at the highest political levels, reflected
ties—from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood; the impending in India’s multilateral positions. To some extent, India has
Jerusalem Day march celebrating the 1967 Israeli takeover; obliged, abstaining on some anti-Israel resolutions at the
and violent clashes in the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest UN Human Rights Council, dropping the reference to East
shrine in Islam. Mob violence erupted, on an unprecedented Jerusalem as ‘the capital of the Palestinian State’ from some
scale, in mixed Arab-Jewish towns inside Israel. Hamas, frus- documents and balancing statements, as in the present case.
trated by the cancellation of elections But that’s as far as India can go: its sup-
by the Palestinian Authority, grabbed port for the Palestinian cause is not only
the opportunity to project itself as the deeply rooted in its value-loaded early
great Palestinian protector. It unleashed foreign policy—India was the first non-
hundreds of rockets from Gaza, sending Arab country to recognise the State of
Israelis to bomb shelters, including in Tel Palestine in 1988—but also in realpolitik
Aviv and Jerusalem, and severely test- concerns, given our Muslim population
ing Israel’s Iron Dome defences. Israel’s and relations with the Arab bloc. For the
retaliation was swift and characteristi- most part, Israel understands this pre-
cally heavy, aimed to cripple Hamas’ dicament and rarely goes beyond polite
infrastructure. Civilians, including proforma protests; the maturity of the
women and children, as usual, were col- relationship lies in boxing these differ-
lateral damage. ences and letting bilateral ties flourish.
The UN Security Council predictably For the foreseeable future, India’s
failed to issue a statement, blocked by tightrope walk will continue because
the default pro-Israel US stand. India’s the conflict is going nowhere. An uneasy
There is a tonal discord
position was stated by Ambassador peace will return, both sides having
T.S. Tirumurti in a deftly-drafted state-
between India-Israel made their political points—Hamas has
ment that balanced, to the extent cred- bilateral ties and our convincingly shown its muscle and Bibi
ibly possible, India’s strategic ties with multilateral positions. Netanyahu has bounced back as Israel’s
Israel and our traditional support for the Support for the Palestin- strongman, staving off political threats
Palestinian cause. For the Palestinians, ian cause is deep-rooted in as well as a possible trip to prison. But a
the statement draws a causal link from our early foreign policy meaningful dialogue and resolution are
events in East Jerusalem to the broader a far cry. Neither side has leaders with
conflict. Further, it speaks against any the capacity, or the will, to make the
change in status quo in East Jerusalem fundamental concessions required for a
and its neighbourhood—a clear reference to settler aggression two-state solution, and the US is no longer an honest broker.
in the area—and in the holy places, particularly the Haram The core issues—Jerusalem, refugees, borders, security—are
al Sharif/ Temple Mount, presently administered by Jordan. frozen; aggressive settlement activity has ensured that there is
For Israel, the statement condemns the ‘indiscriminate’ rocket little land left for peace. The option of One-State is looming but
fire by Hamas and characterises Israeli strikes as ‘retaliatory’. nobody wants to make eye contact with it, lest it become real. n
It condemns ‘all acts of violence, provocation, incitement and
destruction’ without singling out Israel for disproportionate Navtej Sarna is a former Ambassador of India to the United
destruction or civilian deaths. The statement will not fully States and Israel, and High Commissioner to the UK. He is
please either side, which is as it should be. also the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction

Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 19

24 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 COVER STORY / L E A D E S S A Y

REPUBLIC OF
SELF-HELP
SUPERHEROES OF THE PANDEMIC WHO ARE GOING
BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY TO HELP FELLOW
CITIZENS BATTLE COVID AND STATE APATHY
By RAJ CHENGAPPA / Illustration by NILANJAN DAS

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 25
 COVER STORY

LEAD ESSAY

M
principles Rummy is guided by. The hall­
mark of a good government is to put care for
human life and the happiness of its people
above all. Yet despite having the might, the
mandate, the machinery and the money, the
Indian State has repeatedly failed its citizens
in the past two months in their hour of dire
need. Thousands have died for want of oxy­
gen or hospital beds, because the State failed
to make adequate arrangements. While the
black market flourishes, there is a criminal
shortage of vital drugs to treat Covid. There
is a long waiting line even to cremate or bury
the dead. Of course, none of this takes away
from the tremendous service India’s over­
MEET GURPREET SINGH RUMMY. For a living, he works stressed medical personnel are rendering to
as a contractor supplying fuel pumps to petrol stations in save millions of lives against daunting odds.
the National Capital Region. But not during these troubled Not since Partition have we experienced
times. He and his friends are busy running an ‘Oxygen such grief, despair and a lack of faith and
Langar’ 24x7 in a gurudwara in Ghaziabad. They set it up trust in the government’s ability to save lives.
in the last week of April to help Covid-positive patients who Currently, 4,000 people a day, or three peo­
needed medical oxygen desperately but were unable to get ple every minute, are dying of the disease in
it, either from the market or in hospitals. With the state ma- this country. As on May 18, 283,248 people
chinery overwhelmed by the crisis and unable to meet the had died of Covid, with the second wave acc­
needs of Covid patients in the NCR, Rummy and his band ounting for more than half the number. The
of do-gooders—who situation may be easing in cities like Mumbai
and Delhi but is worsening in Bengaluru
call themselves Khalsa
and Kolkata. Let’s not forget that at its peak
Help International— the first wave had less than 100,000 new
stepped in to make a cases daily while in the second wave, despite
difference. Patients THESE DO- talk of daily cases dipping, it still averages
can choose between GOODERS HAVE 250,000. Worse, there is a growing crisis in
being admitted to the RISEN ABOVE India’s rural interiors, where the virus has
25-bed makeshift hos- POLITICS, CASTE struck vast numbers down for the first time.
pital at the gurudwara AND RELIGION TO The government will find it difficult to
or refilling oxygen cyl- explain away its apathy and follies by calling
inders for home treat-
HELP THE NEEDY the pandemic a once­in­a­century calamity.
ment. Thousands have IN THE TRUE Especially as the first wave had provided it
received succour but SPIRIT OF THE ample opportunity to prepare for the worst.
Rummy’s philosophy ANCIENT INDIAN A government’s biggest failure is when it is
of the people, by the people, but is not seen
remains simple—“Our TRADITION OF to be for the people. Even the higher judicia­
first priority is to save VASUDHAIVA ry has taken the government to task for its
lives. We don’t say no KUTUMBAKAM : negligence. Hearing a slew of petitions on
to anyone.” THE WORLD IS the subject on May 18, a bench of the Delhi
Governments—both at ONE FAMILY High Court scathingly remarked, ‘Your
the Centre and in the states— officers are living in ivory towers…do they
would do well to heed the not see that so many deaths are taking place

28 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
across the country… it ( the pandemic) is raging like a fire but none of
you are bothered. Every day you are castigated by each and every court
in the land and you are still not awake.’
Thomas Hobbes, the founder of modern political philosophy,
believed that a community needed to have a social contract for gov­
ernance to prevent human life from becoming “solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish and short”. Yet the opposite has happened in India during the
second wave. Despite the Indian State failing, committed citizens have
stepped up and prevented the nation from descending into a Hobbes­
ian nightmare. All across the country, thousands of individuals and
non­governmental organisations have come together to help. Unlike
the government, these ordinary individuals have used adversity as an
opportunity to make extraordinary contributions that go far beyond
the call of duty. In the nation’s darkest hour, these angels of change
have come together in the mission that Mahatma Gandhi wanted the
Indian State to accomplish—‘To wipe every tear from every eye.’ These,
then, are the heroes of the new Republic of Self­Help.
A
BRAHAM LINCOLN, the 16th president of the United
States, who united America, said, “I am a firm believer in the
people. If given the truth, they can be depended on to meet
any national crisis.” Truth may have been the first casualty
in the pandemic, especially over the number of afflicted and
dead, but that hasn’t dissuaded the self­help groups from discovering
their inner strengths. What characterises their effort is not just their
can­do spirit but also their innate humaneness. Many found the truth
of what Saint Francis of Assisi once said, “Start by doing what’s neces­
sary, then do what’s possible and suddenly you are doing the impos­
sible.” For instance, Sravasti Ghosh, an artist living in Kolkata, was
troubled by the continuous wail of sirens and wanted to do something
to help. “I felt there was no time to waste as people were dying every
hour,” she says. So she put up a post on Facebook, offering a few meals a
day to Covid patients in home isolation. The response was instant, her
phone kept buzzing and from her meagre savings she started supply­
ing 15 homes with food daily. Soon, well­wishers chipped in with funds
and she now supplies 100 people with meals daily with the help of her
parents. “Every small step counts,” Ghosh says, with quiet conviction.
In the following pages, we profile 31 individuals and non­govern­
mental organisations that represent the much larger pool of self­help
activists who are putting their shoulder to the wheel for the nation.
They are helping in both small and big ways, by providing ambulances
to transport the sick, answering requests by patients for oxygen and
drugs, setting up makeshift hospitals, giving food to the needy and
even helping cremate the dead, things that the State should have taken
care of but has mostly failed to. These people have risen above religion,
caste, politics and station to serve the needy in the ancient Indian spirit
of ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’—the world is one family. What makes
their work even nobler is that it comes at a grave risk to their lives and
AS THE PANDEMIC
RAVAGES INDIA’S
INTERIORS,
THE MODI GOVT
HAS FINALLY
ACKNOWLEDGED
THE ROLE OF
COMMUNITY
PAR TICIPATION
AND MADE IT A
PART OF ITS COVID
STRATEGY
that of their families, given how virulent the
virus is in the second wave. Their sources
of inspiration and motivations are many.
Jitendra Shinde, an autorickshaw driver
in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, for instance,
was inspired by a dialogue from the 2014
Salman Khan starrer Jai Ho: “If everybody
helped three people and they in turn helped
three more and the process continued, In­
dia could survive any calamity.” Shinde has
used his auto to transport over 1,000 Covid
patients in the past one month.
As the pandemic begins to ravage the
Indian countryside, the Modi government
seems to have finally acknowledged the
magnitude of the challenge before it and the
need to involve the community in a big way.
Given the poor healthcare services in rural
India, among the measures being advocated
is community mobilisation by involving all
stakeholders, including NGO activists and
self­help groups. “Strength,” Gandhi once
said, “does not come from physical capac­
ity. It comes from an indomitable will.” The
government must show the will that these
do­gooders have demonstrated to overcome
arguably the worst crisis India has faced
since Independence. n
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 29
 PITCHING IN Team Ahmed-
abad, an initiative by Captain
Ankur Suri (2L, standing) and
other pilots, at a kitchen for
Covid patients in Ahmedabad

REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

MEDICAL CARE

AIRBORNE
AID
Photograph by JAVED RAJA

A PILOTS’ GROUP IN AHMEDABAD HAS BEEN PROVIDING

FUNDS AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES TO THOSE IN NEED
BY RAHUL NORONHA

28 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 TEAM AHMEDABAD,
Ahmedabad
What it has done
Provided financial and
logistical support for
medical supplies and to
set up hospitals

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 29
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

MEDICAL CARE

IN
N APRIL, as state governments across
India began imposing lockdowns to
contain the second wave of Covid-19,
Captain Ankur Suri, an Airbus pilot
with Indigo Airlines, based in Ahmed-
abad, was wondering what he and his
colleagues could do to help. That was
when Suri’s school friend from Bhopal,
Rahul Kothari called him.
Kothari, a state level office bearer with the BJP in Madhya
Pradesh, had been helping those in need who were unable to get
hospital beds or medicines. Since Suri had announced on the school

PURUSHOTTAM DIWAKAR
WhatsApp group that he and his colleagues were looking to finan-
cially help to those in need, Kothari took him up on the offer, asking
PUBLIC PROTECTOR
for help in buying oxygen concentrators. Suri posted the call for help Kavita Srivastava at a
on his pilot’s group in Ahmedabad, which has around 120 members. Covid care centre
Soon, Rs 1.5 lakh worth of donations had arrived, which allowed in Jaipur
Kothari to purchase four concentrators. Kothari’s organisation, Sa-
rokar, now has 40 concentrators which he provides to patients in the
critical period during which they are waiting for a hospital bed.
The next call to Suri was from another class mate, Gaurav Par-
dhi, who was based in the MP’s eastern district of Balaghat. He
KAVITA SRIVASTAVA
was helping in the war against Covid in eastern MP’s rural areas by
National secretary, PUCL, Rajasthan
setting up a 15-bed hospital. The pilots’ group, which had by now
acquired the name ‘Team Ahmedabad’, chipped in to buy oxygen cyl- What she has done Helping
inders and had them delivered to Balaghat. In numerous instances, Covid patients get medical
medications like Remdesivir were also picked up from various parts assistance, oxygen and
of the country and delivered to patients in other cities. “When there hospitalisation and providing
was an acute shortage of Rem- food and water to those in
desivir, I found a few vials in a extreme need
city in Punjab. The medicine
was flown in through multiple

FOR THE
flights and reached Bhopal
the same evening for a school
friend,” says Suri.
The pilot’s group recently
sent medicines for villages in
MP’s Raisen and Bhopal dis-
PEOPLE
KAVITA SRIVASTAVA HAS HELPED
tricts. The group is now setting THIS IS A TIME OF OVER 500 PEOPLE ACCESS
up a kitchen for the relatives NEED, EVERYONE MEDICAL CARE, FOOD, WATER
of those admitted to hospitals
WANTS TO CHIP AND FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
in Ahmedabad. “Most people
IN. WHILE THERE
who want to help don’t know BY ROHIT PARIHAR
IS GOOD IN
how to go about it,” says Suri,
adding, “All those to whom we
EVERYONE, MOST
have provided financial support
PEOPLE DON’T
are people I have known from KNOW HOW TO
childhood. I know they are do- HELP
ing genuine work.” n CAPT. ANKUR SURI

32 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
D
URING THE LOCKDOWN LAST YEAR, Ka-
vita Srivastava, whose three decades of activism
have won her the respect of the state government,
was a leading voice demanding aid for migrant
workers trapped in cities or forced to walk back to
their home states. Since last month, she has found
herself in a new role—using her contacts in govern-
ment to arrange for hospital beds, medicines and
oxygen for those in need, as well as overseeing the
distribution of water, food and other resources gathered by her
organisation. In the process, she has been working with a dozen
other NGOs across the state.
There have been many tragedies along the way. “So many of those who
cannot get treatment quickly die,” she says. “It is emotionally draining.” She
tells the story of Gam Prasad, a chef on the Palace on Wheels train, who died.
His entire family—his widow, son and his wife and child—are all currently
hospitalised. She also helped in arranging Gam Prasad’s last rites. Another
story is of Ram Avtar, a worker at a textile factory in Jaipur, whose wife,
Santosh, stopped breathing after she was put on a ventilator and had to be
revived. Avtar, talking of the struggle to find Remdesivir for his wife, breaks
down, saying that he has had to lie to his two children, telling them that their
mother will be home soon.
Many speak of Srivastava’s help in glowing terms. Pradnya Deshpande,
who was hospitalised at the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences, says
that Srivastava visited her every day for a week, climbing nine floors to
bring her soup and coconut water. “I live alone, away from my family,” says
Deshpande. “Kavita was the person who cared for me.” Tarun Zibu, whose
86-year-old mother tested positive for Covid, says Srivastava helped him
THE ENTIRE
HEALTHCARE
SYSTEM IS UNDER
SEVERE STRESS. THE
PANDEMIC CANNOT
BE FOUGHT WITHOUT
COMMUNITY
SUPPORT
KAVITA SRIVASTAVA
get an oxygen cylinder and concentrator, and
that his mother’s condition improved primar-
ily because of how quickly this was done.
With her sister Komal, Srivastava also
helps to take care of homeless people at a
shelter in Jaipur, where eight residents—in-
cluding a cancer patient—and four staffers
recently recovered from Covid. All the resi-
dents need some level of medical care, which
is very difficult to arrange in these times. She
says the next item on her agenda is to per-
suade the government to provide rations and
financial assistance to those who do not have
official paperwork like ration/ Aadhaar/ Jan
Aadhaar cards. n

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 33
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP MAASH Kasargod, Kerala
What it has done The initiative has brought
MEDICAL CARE teachers into Covid-safety programmes

I
TEACHING
N NORTHERN KERALA, the colloquial Ma-
layalam word for teacher is ‘maash’. As com-
munity educators, they are a widely respected

SAFETY
A PILOT PROJECT IN KASARGOD
DEPLOYS SCHOOL TEACHERS
FOR SOCIAL OUTREACH ON
COVID SAFETY AND MEDICAL
SURVEILLANCE
BY JEEMON JACOB
SAFETY FIRST MAASH volunteers con-
duct Covid-safety outreach in Kasargod
demographic. In June 2020, Kasargod’s district
collector Dr D. Sajith Babu, hoping to leverage
this social capital to amplify the state govern-
ment’s Covid-safety awareness and tracking
programmes, reached out to high school teacher C.P.
Vidya to head up a new initiative. Called MAASH,
this project roped in the district’s teachers for the
state’s IEC (information, education and commu-
nication) outreach efforts. Just a few months prior
to that, Kasargod district had accounted for over
a quarter of Kerala’s total Covid cases—178 of the
state’s 505 cases in March 2020.
“In March-April last year, the district saw a sharp increase
in Covid cases, and then again in June,” says Sajith. He says that
a number of risk factors for public health had been identified,
such as an increasing number of Covid protocol violations,

32 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 THE PROJECT
INSPIRED ME
TO DO MORE
FOR MY LOCAL
COMMUNITY. I
BELIEVE THAT
EVERY ONE OF US
HAS A ROLE TO
PLAY IN THE TIME
OF THE PANDEMIC
C.P. VIDYA
which prompted the district to “intro-
duce a novel platform involving teach-
ers in the IEC activity against Covid in
the district.” Project coordinator C.P.
Vidya, says, “While working with the
project, I met hundreds of people. It in-
spired me to do more for my local com-
munity. I believe that everyone of us has
a role to play in the time of pandemic.”
The 1,600 teachers who joined
this effort were given three primary
tasks—educating the public about Co-
vid safety protocols, joining the medi-
cal surveillance teams at the ward level
and assisting in compiling village-level
statistics about the spread of cases. To
achieve their goals, teachers came up
with innovative programmes like mes-
sages on community radio, Facebook
Live presentations and counselling for
families affected by Covid.
“I was infected with Covid and re-
mained at home for almost 21 days,”
says Suresh Mohan, a resident of
Kasargod. “The MAASH volunteers
were a huge support during those chal-
lenging times. I was worried about the
safety of my family, but [the MAASH
volunteers] offered very good advice
and were always just a call away. After
recovering from Covid, I too decided
to work as a volunteer at a ward-level
vigil committee.” The success of the
Kasargod project has led Chief Min-
ister Pinarayi Vijayan to extend the
programme across Kerala—today,
teachers across the state actively par-
ticipate in promoting the state’s IEC
programmes against Covid. n
DRAMATIC
EFFECT
A street play by
CCN to raise Co-
vid awareness
COVID CARE NETWORK West Bengal
What it has done Conducted awareness drives and
provided medical resources to rural areas
IN THEIR OWN
LANGUAGE
CCN IS CONDUCTING AWARENESS AND TESTING DRIVES IN THE
STATE’S RURAL AREAS, AS WELL AS SETTING UP FIELD HOSPITALS
BY ROMITA DATTA
H
OW DOES ONE explain the danger of Covid
to people who have little direct experience of
it—such as the people of Ayodhya Hills in West
Bengal’s Purulia? Members of the Covid Care
Network (CCN) were faced with this problem
while on a Covid-awareness drive.
For instance, the village headman of Ayodhya Hills
said, “Covid is a phenomenon of polluted city life. It will never reach us.”
It took some nimble arguments—such as asking what would happen if an
infected person was to travel to their village—to convince people that mask
wearing was essential. CCN members also made use of popular folk art,
like Chhau dances and street plays, to explain what exactly Covid was, and
the hundreds of people it was killing each day.
Having already worked extensively in the state’s urban areas, during
the second wave of Covid, CCN has focused its attention on rural areas.
“Infrastructure is seriously wanting,” says Satyarup Siddhanta, a member
of CCN. “You won’t even get an ambulance here. [To help], we have con-
verted e-rickshaws into makeshift ambulances. We are also holding medi-
cal camps and identifying those who need to be isolated and those who
need testing and hospitalisation.” One of the group’s primary objectives is
to set up field hospitals with 20 oxygen beds each in rural areas to supple-
ment primary health care facilities. For instance, while conducting a survey
at Patharpratima in South 24 Parganas, they found that despite the 8,000-
odd Covid cases in the area, the closest hospital with oxygen beds was 25
kilometers away. “Ten districts have been chosen where field hospitals can
be set up quickly. Two in Birbhum will be ready next week.” n
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 35
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP DR S.N. BASNA , Deputy Medical Superintendent, LNJP Hospital
What he has done Provided free teleconsultations to
MEDICAL CARE over 800 people since October last year

DOCTOR TREATING PATIENTS

ON CALL
OVER THE PHONE
HELPS REDUCE THE
LOAD ON THE SYSTEM.
EVERY DAY, DR BASNA SPENDS FOUR TO SIX HOURS ON THE EACH PERSON CURED
PHONE WITH COVID PATIENTS, PROVIDING MEDICAL ADVICE AT HOME IS ALSO A
HOSPITAL BED SAVED
BY BANDEEP SINGH
FOR SOMEONE WHO
REALLY NEEDS IT
DR S .N. BASNA

RAJWANT RAWAT
most people were traumatised by the fear
that they would not get hospital beds. This
caused problems as “it suppressed their
immunity and all efforts were put towards
locating a hospital bed or an oxygen cylinder
rather than [anything else]”, he explains.
Once he was back on duty, Basna started
counseling the patients he came in contact
with. He began listening to people, taking
outstation calls, advising people on their
symptoms, prescribing medication and, most
importantly, addressing their fears. As pa-
tients started recovering, Basna realised that
what most of them needed was general guid-
ance and positive moral support, “a feeling
CRITICAL CARE Dr S.N. Basna that they had someone to go to”. Arun Bhat-
tacharya, 62, a yoga teacher in Delhi, speaks

A
to Basna on a daily basis as his entire family
S A 13-YEAR-OLD in Sirsi village near Jaipur, Sri is Covid positive. He calls the doctor a “res-
Narain Basna saw his sister die due to post-pregnan- cuer” and adds, “He advises on not just medi-
cy complications because of tetanus. “She lost her life cines but also other things, and in such detail
for the lack of an injection that cost one rupee. No that it feels like you know it from inside.”
one had guided her about it,” Basna, now the deputy As referrals grew, Basna found himself
medical superintendent at LNJP Hospital, Delhi’s talking to more and more patients. On an
largest Covid hospital, recalls in anguish. Years later, average, he now speaks to 50-60 patients a
when he was a medical college student, Basna devel- day, dedicating 4-6 hours of his own time
oped a steely resolve to reach out to those in need. During the first in the mornings, evenings and even late at
night. Since October last year, he has treated
phase of the pandemic, he was on Covid duty for eight months,
over 800 patients over the phone for free. His
from March-October last year. Towards the end of his term, he
patients include judges, IAS officers, artists
was infected and hospitalised for six days. The problems he faced and villagers who have no access to medical
then gave him first-hand experience of the practical difficulties facilities. Amit Dahiya Badshah, 72, a poet
and mental trauma that most Covid patients have to deal with, living alone in Delhi who was treated by
making him realise that ‘medical guidelines’ do not address the Basna after he was unable to get a hospital
individual practical difficulties patients face. bed despite his oxygen level falling to 67 ,
Basna became aware that more than the discomfort of the infection, calls him an “anchor in the storm of Covid”. n

36 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1

DIGITAL
ANGELS
OVER THE PAST MONTH, THIS
GROUP HAS LEVERAGED
SOCIAL MEDIA TO HELP SOME
300 COVID PATIENTS FIND
TREATMENT
BY SUHANI SINGH
THE CITIZENS’ WAR ROOM
What it has done
A collective of private
citizens, it has helped Covid
victims source oxygen
cylinders and concentrators
and get hospital beds
COMING TOGETHER CWR members on a group meeting on Zoom
W
HEN THE SECOND WAVE of Covid-19 began
choking medical infrastructure, leaving tens of
thousands frantically looking for medical care
and posting appeals for help on social media, a
group of friends realised it was time to pitch in.
Pratika E. Prabhune and 16 others began helping
by contacting suppliers to check on the availability
of oxygen and medications and reaching out to those asking for help
with the information they had gathered. The group named itself the
Citizens’ War Room (CWR).
Prabhune says the group found itself overwhelmed with requests for help in
the first week, with about one message every three minutes. Soon, a request for
volunteers was put out and responses came in from across India. “People were un-
able to find beds or [medicines or oxygen] themselves,” says Prabhune, a Mumbai-
based rapper and content manager at Ticket Fairy. The collective’s job entailed
following up with suppliers and hospitals and immediately connecting the family
of the Covid-19 patient to a verified resource. Apart from responding to hundreds
of SOS calls over the past month, the collective has reached out to over 300 people
so far. With the help of Dr Chinmay Patkar, 28, co-founder of CWR, the group has
also been able to provide clinical guidance over the phone. Patkar himself recently
fielded a 2 am call from a 56-year-old Covid-
positive patient in Bengaluru. “She was dia-
betic and had a severe infection that made WE CAN’T IMAGINE
it impossible for her to walk,” says Patkar. A WORLD WITHOUT
After speaking with her, he recommended a
COMPASSION.
course of medication, while CWR volunteers
WHEN WE SEE
helped source medication and find a doctor
who could visit her at home to administer
SOMETHING BAD
treatment. “She received all the help by early
HAPPENING, IT
morning the next day,” says Patkar. AFFECTS US
Though the number of social media SOSs AND WE HAVE TO
have reduced, CWR’s work goes on. The DO SOMETHING
collective’s core group convenes on Zoom ABOUT IT
every day to discuss future programmes, PRATIKA PRABHUNE
which now includes raising funds to feed the
underprivileged. n
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 37
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

MEDICAL CARE

RED VOLUNTEERS West Bengal

What it has done Helped with
hospital admissions, arranged for

SUBIR HALDER
medicines and oxygen and assisted
in cremations

HELP ON THE WAY Red Volunteers members

transport an oxygen cylinder in Tollygunge

THE RED poration usually santises affected buildings.

ALLIES
But after 17 people in Sarsuna in Behala,
where about 4,000 people live, came down
with Covid, we had to step in. Everyone
else was terrified,” says Nihar Bhakta of the
THE LEFT’S YOUTH WING HAS STEPPED UP
RV. Spread across 23 districts of the state,
IN A MAJOR WAY IN BENGAL TO PROVIDE
SUPPORT DURING THE COVID CRISIS RV teams (10-15 members each) focus on
specific areas, be they in cities, towns or
BY ROMITA DATTA the hinterland where there are more active
cases—daily spikes of 3,000 and above. So
far, they have registered 80,000 members,

S
not all of whom are affiliated to the Left.
EVENTY-YEAR-OLD Shaktimani Chatterjee, Many young people have joined the teams
was gasping for breath. Her oxygen level had out of a sense of civic responsibility. Every
dipped to 73. Her husband, also a Covid patient, day, the RV attends to over 3,000 distress
dialed a doctor-friend, who, unable to help, calls from all over the state.
reached out to the Red Volunteers (RV). In less But how is it possible that they can
than an hour, four boys were at their door with deliver oxygen cylinders and even hospi-
a 50 litre oxygen cylinder. Since that day, the el- tal beds when even the administration is
derly couple has been getting medicines, oxygen, home-cooked struggling? Dipsita Dhar, a PhD scholar
food and even someone to baby-sit their grand-daughter. In at JNU who contested the 2021 assembly
Bengal, there are countless examples like this one where timely election and is an active member of the RV,
intervention by the RV has either saved lives or was responsible says the members are sincere and serious
in their efforts. “We have a good network
for a dignified send off for the dead.
with dealers of oxygen cylinders, medicine
When Rathindranath Pramanik’s 65-year-old mother died of Covid shops, etc. In the case of hospital beds, we
in Hooghly’s Shyampur-Paschimpara area, her fam- go straight to the au-
ily members had no idea how to go about getting her thorities and pressure
to the cremation ground. It was raining heavily and them. We manage to
no ambulance or hearse was available. “Someone had
NO HEARSE WAS extract beds reserved for
forwarded the number of the RV to me, and I called
AVAILABLE. THE VIPs or those blocked
them to see if they could help. They were soon at our RED VOLUNTEERS for special cases,” says
home wearing PPE suits to take my mother away. MEMBERS CARRIED Dipsita. And miracles
They carried the body on their shoulders to the cre- MY MOTHER’S are happening every
matorium,” says Pramanik. BODY ON THEIR day. Even when hospital
The Left may have been wiped out in the state’s SHOULDERS TO THE dashboards are showing
Legislative Assembly, but its youth brigade has been CREMATORIUM full occupancy, the RV
a force on the streets, especially through the second RATHINDRANATH PRAMANIK somehow manages to
wave of Covid. Even for sanitising entire localities, admit critical patients
people are calling up the RV. “The municipality/ cor- within 24 hours. n

38 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
THE VIRALS GROUP Lucknow
What it has done Volunteers provide verified leads
for medical resources in Lucknow

A STITCH 2,500
IN TIME MEMBERS
The group has around 10
THIS LUCKNOW-BASED GROUP BEGAN WITH A SINGLE helpline groups, each of which
HELPLINE. TODAY, IT IS HELPING COVID VICTIMS FIND has about 250 volunteers
THE MEDICAL RESOURCES THEY NEED
BY SONALI ACHARJEE

happen if we found a way to motivate them to

ABHISHEK MISHRA
help and then gave them a platform through
which they could support our city,” says Te-
jaswini Tandon, a 24-year-old teacher, who,
along with friends Sunil Verma and Dipanshu
Chaudhary, founded the group.
Initially, only a couple of volunteers
signed up. Today, they have ten helpline
groups, each with 250 members. “We get
requests from across the state—Meerut, Al-
lahabad, Varanasi. Some are cries for help
from those whose friends or family are in
Lucknow, others are from people who want
to join our group and help save lives. Mes-
sages pour in on Twitter and through Insta-
gram,” she adds. The group collects leads on
ambulance services, oxygen, hospital beds,
medicines and then verifies them individu-
SUPPLY HUNT Virals Group members sourcing ally. When requests come in, these verified
medical supplies leads are given to save people the time and ef-
fort of making countless calls themselves. The

O
group also maintains a record of the various
N MAY 9, Payal Yadav and her husband made medical resources available and each suppli-
over 50 calls to oxygen suppliers in Lucknow. er. “Every minute saved can help get someone
life-saving medical support,” says Tandon. n
They urgently needed an oxygen cylinder for
Yadav’s 92-year-old mother, whose blood oxygen
levels had slipped to 85. That day, they managed
to find a 30 litre cylinder, but Yadav recalls the
WE WANTED TO
dread she felt when she realised their hunt for
INVOLVE THE YOUTH
oxygen was far from over. “We were so sick and tired of mak- IN HELPING PEOPLE
ing calls,” she says. “It was exhausting.” A neighbour recom- DURING THE COVID
mended that she put out her request on a local WhatsApp CRISIS, TO MOTIVATE
group that had been helping people find medicine, oxygen THEM TO JOIN OUR
and other Covid essentials in the city. It was called The Virals GROUP AND HELP US
Group. Within a few hours, the group had sent Yadav around VERIFY LEADS
20 verified leads for oxygen sources in Lucknow.
TEJASWINI TANDON
“When Covid broke out in the city, I realised that there were many
young people sitting at home and doing nothing. I wondered what would

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 39
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP CALVARY TEMPLE Hyderabad
What it has done Set up a Covid care centre on the
MEDICAL CARE church campus to provide free medical treatment

SACRED DUTY
HYDERABAD’S CALVARY TEMPLE OPENED ITS DOORS TO BECOME A FREE COVID CARE CENTRE
BY AMARNATH K. MENON

ESSENTIAL NEED
Calvary Temple’s Covid
care centre

40 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
O
N CALVARY TEMPLE’S sprawling
campus in Hafeezpet in west Hyder-
abad, next to its imposing church, a
300-bed Covid care centre has been
set up for patients who cannot afford
medical treatment elsewhere. With
the help of staff from two hospitals in
the city—Ankura and St Theresa—the centre admits
patients from both Telugu states, providing round-
the-clock Covid care.
Brother P. Sathish Kumar, founder-head of the Calvary
Temple, decided to develop the centre to ensure that those
in extreme need would have some support. The facility has
50 oxygen beds and 250 non-oxygen beds, with treatment,
medicines and food being provided free of cost. “For a daily
wager like me, such a health centre is the only hope,” says
Sunita, 38, a daily wager. Hailing from Suryapet in Telan-
gana, the mother of three has spent a week at the care centre,
and expects to be discharged in the next few days. “Medical
services elsewhere are not affordable.” Paul Kumar, 30, a
bank employee from Mancherial in north Telangana, who
has been admitted to the centre along with his wife, adds,
“Quality health care is beyond our reach at all times. The
medical attention and nutritious food, including dry fruits,
that we are getting here for free is of immense help.”
The church decided to set up the centre after reviewing
the lessons learned from the first wave of the pandemic. At
the time, hundreds of volunteers from Calvary Temple had
reached out to 40,000 families across the two Telugu states,
providing each with a

300
month’s supply of food
and essential grocer-
ies for a family of four.
However, providing
medical attention had
BEDS posed a serious chal-
The capacity of Calvary lenge. This year, in
Temple’s Covid care centre the face of the state’s
medical facilities be-
ing overwhelmed, Brother Kumar decided in April to set up
a care centre on the church campus, opening it on May 10.
“We know Covid-19 is a contagious disease, but to save lives
we transformed Calvary Temple into a Covid care centre,” he
says. All its seven branch churches in Telangana and Andhra
Pradesh are also being converted into Covid Care Centres.
Calvary Temple also cooks about 10,000 meals every
Sunday for poor members of its congregation, as well as pro-
viding medical prescriptions at half price to them. For the
long term, the church authorities are exploring the prospects
of opening a hospital of their own. n

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 41
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP DR SUDHANSHU Co-founder, Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur
What he has done Launched a free telemedicine
MEDICAL CARE service to provide medical aid to those in need

A HELPING HAND Dr Sudhanshu

28
DOCTORS
are part of Dr Sudhanshu’s
telemedicine helpline. They
have helped nearly 1,400
people over the past month

were on board, along with five volunteers

to man the phone lines. All told, they field
about 200 calls per day. Over the past month,
nearly 1,400 people have received medical

PURUSHOTTAM DIWAKAR
assistance through this service.
The challenge, he says, is to persuade
patients who are displaying Covid-19 symp-
toms but have not been tested as yet, to start
a course of medication instead of waiting. His
organisation has also been offering in-per-
son assistance in certain cases: a lady from
Hyderabad had called the helpline for her

SOS CALLS
75-year-old mother in Jaipur, whose neigh-
bours had helped with testing but had begun
to keep their distance once she was diagnosed
as Covid-positive. A volunteer from Sudhans-
AS THE SECOND WAVE OF COVID HIT JAIPUR,
hu’s group went to her home to provide medi-
DR SUDHANSHU LAUNCHED A HELPLINE WITH 28 DOCTORS
cine and test her oxygen levels. Similarly, a
ON CALL AND A BUS WITH FIVE OXYGEN CONCENTRATORS
cancer patient with diabetic complications
FOR PATIENTS WAITING FOR A HOSPITAL BED
had tested positive for the virus; as a result
BY ROHIT PARIHAR of the helpline, a renowned endocrinologist
offered free consultations to the patient to

L
help him manage his sugar levels.
Other outreach efforts include offering
AST YEAR, in a precautionary Covid test, all of
treatment to 21 residents at a shelter home
Dr Sudhanshu’s family members tested positive
who had tested positive and sending 50
for the virus. Sudhanshu himself was not tested, medicine kits for patients in Niwai, in the
and as he got busy caring for them, he overlooked state’s Tonk district. Dr Sudhanshu’s univer-
his own symptoms. As a result, by the time he was sity has also deployed a bus with five oxygen
diagnosed, his oxygen levels had fallen, requiring concentrators at the Rajasthan University of
longer treatment and causing more side effects than Health Sciences (RUHS), for patients who
might have been expected. “That taught me a lesson,” he says, are waiting for admission and are in critical
“that the earlier one begins treatment, the better.” He says this need of oxygen support.
led him, toward the end of the first wave, to consider how he “It has been amazing to have doctors
could help people access treatment at the earliest. devoting time despite their taxing sched-
ules, and people are offering donations to
When the second wave hit, he was ready. He launched a teleconsulta- provide facilities to the needy,” he says as he
PURUSHOTTAM DIWAKAR

tion service to help those who were unable to get treatment at overburdened monitors the chats and conversations taking
hospitals. He initially approached five doctors for the helpline, offering them place on his helpline even while travelling
payment, but all said they were willing to help for free. Soon, 28 doctors around the city in his car. n

42 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
CONTAINER
makeshift hospital has came as a blessing
to the villagers in the area, who otherwise
had to travel for hours to towns and cities for

HOSPITAL medical care. At this centre, those who need

FOLLOWING AN URGENT REQUEST FROM THE STATE,
LALIT KIRI SET UP A COVID CARE CENTRE IN A SINGLE DAY
BY ROHIT PARIHAR
urgent medical care can get it; those who do
not need hospitalisation can be examined by
doctors and immediately get the medicines
they have been prescribed.
For instance, Devi Kanwar, 68, a resi-
dent of Santra village in Barmer district,
tested positive on May 5 after having fever

L
for a few days. Worries mounted when her
ALIT KIRI’S STORY is a rags-to-riches tale of a oxygen level began to fall a few days later,
pharmacist who made it big supplying logistical ser- since the nearest hospital, at Balotra, 40 km
vices to Cairn Energy while it was exploring for oil away, had no beds. However, Kiri’s make-
in Rajasthan’s Barmer, and continued to grow after shift hospital—Bunk House Covid Care
that. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, he had been Centre—about 30 km from her village, was
inaugurated that very day. Kanwar’s son,
urging the state government to use ‘container bunk
a transporter who works in Ahmedabad,
houses’—shipping containers that are repurposed as
rushed her to Bunk House, where she was
rooms on construction sites—to set up makeshift Covid hospitals put on oxygen support. Nine days later, her
in areas without medical infrastructure. condition had improved
A few weeks ago, state revenue minister Harish enough for her to no
Chaudhary sent Kiri an urgent request to set up a Covid longer need it. “We were
care centre at Sambhara, near Pachpadra using these
I WAS ASKED TO SET taken care of very well
bunkhouses, giving him just 24 hours to do so. Despite here, better than what
UP A COVID CENTRE
the difficulty, Kiri managed to get the job done, putting a we could have [expect-
hundred people—including plumbers, electricians, land-
IN SAMBHARA IN
ed] in a big hospital,”
scapers and transporters—as well as equipment like JCBs
JUST 24 HOURS TO says Kanwar’s son. Dr
(diggers) on the job. “A hundred of us did not sleep for 24 SAVE LIVES, AND Mukesh Rajpurohit, in
hours,” he says. The fully air conditioned and furnished I USED ALL MY charge of Bunk House,
Covid care centre has 10 oxygen beds and 15 regular beds, MANPOWER AND adds that it has taken
as well as a 24-hour OPD. The project cost was in the RESOURCES some load off bigger
region of Rs 1 crore, with Kiri footing the entire bill. This TO DELIVER hospitals in the area. n
L ALIT KIRI

DOUBLE QUICK
LALIT KIRI Director, Kiri and
The Bunk House Covid
Company Logistics care centre
What he has done Set up a
temporary Covid-care centre
with oxygen beds in just 24 hours

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 41
KHALSA HELP INTERNATIONAL ,
NGO, Ghaziabad, founded in 2020
What it has done Provided
medical
4 2 oxygen for free
INDIA TODAY to, 2 02 1
M AY 31
thousands of Covid patients
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP | OXYGEN

THE OXY
WARRIORS
A QUICK-THINKING SOCIAL HELP GROUP BEAT SHORTAGES TO RUN AN
INNOVATIVE LANGAR SUPPLYING FREE MEDICAL OXYGEN
Photograph by BANDEEP SINGH

SAVING LIVES Gurpreet

Singh Rummy (top) with his
Khalsa Help International
team
M AYin 31
Ghaziabad
, 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 43
 15,000
APPROX. NUMBER OF
REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP PATIENTS REVIVED BY KHI
BETWEEN APR. 23 AND
OXYGEN MAY 14, 2021

BY BANDEEP SINGH It was something they had been planning

O
N THE NIGHT OF APRIL 22, Gurpreet Singh
Rummy, along with four fellow social workers, stood
outside the Shri Guru Singh Sabha Gurudwara in
Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, the streets around him a
dystopian nightmare of death and helplessness. The
49-year-old president of Khalsa Help International
(KHI), a social help group formed during the Covid
lockdown in March 2020, was attempting to ad-
minister medical oxygen to a 55-year-old semi-conscious woman
whose oxygen saturation level had dipped to 56 per cent. Reviving
the woman not only meant they had saved a life, but also that they
were one step ahead in putting into action an audacious plan to
distribute free oxygen among Covid-19 patients right on the road.
for a week after watching hospitals turn away
patients wheezing from lack of oxygen. With
a prayer muttered under their breath, they
administered the medical oxygen and after a
tense 45 minutes, as her oxygen level hit 90 per
cent, their confidence level shot to a 100. They
posted a video of the incident on Facebook
and by next morning, over a 100 vehicles with
Covid patients in need of medical oxygen had
lined up outside the gurudwara. Armed with
12 large oxygen cylinders, the 90-odd KHI
volunteers got to work.
The challenge was to maintain a regular
supply of oxygen. For this, the KHI reached
out to oxygen plants located as far as in Bad-

LIFELINES Gaurav Rai loading oxygen cylinders in his car for delivery RANJAN RAHI

GAURAV RAI, 51, Patna’s

‘Oxygen Man’
What he has done Deliver
free oxygen cylinders at the
doorstep of Covid patients

1,800
NO. OF PEOPLE RAI HAS
DELIVERED OXYGEN
CYLINDERS TO; 500-ODD
SO44
FAR IN COVID
INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
SECOND WAVE
di in Himachal Pradesh, Haridwar in
Uttarakhand, Jaipur in Rajasthan and
Ludhiana and Rupnagar in Punjab. Ve-
hicles moved round the clock to ensure
timely refilling and subsequent delivery UNLIKE WITH FOOD
of oxygen cylinders to the gurudwara, THERE WAS NO
sometimes reaching the volunteers liter- SCOPE OF DELAY
ally minutes before supply ran out. “Un- HERE [IN SUPPLY
like with food there was no scope of delay OF MEDICAL
here,” says Rummy. “Lives hinged on it. OXYGEN]. LIVES
There was tremendous risk involved.” HINGED ON IT
Within two days, the daily number of
GURPREE T SINGH RUMMY
patients coming to the gurudwara began
President, Khalsa Help International
to exceed 400. KHI volunteers, impro-
vising on the go, began using plumbing
pipes to administer oxygen to 10-16 peo-
COMING UP
FOR AIR
IN THE BIHAR CAPITAL, ONE MAN STRIVES TO GET OXYGEN
CYLINDERS TO VICTIMS BREATHLESS FROM COVID
BY AMITABH SRIVASTAVA
O
N APRIL 8, WHEN AMIT SANYAL saw his
oxygen levels falling, he dialed Gaurav Rai for and then taking it to someone else in need.
help. Rai wasn’t a friend but Sanyal knew the
person they call Patna’s ‘Oxygen Man’ was his
best hope. The next day, even as Sanyal’s oxygen
level plummeted below 90, Rai walked in with a
cylinder. “He entered my room without any fear
about getting infected, fixed me with a mask and
a 10-litre cylinder and also gave
me a pep talk,” Sanyal recalls. A
day later, Rai delivered a cylinder
for Sanyal’s mother who was also HAVING SUFFERED
Covid-infected. Sanyal says he MYSELF, I KNOW WHAT
owes his life to Rai’s timely help. GASPING FOR AIR
Rai, 51, is general manager at a MEANS. AND SEEING
company in the Bihar capital that SOMEONE RECOVER, THE
manufactures high-security number RELIEF ON HIS FACE AND
plates. Gaurav discovered the philan- THAT OF HIS FAMILY, IT’S
thropist in himself last July after he got
LIKE A GIFT FROM GOD
the virus. As he gasped for breath, his
—G AURAV RAI
ple simultaneously from one cylinder.
Around 30 beds were set up within the
gurudwara to aid the KHI’s efforts.
The langar continued till May 14.
According to KHI, they helped revive
around 15,000 Covid patients in those
22 days. Of these, nearly 7,000 had arr-
ived with their Oxygen levels as low as
50 to 60 per cent. The oxygen langar has
now been shifted to the Krishna Dental
College in Mohan Nagar, Ghaziabad.
With the virus spreading in rural
areas, KHI is also setting up an oxygen
langar in Kashipur, Uttar Pradesh, to
maximise their reach and take their ser-
vices to where it is needed most. n
wife struggled to arrange an oxygen cylinder
for him. After he recovered, Gaurav and wife
Aruna decided to pool their savings to buy
10 oxygen cylinders. As cases spiked, their
doorstep delivery service was much in de-
mand. Determined not to stop the service,
the couple purchased more cylinders.
It has been a tireless process. From load-
ing the cylinder in his Wagon R car, putting
the patient on oxygen, getting the cylinder
back when the patient recovers, refilling it
He has not taken a day off since the second
wave began.
As of May 16, Rai has some 144 oxygen
cylinders out of which 100 are with vari-
ous Covid patients. He withdrew Rs 5 lakh
from his own savings to buy most of these
cylinders. Several of his beneficiaries have
also donated oxygen cylinders.
An oxygen distributor tops up
his cylinders at a concessional
Rs 100 per cylinder.
In December 2019, Rai had
lost his voice after a vocal chord
infection. He had even contem-
plated suicide at that point. The
Covid-19 infection had an unin-
tended side effect—it restored
his voice. And also brought him
a new purpose in life. n
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 47
 HEALING HANDS
Volunteers with a child
suffering from Covid at
the care centre

DELHI SIKH GURDWARA

MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
(DSGMC), Headquarters: Delhi
What they have done
Providing food, oxygen, Covid
care for free

YASIR IQBAL

TEMPLE BLOOM THE SIKHS ALWAYS

COME TOGETHER TO
THE SIKH FOUNDATION, ALWAYS IN THE FOREFRONT IN RELIEF SERVE…WE WANTED
WORK IN DELHI, NOW HAS A NEW COVID CARE CENTRE TO PRESERVE THAT
BY SHWWETA PUNJ SENTIMENT

T
HERE IS NO CHAOS or the smell of sickness inside the
Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Covid Care Centre, the hospital
set up inside Gurudwara Rakabganj Sahib in central
Delhi. It radiates order, control, empathy and calm. The
facility, set up in 10 days and operational by May 7, now
tends to around 70 patients. Each bed has an oxygen con-
centrator, meals planned by a dietician, and if intensive
care is needed, the Delhi government has assured an ICU
bed at the LNJP Hospital. The state government has also assigned 50
doctors and 24 nurses to the Covid care centre, who, along with 10
volunteers, tend to the patients arriving from all across the National
Capital Region (NCR). A few days ago, a 70-year-old walked into the
facility with mild symptoms but he’s now staying there. Gurneet Singh
from the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC),
who is in-charge of the centre, explains: “He doesn’t have anyone to
take care of him, so we are looking after him.” The family has either
abandoned him or he doesn’t have anyone, laments Singh.
—MANJINDER SINGH SIRSA ,
President, DSGMC
DSGMC volunteers have turned six
gurudwaras across the city into places
of healing and recovery—offering oxy-
gen, food, free treatment to anyone who
needs help. DSGMC president Man-
jinder Singh Sirsa recounts how he used
to get over 5,000 calls a day from people
in complete distress when the virus had
begun to spread at an alarming rate. “I
got calls from people crying—bed dilwa
do, oxygen dilwa do...we felt so help-
less, we immediately started the oxygen
langar seva.” Oxygen was brought in
from the neighbouring states of Hary-
ana and Himachal Pradesh, even cities

48 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP
OXYGEN
25,000
PEOPLE GET FOOD EVERY
DAY, HUNDREDS HAVE BEEN
HELPED THROUGH OXYGEN
LANGARS, ABOUT 80 PEOPLE
ARE AT THE COVID CARE
CENTRE ON ANY GIVEN DAY
such as Raipur and Meerut. Volunteers
would work at the langar during the day
and drive hundreds of kilometres at night
to bring in the oxygen. A team of 300
volunteers and 1,800 DSGMC members
have managed to create infrastructure
and deliver with clockwork precision.
How does one pull off such a mammoth
operation where even governments have
failed? Sirsa falls back on the power of
faith. “Sikhism is not a religion but a way
of living. There is a passion for service that
comes with faith,” he says.
The committee, through the
gurudwaras, has been preparing over
100,000 food packets every day since the
pandemic hit last year. Contributions
in the form of cash or kind have come
from all the world. “When we decided to
open the Covid facility, we had nothing
in hand… I started calling and people
started contributing,” says Sirsa. One do-
nor provided the beds for the centre, an-
other provided the sheets, concentrators
were shipped in from across the world; in
fact, the centre has more concentrators
than beds now. An oxygen plant has been
shipped that will be set put up at Gurud-
wara Bangla Saheb. The committee is
preparing for the third wave as well—in
the pipeline is a 100-bed hospital with
an ICU facility, including ventilators and
BiPAP machines. n
INDIAN YOUTH
CONGRESS
What they have
done Arranged medi-
cines, hospital beds,
oxygen. Received
SOS from 300,000
and provided help to
more than 100,000
since April 2021
AIR INDIA An IYC volunteer delivering an oxygen cylinder to a home in Delhi
YOUTH POWER
THE CONGRESS’S YOUNG BRIGADE TAP THEIR ORGANISATION
CONTACTS TO GET RELIEF FOR COVID VICTIMS IN CRISIS
BY KAUSHIK DEKA
W
HEN GURUGRAM-BASED freelance writer
Shilpi Singh and her family of four needed
hospitalisation, she tweeted seeking help
on April 15. The tweet was noticed by IYC
president Srinivas B.V. and within two hours,
Shilpi, her husband Ajay and two children
were admitted in a hospital in Narela in Del-
hi. “They not only got us admitted but kept regular tabs on our
health. IYC leaders check on us even today,” says Shilpi.
When the first wave of Covid-19 hit India last year, Indian Youth Con-
gress (IYC) volunteers distributed masks and PPE kits and fed thousands
of migrant workers. At their national executive on March 7 this year, former
party president Rahul Gandhi had asked volunteers to gear up for a second
wave. A core group of 1,000 across the country responded to citizens des-
perate for hospital beds and oxygen. They started a database of hospitals,
oxygen and ICU beds and ventilators, so they knew immediately whenever
a bed fell vacant. “People lined up in front of big hospitals waiting for hours
and days to get admission. Our volunteers were there to guide patients and
attendants to hospitals where beds were available. The immediate medical
attention saved many lives,” says Srinivas.
Many patients, who could not get admitted in hospitals but needed
oxygen, reached out to the IYC
through their social media han-
dles. The IYC volunteers catego-
rised the patients depending on
criticality and prioritised help for
those in urgent need. Later, when
word of mouth spread about
THE INTENT IS KEY. IF IYC’s work, many recovered pa-
THERE IS AN INTENT tients donated their cylinders to
TO HELP, ALL FORMS the organisation. The IYC also
OF SUPPORT cremated more than 100 bodies
COME YOUR WAY of patients who had no one to per-
—SRINIVAS B.V., form the last rites. n
President, IYC
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 49
 SEWA INTERNATIONAL, Headquarters: Houston, Texas
REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP
What they have done Raise awareness, provide relief
OXYGEN supplies, augment capacities of Covid centres, hospitals
RAJWANT RAWAT

IT’S IMPORTANT TO
INTEGRATE RELIEF
EFFORTS WITH FUTURE
RESILIENCE IN ORDER
TO MINIMISE FUTURE
DAMAGE AND LOSS
OF LIFE
—ARUN KANKANI,
President, Sewa International

imeters as well as essential medicines and

food kits. Since April 15, the 150,000-strong
BREATHING EASY Sewa International members distribute oxygen concentra- Indian diaspora who are part of this outfit
tors at a Delhi Covid care centre have raised $17 million across the world.
This includes $2.5 million from Jack Dors-

DIASPORA ey, CEO of social media giant Twitter.

Sewa International’s secretary Shyam

DYNAMIC
Parande says raising funds and procuring
equipment were the easiest of the decisions.
The challenge was get the relief materials
THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION WORKS ON A WAR to the real beneficiaries. The first decision
FOOTING TO GET RELIEF MATERIAL TO CRISIS ZONES Sewa International took was to devise a
strategy to fulfil immediate broader re-
BY ANILESH S. MAHAJAN
quirements like relief, provide victims with
essentials like food and medicines along

L
ATE EVENING OF MAY 16, a few volunteers of
Sewa International were busy at their office in New
Delhi’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg load-
ing 100 oxygen concentrators into a truck.
The consignment was on its way to Nagpur
in Maharashtra. At the Nagpur nodal centre,
the volunteers were ready with a list of Covid
care centres and hospitals where these con-
centrators needed to go. Kumar Shubham, coordinator
for Sewa International’s India unit, has already
with the capacity building of healthcare
institutions to ensure longer-term goals,
including dealing with mental health is-
sues. Harsh Parikh, research fellow at
Duke University calls this the ‘T-Model’
for disaster relief.
Sewa uses its network of 80-odd
NGOs in India and correlates w ith
hotspots identified by central and state
agencies to target beneficiaries. For this,
the Sewa team does an analy-
sis, based on past experience,

10,000
distributed 2,150 such concentrators to more than
on utilisation and extent of
240 centres across the country. In Houston, the relief needs. “We are clear;
US headquarters of the Hindu humanitarian out- the centre has to be charitable
fit, 5,700 more of such concentrators have been (including budget) hospitals,
procured and they are on the way. households and 240
Covid care centres, isolation
Covid centres/ hospitals
The outfit swung into action in mid-April after the sec- Sewa International has wards, NGOs doing relief
ond surge hit India. Along with concentrators, the group is helped since April 2021 work or government hospitals
distributing 250 ventilators, 256 co-ventilators, 20,500 ox- or PHCs,” says Pande. n

50 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 DOST, Delhi-NCR
What they have done Directly
procure Covid essentials, such as
medicine, oxygen, beds and food, for
those who need help

WHEN I STARTED
DOING THIS WORK,
I REALISED THERE
IS GREAT NEED FOR
PEOPLE WHO WILL
ACTUALLY GO OUT
INTO THE FIELD AND
HELP. I COULDN’T
STOP THEN
YASIR IQBAL

—VINAY PASRICHA ,
Founder, Dost
CARE-GIVERS Vinay Pasricha (centre) and friends at
the Dost Covid care centre in Sector 34, Noida

In May, the group decided that they

would add capacity to the medical infra-

FRIENDS IN structure in Noida. After collecting funds

from friends and acquaintances abroad,

NEED
Dost tied up with the RWA of Sector 34
to open a Covid care centre complete
with 20 oxygen-supported beds. “It is for
people who need oxygen therapy but not
B-SCHOOL FRIENDS TEAM UP TO PROVIDE MEDICAL
RESOURCES TO THOSE IN DISTRESS ventilators. We have nurses and a doctor
who comes twice a day,” says Pasricha.
BY SONALI ACHARJEE The group has saved around 85 people in
the last five weeks. “But we also lost a 100

IN
MID-APRIL, VINAY PASRICHA received a call
from a friend’s wife who was desperate to find
oxygen for her hospitalised husband. Pasricha,
an alumni of Harvard Business School, spent the
night finding oxygen for his friend which even-
tually saved his life. “Till that moment, I didn’t
think such a thing was possible…
to be in hospital and have no life-
saving oxygen,” he says. He started ‘Dost’ with 30
friends to provide medical resources to Covid pa-
tients in the Delhi-NCR area. “Instead of giving
people numbers, we do the work for them. If some-
people because hospitals wouldn’t admit
them. There is a lot more to be done to
help the community survive this crisis,”
he says. Dost is looking to start Covid
relief vans soon which will carry oxygen
and basic medicines to those in need.
“Over the last few weeks, I have witnessed
so many heroic acts of selfless service. I
have seen strangers shar-
ing their last oxygen cylin-
der with someone in need,
people ferrying strangers
to hospitals knowing fully
well they can get infected.

85
one needs a nebuliser, a medicine or oxygen, we get I have seen ICU beds be-
ing shared, people spend-
it to them,” he says. Over the last few weeks, Pasricha
ing their last penny to save
has himself transported several patients to Covid
others. We are such a caring,
wards, putting at risk his own health. “I realised that helpful and giving society,
LIVES SAVED; Dost
most people will make calls but very few will go out
answers hundreds of it is unbelievable. And it is
into the field themselves—to deliver something or daily requests this that will get us through
transport someone in distress,” he says. and queries the pandemic.” n

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 51
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

TRANSPORT

HOPE
FLOATS
A TRADITIONAL SHIKARA CONVERTED
INTO A WATER AMBULANCE HAS BEEN
HELPING THE RESIDENTS OF DAL LAKE
GET TIMELY MEDICAL AID

50 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
Photograph by ABID BHAT
TARIQ AHMAD PATLOO, 51,
Houseboat owner, Srinagar
What he has done
Started a water ambulance
service on the Dal Lake
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 51
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP Tariq Ahmad Patloo routinely
distributes masks and PPE kits for
TRANSPORT free among locals

BY MOAZUM MOHAMMAD

L
AST YEAR IN AUGUST, WHEN Tariq
Ahmad Patloo, a houseboat owner in
Srinagar, was infected with Covid
and needed a ride to Srinagar’s SMHS
Hospital, his own community failed

7 lakh
him. He was unable to find a shikara
to take him across the lake. Even after
his recovery, the memory of that apa- `
thy haunted him more than the virus.
Upon regaining his strength, Patloo began looking into the
idea of starting a water ambulance service to help those Covid THE APPROX. COST OF
BUILDING THE WATER
patients who are unable to find support. However, at above
AMBULANCE
Rs 20 lakh, the cost of a commercial water ambulance—a mo-
torised boat equipped with materials and devices to provide Caters to about 8,000 people
life-saving, immediate medical intervention—proved to be living in the Dal Lake area
unaffordable for Patloo. So, instead, he converted a traditional
shikara into a make-shift ambulance with financial assistance
from the Satya Rekha Trust.
Besides houseboat and shikara owners, about 8,000 people living in tients to hospital causes death. My aunt had
the Dal Lake area, spread over 22 square kilometres, lack proper medical died because she couldn’t be ferried to a nearby
facilities or an ambulance to ferry them to the nearest hospital. embankment in time,” says Patloo. “It is chal-
Patloo, determined to change the situation, worked for over a month, lenging to ferry patients in small, open boats,
with a friend, to build the 35-foot-long and 5.5-foot-wide ambulance using especially during the rainy season or in the
light-weight materials, such as deodar, iron and aluminium. He also fitted it winters. The floating ambulance is covered
with an outboard motor so that it and has been made waterproof to address that
could reach destinations quickly. problem. It can accommodate 10 people.”
The ambulance, launched in De- The boatman has been circulating his
cember 2020, has already helped number via WhatsApp groups and on post-
many people reach the hospital ers carrying messages about saving the lake
and also ferried six dead bodies from pollution. He gets frequent calls from
across the lake. families living in the lake area to ferry their ail-
The ambulance is equipped ing family members (Covid positive or other-
with a stretcher, a wheelchair, wise) to the hospital. “Recently, I even ferried
masks, PPE kits, a glucometer, MY ONLY AIM IS TO bodies in the ambulance,” Patloo says. “I give
BP apparatus, oximeter and a SAVE LIVES. I DON’T patients and their attendants PPE kits from
first-aid box. The second wave of WANT ANYONE TO the ambulance to prevent the spread of Covid.
the virus has forced him to also DIE FOR WANT OF Every morning, I set out on my boat and raise
get an oxygen cylinder. The boat AN AMBULANCE, awareness, reading out Covid SOPs on the
will soon boast of even a ventila- LIKE MY AUNT DID. loudspeaker fitted on the ambulance. The fuel
tor. He has sought help from the DOING THIS HAS on these trips cost me Rs 300-500 on a daily
government to have a dedicated BEEN BURNING A basis and I pay for it from my own savings. I
medical practitioner and para- HOLE IN MY POCKET, also distribute masks for free to boatmen who
medic assigned to his service so BUT I AM READY TO are without masks.”
that emergency treatment can be SPEND MORE Patloo is now trying to reach out to the au-
given on the boat itself. thorities to get his water ambulance involved
The floating ambulance ser- —TARIQ AHMAD PATLOO in a vaccination drive in the Dal Lake area. “I
vice is reaching into the interiors want to ensure that vaccines reach the door-
of the lake. “Delay in ferrying pa- steps of the residents here,” he says. n

54 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 VILLAGE
SAVIOURS Sathi
Babu (right) with her
son Anil Babu

IT’S MY DUTY
TO SUPPORT MY
NEIGHBOURS WHEN
THEY ARE IN DISTRESS.
I DON’T CARE WHAT
HAPPENS TO ME
TOMORROW. WE WILL
ALL DIE ONE DAY...IT
MUST NOT STOP US
FROM HELPING THOSE
SATHI BABU, 49, Palappally ward representative, Meloor
SUFFERING NOW
panchayat, Kerala; ANIL BABU, 27, Havildar, Army unit, New Delhi —SATHI BABU
What they have done Helped Covid patients in their
village get medical assistance

to the aid of a Covid patient in need. On

April 28, the entire Meloor panchayat

POWER OF
area was declared a containment zone
after over 200 people tested positive. Anil,
posted with an army unit in New Delhi

TWO and back in Meloor during holidays, has

A MOTHER-SON TEAM TURN LOCAL SUPERHEROES IN
COVID TIMES IN A REMOTE KERALA VILLAGE
BY JEEMON JACOB
been assisting his mother in her efforts to
provide care and support to those in the
area who have tested positive for the virus
but are unable to access professional help.
The village, home to 27,675 persons and
7,000 households, is located on a hilly ter-

O
N MAY 9, WHEN 84-YEAR-OLD Kamalakshmi,
a resident of Kerala’s Meloor Village, tested posi-
tive and needed to reach the hospital, ambulances
were unable to get to her home located 400 me-
tres away from the road. The octogenarian had
severe symptoms and needed immediate medi-
cal attention. Her Covid positive status de-
terred neighbours from helping her cover
the distance from her home to the ambulance. As soon as
word of Kamalakashmi’s situation reached Sathi Babu,
the Palappally ward representative in the Meloor village
panchayat, she visited the ailing woman along with her
27-year-old son Anil Babu. Soon after, Anil, clad in a PPE
kit, was carrying Kamalakshmi to the ambulance.
rain, making it difficult for ambulances to
negotiate. The taluk hospital only admits
critical cases.
The Babus have helped seven other
residents get medical attention. Among
them is Suryan, who returned to Meloor
from Mumbai with his wife during the
lockdown. “Sathi chechi (elder sister) is a
one-stop solution for our worries. When
my wife fell ill after our return, she ar-
ranged for a home nurse for her.”
Apart from this, Sathi has also set
up a Covid youth brigade in her locality
made up of around 65 young men and
women who are working round the clock
to provide assistance to those

65
He accompanied her to the taluk hospital located infected. “The current situa-
eight kilometres away and post-treatment carried tion needs voluntary action.
If we wait for the government
her back to her house.
to act, we may lose our dear
This is one of the many times the mother-and-son team YOUNG VOLUNTEERS ones,” says M.S. Biju, CPI(M)
of Meloor, a village in Kerala’s Thrissur district, have come MOBILISED BY SATHI member from Meloor. n
FOR COVID OUTREACH

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 55
 JITENDRA SHINDE, 59, Autorickshaw driver, Kolhapur
REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP
What he has done Provides free transport services
TRANSPORT to Covid-19 patients

ON THE GO Jitendra

WHITE KNIGHT
Shinde (in PPE kit) stands
ready with a bottle of sani-
tiser for his passengers

ON THREE Shinde transports as many as 15 Cov-

WHEELS id-19 patients each day to the city’s rapidly

filling hospitals and has, till now, ferried
over 1,000 patients. The 59-year-old, who
THE SELFLESS SERVICE OF AN AUTORICKSHAW DRIVER
offers this service free of cost, has been
HAS HELPED HUNDREDS IN KOLHAPUR
working 12-hour days and clocking over
BY SANDEEP UNNITHAN 100 kilometres daily.
Shinde’s altruistic tendencies stem

E
VERY MORNING, JITENDRA SHINDE, an au-
torickshaw driver in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, dons
a full-body PPE suit, double mask, rubber gloves
and a face shield before heading out for the day. It
is not just because the city and the district named
after it are literally the epicentre of the Covid-19
pandemic, but because at 3.4 per cent, Kolhapur’s
Covid fatality rate (CFR) is more than double that
of Maharashtra’s 1.3 per cent CFR. The city, a dis-
trict capital with a census population of 789,000, is 374 kilo-
metres south-east of Mumbai, close to Maharashtra’s border
with Karnataka.
from a childhood tragedy: he lost both
his parents in quick succession at the age
of five. His father, he vaguely remembers,
worked in a government-run malaria
research institute, while his mother was
a homemaker. “No one should have to go
through what I did,” he says.
During the first wave of Covid-19, he
ran a free medicines, vegetables and gro-
cery delivery service for the handicapped.
In the second wave, watching the health
system rapidly getting overwhelmed by
just the sheer number of cases, Shinde

56 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1

IF EVERY
INDIAN HELPED THREE
PEOPLE, AND THEY IN
TURN HELPED THREE
MORE, INDIA WOULD
BE ABLE TO SURVIVE
ANY CALAMITY
—JITENDRA SHINDE
1,000
NUMBER OF
people Shinde has transported
since April 2021
switched over to offering free trans-
port to those in need. He is never more
than a phone call away. He changes his
PPE kit twice a day, bathes three times
a day and scours his vehicle with a litre
of sanitiser daily.
Shinde doesn’t really watch mov-
ies much, but distinctly remembers
the message from a 2014 Salman
Khan film, Jai Ho—“If everybody
helped three people, and they in turn
helped three more, India could sur-
vive any calamity.”
His selfless service is subsidised by
his family. The autorickshaw is rented
for Rs 100 a day and he spends Rs
600 per month on petrol. The house-
hold expenses are met by his wife
Rekha, who works as a cook in neigh-
bouring homes, and his son’s wife Ru-
bia, employed as a compounder in a
nearby clinic.” His wife recently took
a loan of Rs 1 lakh to finance Shinde’s
cause. “What use is money if it doesn’t
help anyone?” she asks. n
HELPNOW, a 24x7 ambulance aggregator network, founded in 2019
What it has done Transported over 2,000 patients to
and from hospitals since April 2021
THE FABULOUS
FLEET
ALREADY THE LARGEST FLEET OF PRIVATE AMBULANCES IN
MUMBAI, HELPNOW AIMS TO ASSIST PEOPLE IN OTHER METROS TOO
BY KIRAN D. TARE
T
HREE Y E ARS
AG O, Adit ya
Makkar, a student
at the Indian In-
stitute of Technol-
ogy (IIT), Bombay,
had a tough time
finding an ambu-
lance for his father
who had suffered a cardiac ar-
rest. They never found one and
had to rush him to the hospital
in their own car. This incident
inspired Makkar to launch an
affordable ambulance service. MANDAR DEODHAR
So in 2019, along with his batch-
mate Shikhar Agrawal and a
senior, Venkatesh Amrutwar,
Makkar launched HelpNow, an
ambulance aggregator.
HelpNow has provided medical assistance to close to 30,000 people
since its launch. “We had researched the ambulance scenario in our
country and were shocked to find that an ambulance takes an average of
50 minutes to reach a patient,” says Agrawal. With 350 ambulances in
its fleet in Mumbai, HelpNow is the largest private ambulance provider
in the city. It also extended its services to Pune, Delhi and Bengaluru
four months ago.
HelpNow’s call centre usually
receives around 500 calls on a
daily basis, but with India in the
WHEN WE GET midst of a second wave, the centre
A CALL FROM A has been fielding around 2,000
CHARITY HOSPITAL, calls every day since April.
WE UNDERSTAND Agrawal says they believe char-
THAT THE PATIENT ity begins at home. For those who
CAN’T AFFORD can afford it, the charges start at
Rs 500 and go up depending on
THE CHARGES AND
the distance and the service pro-
ENSURE THEY DO
vided (still 30 to 40 per cent lower
NOT HAVE TO PAY
than other services), but for those
—SHIKHAR AGRAWAL , who can’t pay, they provide the am-
Co-founder, HelpNow bulances free of cost. n
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 57
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

FOOD

THIS
KITCHEN
NEVER
SLEEPS
WHEN THE PANDEMIC SHUT SCHOOLS,
THE WORLD’S LARGEST NOT-FOR-PROFIT
MID-DAY MEAL PROVIDER CHANGED COURSE
FOR A NEW CHALLENGE—COVID RELIEF
BY M.G. ARUN
Photograph by RAJWANT RAWAT

58 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 SOULFUL
SERVINGS
Akshaya Patra
Foundation’s
kitchen in Delhi

AKSHAYA PATRA FOUNDATION

Bengaluru
What they have done Distributed
60.7 million cooked meals, 1.02 million
essential grocery kits and 1.06 million
‘happiness kits’ with dry rations for
children during the pandemic so far
M AY 1 1 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 59 M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 59
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

FOOD

B 2.2
E F OR E T H E ON S E T OF C O -
V ID -19, T HE Benga lu r u-ba sed
A k shaya Pat ra Fou ndat ion ra n
the world’s largest not-for-profit mid-
day meal programme, reaching out to
1.8 million children from over 19,000 MILLION
schools in 12 states and two Union terri- Cooked meals—Akshaya
tories. But as the pandemic ravaged the Patra’s 57 kitchens
country and schools shut, it was time to in 13 states can
change direction. With job losses, hun- prepare them in a
ger and disease all around, the foun- single shift
dation decided to use its extensive resources for an equally
challenging cause—Covid relief.

“We quickly diverted our strategy from ‘food for education’ to ‘food
for relief’,” says Shridhar Venkat, CEO, Akshaya Patra Foundation.
The idea was to reach across to the needy in a three-pronged manner: and distributed grocery and ration kits
distributing four cooked meals a day to Covid patients, migrant labour- through government channels. Venkat
ers, and the jobless; giving out ration kits that contained 42 meals for says the foundation’s fundraising events
an adult, consisting of five kilos of rice, a kilo of tur dal, half a litre of received massive support from individual
cooking oil, spices, sambar and rasam powder, and some vegetables; and corporate donors. Over 100,000
and distributing ‘happiness kits’ for children, containing biscuits, ragi individual donors came forward to supp-
flour, dental kits and sanitary pack for girls, and so on. ort Covid relief through Akshaya Patra’s
The foundation ensures that the essential groceries in the food relief online platform.
kits are based on the local palate of the regions where they are distrib- Operating during the lockdown hasn’t
uted. Recently, Akshaya Patra started a Covid Relief Feeding Centre at been smooth. Grains and vegetables had
KR Market in Bengaluru, where 1,000 free cooked meals are provided to to be procured for cooking meals, mills
Covid frontline warriors, industrial labourers and the poor every day. It needed to be open and cardboard boxes
is planning to start 3-4 similar feeding centres in other parts of the city. and bags were required in large quanti-
Since the pandemic hit India, Akshaya Patra has delivered over 124 ties. While local governments helped with
million servings, says Venkat. This raw material procurement and in allowing
includes 60.7 million cooked meals, mills to be operational, FMCG company
over 1 million essential grocery kits ITC provided paper pulp from which boxes
(that can provide over 40 million were made to distribute the grocery kits.
meal servings) and 1.06 million ‘hap- Using its team of 7,000 staff, the
piness kits’ with dry rations (equiva- foundation is looking to expand its scope
lent to over 20 million meal servings), of work by setting up community kitchens
apart from hygiene products and “ I WILL BE and, if possible, to increase the production
educational supplies. The meals are HAPPY IF WE of meals because the requirement keeps on
made at Akshaya Patra’s 57 kitchens CAN ACTIVATE rising. Recently, the foundation came to
across 13 states. The kitchens have a AKSHAYA know about the plight of three orphaned
formidable capacity to make 2.2 mil- PATRA’S ALL girls in Assam and arranged a steady flow
lion cooked meals in just one shift. THREE SHIFTS of provisions for them. “Those, for me,
This year, just as the foundation SO THAT 5-6 are the most satisfying moments,” says
was getting ready to welcome kids MILLION MEALS Venkat, who has spent 16 years now with
back to school, the second Covid wave ARE SENT OUT Akshaya Patra, after working with several
struck. Akshaya Patra tied up with TO THE NEEDY leading corporations. “I will be happy if we
several state governments to feed can activate all our three shifts so that 5-6
Covid patients in state-run hospitals —SHRIDHAR VENKAT,
“ million meals are sent out to the needy.” n
CEO, Akshaya Patra Foundation

62 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 SNEHA VACHHANEY, 36, Bengaluru
What she has done Since April 22, 2021, has
supplied 3,500 home-cooked meals for Covid
patients and frontline workers in Bengaluru; set up
covidmeals.in to help people find meal delivery options

“
Vachhaney hopes that just
as she was inspired by her
father Jagdish, who runs two
WHEN SOMEONE
NGOs in Madhya Pradesh and
ENDS THE MEAL Rajasthan, her son will also
SUPPORT AND inherit the social work ethic. “It
MESSAGES TO is all because of what my dad
SAY, ‘WE HAVE taught us and I saw him doing,”
RECOVERED. she says. “We have been doing
YOUR MEALS it for years, so it’s not related to
SAVED the pandemic alone.”
US’, I FEEL Since April 22, Vachhaney’s
CONTENTED efforts have helped provide
“
—SNEHA VACHHANEY 3,500 meals to over 100 indi-
viduals/ families. They include
the staff at three crematori-
ums—in Banashankari, Kudlu
and MS Palya—and Cratis
Hospital in Kothanur.
As Covid cases surged in Bengaluru, so did
the meal requests. Leena, for instance, was
desperately looking for a home-cooked lunch/
dinner service for her 75-year-old mother, Vic-
HEALTHY FARE Sneha Vachhaney gets food deliveries ready
toria Bhaskar, admitted in the ICU of Life Care
Hospital. “My mother is diabetic and Sneha took
extra care with her food,” she says. ‘Leena/Victo-

THE MEALS
ria Bhaskar Meal Support’ is just one of the over
100 new contacts Vachhaney has on her phone.

MACHINE
After her housing society in Bellandur
became a containment zone, Vachhaney cooked
for the virus-afflicted residents in her complex
and continued her past commitments with the
INSPIRED BY HER FATHER’S SPIRIT OF SOCIAL WORK, SHE CLOCKS help of a couple who run a restaurant near her
18 HOURS A DAY TO SUPPLY FREE FOOD AROUND BENGALURU house. Unable to take in more requests, Vach-
haney, a former product manager at makemy-
BY SUHANI SINGH
trip.com, roped in a friend to set up covidmeals.

F
OR THE PAST MONTH, SNEHA VACHHANEY
HAS BEEN SUFFERING from “mom’s guilt”.
There’s little time for her four-year-old son as she
spends most of the day cooking free meals, fielding
requests for them on phone and her social media
feeds, coordinating with home chefs, striking
deals with delivery partners and updating the
database for covidmeals.in, a website she set up in late April
to help people locate home-cooked deliveries in 200 areas
across Bengaluru and at least three other cities.
in, which draws daily some 1,000 people look-
ing for meal delivery options in their localities.
Vachhaney’s day begins at 6 am and ends
only by 1 past midnight, but she isn’t com-
plaining. “I always sleep less because I think
there’s so much to do. It is heart-warming
to see how many restaurants and strangers
came forward to cook or sponsor meals,” she
says. Vachhaney intends to serve for another
month. “I hope someday all this (pandemic)
will end and probably the blessings earned
from it works for everyone.” n

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 63
 CARE4MUMBAI, Mumbai
REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP What they have done Distributed 5,000 free food kits to the
needy in and around Mumbai, funded the treatment of several Covid patients
FOOD

HELPING HANDS
A Care4Mumbai volunteer
distributes food kits in
Ulwe, Navi Mumbai

A COLLECTIVE
food kits to the needy in Mumbai, covering
slums in Dharavi and Saki Naka and pockets
of Dombivli, Thakurli and other areas of the

THAT CARES city. Each kit consists of five kilos of rice and
wheat flour, pulses, sugar, cooking oil and
other items, and costs Rs 700-800. Since
ENTREPRENEURS AND WORKING PROFESSIONALS CHIP IN TO physical movement during lockdowns is a
ENSURE POOR FAMILIES HAVE FOOD ON THE TABLE challenge, Care4Mumbai gets grocery stores
BY M.G. ARUN in the vicinity of its target population to deliver
the food kits and pays them remotely.

M
UMBAI-BASED BUSINESSMAN M.K.
NAVAS FORMED a group of like-mind-
ed individuals in April last year to help
those impacted by Covid-19, but he had
little idea that the initiative would get
a resounding response. Within weeks,
Care4Mumbai had people ready to offer
money or their time to help those in need, all driven by a com-
mon purpose—that no one should go hungry.
It was a tall task at first as the nationwide lockdown had crippled
business activity in Mumbai for over a month and thrown people
across sectors out of jobs. “We ensured that distressed individuals who
reached out to us or whom we were alerted about by people
In cities like Mumbai, adversity often goes
unnoticed as people may not be comfortable
speaking about their problems. Varghese re-
calls a family in Ulwe, Navi Mumbai, that went
hungry for three days before someone alerted
Care4Mumbai. “Often, the sole bread-winner
passes away due to Covid and the family is in
shock for days. It’s heart-rending,” she says.
Varghese cherishes the achievement of dis-
tributing 870 food kits on Onam last year. The
group also periodically delivers food to a home
for HIV girl children in Badlapur on Mumbai’s
outskirts. Members also tap their contacts to
help those struggling to get Covid drugs, includ-
ing the now-restricted Remde-

“
or organisations did not go hungry,” says Priya M. Varghese, sivir, and hospital beds. In some
an IT professional who oversees Care4Mumbai’s relief work. cases, what is required is finan-
The 60-strong group of donors, most of whom prefer to be NO ONE WHO cial help. So far, Care4Mumbai
anonymous, includes entrepreneurs, doctors, corporate APPROACHES has spent Rs 55 lakh on the
executives and media professionals. US SHOULD GO treatment of Covid patients. It
The group’s efforts continue through the second Covid has also tied up with the Taloja
HUNGRY
wave, with over 400 food kits being distributed in the past police station in Navi Mumbai
few days. In all, Care4Mumbai has delivered over 5,000 —M.K. NAVAS ,
“ to distribute food kits. n
Founder, Care4Mumbai

64 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
FRIENDS FUTURE INDIA FOUNDATION, Vijayawada
What they have done Members of the foundation

WITH
pooled in their salaries to deliver 6,000 meals in Vijayawada
and nearby towns in May 2021

BENEFITS
SATISH SARELLA’S MEALS-AT-THE-DOORSTEP SERVICE IS A have to dial a number and leave their details;
BOON FOR THOSE RECUPERATING FROM COVID IN ISOLATION the next day onwards, Sarella and his team leave
BY SONALI ACHARJEE freshly cooked food at their doorstep till they
have tested negative. Bread and jam is offered as

W
HEN 38-YEAR-OLD SATISH SAVIT-
RI SARELLA, a superintendent (vigi-
lance) with the Andhra Pradesh animal
husbandry department, tested positive
for Covid-19 last year, he decided to send
his wife and daughter to live with his in-
laws till he had recovered.
breakfast; lunch consists of rice, dal with organic
cow ghee, sambar, an additional curry and curd.
For dinner, a curry and roti are provided.
Apart from Vijayawada, the free meals are
also supplied in nearby Eluru and Jangared-
digudem in the state’s West Godavari district. “At
first, I was the only person delivering and would
prepare the food at home. Soon,

“
But a challenge awaited him in the kitchen. some close friends not only joined
Weak from the disease and clueless in the in but also donated their salaries
towards the cause. Now, we get
kitchen, putting food on the table became I DON’T the food cooked at a local restau-
a daily struggle. The experience sensitised CONSIDER THE rant,” says Sarella.
Sarella to the difficulties Covid patients face PEOPLE I HELP The team does not accept
in arranging nutritious meals, a key aspect AS STRANGERS. donations and is proud to fund
of Covid management. I AM SO HAPPY the project on their own. “We
“I realised that so many Covid patients recu- AND EAGER TO are so happy and eager to do this
perate in isolation or are senior citizens or just too DO THIS WORK work. Every day, we get excited to
weak to cook. Food is a basic requirement and I EVERY DAY, TO see new requests for food. Many
wanted to do my bit,” says Sarella. After recover- HELP HUMANITY people are keen to help during
ing from Covid, Sarella launched the Future India SURVIVE THIS a crisis but are not sure how to.
Foundation and began supplying healthy meals to That we are able to help so many
CRISIS
Covid patients in Vijayawada and nearby towns. people is a wonderful feeling,”
Booking these meals is easy. Covid patients “
—SATISH SAVITRI SARELL A ,
Founder, Future India Foundation
says Sarella. n

DIAL A MEAL
The Future India Foundation team

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 65
 SRAVASTI GHOSH, 26
REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP Dancer and theatre person, Kolkata

FOOD What she has done Provided over 2,000 home-cooked meals
free of cost to families affected by the pandemic since April 28, 2021

LABOUR OF LOVE
Sravasti Ghosh
gets lunch packets
ready for distribution

CALL OF
CONSCIENCE

SUBIR HALDER
A YOUNG KOLKATAN MARSHALS HER FUNDS AND
CULINARY SKILLS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

BY ROMITA DATTA

S
RAVASTI GHOSH SPENT MUCH OF HER
TIME IN APRIL helping Covid patients find
hospital beds or oxygen cylinders and fetch-
ing medicines and groceries for them. But the
shrill sirens of speeding ambulances at odd
hours left her restless, and she felt guilty about
not doing enough to ease the sufferings of peo-
ple during the pandemic. That’s when, browsing through
Facebook, she hit upon the idea of supplying nutritious food
for free to those in need.
The menu was kept simple: rice, dal, veggies
and fish or egg for lunch and dinner. Ghosh cooks
the meals with her mother while her father helps
with the packing. For delivery, she has roped in
friends who are already in the field helping with
various Covid outreach programmes in the city.
Ghosh wants to continue supplying the
meals without any charge. “How does one take
money from an aged couple who feel blessed to
receive cooked food or from a
woman whose husband lost his

“
Ghosh’s mother, Ajanta, advised her to work out the job in the lockdown and is unable
finances before taking the plunge. “But I was impatient to buy even medicines?” she asks.
and felt there was no time to waste as people were dying Of late, well-wishers have
every hour,” says Ghosh, who works at the Kolkata Centre
WHENEVER I
been chipping in with funds—
for Creativity, an arts organisation in the city, and is also
THINK I HAVE
about Rs 2 lakh so far. Ghosh
into theatre and dance. On April 27, she put up a Face- STRETCHED MY
isn’t complaining for it has
book post offering 15 meals a day for Covid patients in LIMITS, I DERIVE helped her scale up to provid-
home isolation. “Within hours, the post drew 1,000 shares FRESH ENERGY ing 100 meals a day for the next
and my phone started buzzing,” says Ghosh. FROM THE FACT couple of weeks. Meanwhile, her
That evening, as soon as Ghosh’s mother reached THAT THERE mobile phone keeps ringing and
home from work, the two hit the local market to buy veg- ARE STILL her notepad fills up with names
etables and provisions for the meals while her father, PEOPLE IN NEED and addresses of people in need
Subir, sat down to do the math—they figured out that OF HELP of meals. “Every small step
providing 15-20 meals would cost Rs 1,000-1,500 a day.
“
—SRAVASTI GHOSH counts,” says Ghosh. n

66 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
THE RISHABH LALANI, 32
Fundraising strategist, Bengaluru

MONEY What he has done Raised over Rs 22 crore for 62 NGOs

helping with Covid relief—particularly those providing food and
rations to affected families

MAGNET
A BENGALURU FUNDRAISING STRATEGIST THROWS and the grassroots network to drive relief
HIS WEIGHT BEHIND RURAL ORGANISATIONS
efforts but lack the financial wherewithal
WORKING TO ALLEVIATE PANDEMIC WOES
to raise funds. Since April last year, the
BY SHWWETA PUNJ 32-year-old has worked with some 62
NGOs and raised over
Rs 22 crore collectively.

“
Most of the organisations
he has helped are focused
THE NOBEL on providing food and
PEACE PRIZE rations to Covid patients
SHOULD GO TO or people whose liveli-
hoods have taken a hit
THE CITIZENS
during the pandemic. A
OF INDIA.
post-graduate from the
WE ARE IN A Tata Institute of Social
SITUATION Sciences, Mumbai, Lalani
WHERE ONLY has raised funds through
PEOPLE ARE various avenues—the
HELPING EACH Axis Bank Foundation,
OTHER Azim Premji Foundation,
“
—RISHABH L AL ANI Ford Foundation, Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation
and even crowdfunding
and individual support.
Last year, Lalani
helped Rajesh Srinivas, CEO of Sangama,
an NGO that works with sex workers in
Karnataka, raise around Rs 20 lakh. The
funds were spent towards providing rations
to sex workers who do not benefit from the
public distribution system or any govern-
ment food security scheme. “The situation
SUBIR HALDER

is bad. There are no earnings and food se-

curity is a major issue. We distributed food
packets to 7,000 sex workers across Karna-
taka last year. This year, we want to take the
PASSION PROJECT Rishabh Lalani number up to 10,000,” says Srinivas.
Lalani also helped Agami, an NGO that
works in the legal justice space, to build

R
ISHABH LALANI, A BENGALURU-
BASED INDEPENDENT fundraising
strategist, moved back in with his parents
in Kolkata at the start of the pandemic in
2020. “I would rather be with my parents
than die alone,” says Lalani. “Koi time na-
hin hai sochne ke liye (there’s no time to
ruminate), might as well do what comes
to you in the moment.”
Lalani charts out strategies for NGOs that have the intent
ruralindia.help, a credible database of thou-
sands of rural initiatives across India dealing
with the Covid crisis. Lalani powered the
team with volunteers who keep the data-
base updated. “This database could become
valuable beyond Covid,” says Varun Hemach-
andran, spokesperson for Agami. “Anytime
there is a disaster in the country, these organ-
isations can become the frontline workers.”
And Lalani, putting his corporate negotiation
skills to good use, is enabling them do what
they do best—extending help. n

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 67

HEART OF GOLD Manjari Chaturvedi
DIVA
OF HOPE
KATHAK EXPONENT MANJARI CHATURVEDI
HAS BEEN TAPPING DONORS TO HELP RURAL
ARTISTES RIDE OUT THE COVID STORM
BY ADITI PAI
T
HIS APRIL, AS MANJARI CHATURVEDI
TESTED POSITIVE for Covid, several qawwali
singers, tabla players, sitarists and stage techni-
cians from the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, Pun-
jab and Rajasthan prayed hard
for her quick recovery. Chaturvedi
has earned the goodwill of over
150 families of artistes whom she
has been supporting financially ever since the
pandemic brought live concerts and music and
dance performances to a halt.
“Most of them are not skilled and can’t take up
any other work. They’ve spent their entire life playing WORLD. WE NEED
music. Besides, there is no work available,” says the
internationally acclaimed Kathak dancer. With pleas
PLAN FOR THEM
for help pouring in from musicians she had worked
with, Chaturvedi started raising funds for them by
68 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP
FOOD
MANJARI CHATURVEDI, 45
Kathak dancer, New Delhi
What she has done Built
a corpus for 150 families of
out-of-work rural artistes to ensure
their food security
reaching out to friends and people in her
network. Over the past one year, she has
MONICA DAWAR PHOTOGRAPHY
managed to raise over Rs 25 lakh, which
is being disbursed as a monthly allowance
of Rs 3,000-5,000 each to the distressed
families so that they don’t go hungry.
“These families should at least have basic
food on their plates,” says a distraught
Chaturvedi.
To build the corpus, Chaturvedi also
approached donors on social media, and
as word spread, more and more people
approached her for financial assistance.
Next, she wrote to corporate houses,
sponsors and cultural organisations. To
maintain financial transparency, she says,
potential donors were directly put in touch
with the intended beneficiaries.
While funds flowed in steadily last
year, donors have been less forthcoming in
the past few months. “It’s been a year and
there is donation fatigue,” feels Chaturve-
di. In the meantime, the families’ needs
have grown beyond basic groceries. With
Covid afflicting some of them, money is
now needed for medicines and treatment
in hospitals in the nearby cities.
To help the families generate some
income, Chaturvedi even helped a few buy
vegetable carts or get work in embroidery
workshops. To find a sustainable solution
to their financial troubles, she
“
wrote to the Union ministry
of culture in August last year,
ARTISTES and subsequently to several
ARE NOT JUST state governments, recom-
IMAGES ON mending that online concerts
POSTERS TO be held so that artistes can
SHOWCASE earn money from time to time.
INDIA TO THE Some of them did benefit, but
Chaturvedi believes that more
A SUSTENANCE needs to be done. “The culture
department has funds that will
“
—MANJARI CHATURVEDI
lapse. Why not use them to
save these artistes?” she asks. n
Hidden stories surface
Only on ground zero

Get all sides of the elections

JATINDER SINGH SHUNTY, 59
Former MLA, Delhi
What he has done Helped
cremate 2,199 people since April

68 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

LAST RITES

KINDNESS
IN DESPAIR
DETERMINED THAT NOBODY BE DENIED THEIR
LAST HONOURS, THIS GOOD SAMARITAN IS NOW
EXTENDING THAT DIGNITY TO IMPOVERISHED
COVID VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Photograph by BANDEEP SINGH

HAND OF GOD
Shunty inside
the Seemapuri
crematorium in
Delhi
M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 69
 REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP

LAST RITES

BY BANDEEP SINGH

IT
IS 9.30 PM A ND JATINDER SINGH
SHUNTY is sitting in an ambulance in a par­
king lot in Jhilmil Colony, fielding calls asking
him to pick up and cremate Covid victims’
bodies. “I’ve been living in this ambulance
in the parking lot for 21 days now,” says the
former BJP MLA, two­time councillor from
East Delhi and part­time real estate agent.
Since his entire family has Covid, he can’t go home and risk the
infection. The ambulance is his bedroom as well as command
centre. He also uses it instead of a car to move around in the
city. “You never know when you may be asked to take someone
to the hospital or pick up a Covid victim’s body,” he says.
Shunty and 22 volunteers from the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal
(SBSSD), an organisation he founded in 1995, have cremated 3,551 Covid
victims in Delhi since the pandemic broke out in March 2020. Of these,
2,199 cremations have taken place just between April 1 and May 16. “We
have worked 16-18 hours at a stretch this time,” he says. “In the magnitude
JIGNESH MISTRY
of deaths and the heartless manner in which people have died, this tragedy
compares to Partition or the 1984 anti-
Sikh riots and Bhopal gas tragedy.”
Using their fleet of 18 ambulances,
Shunty and the volunteers start the day
early, picking up bodies from hospitals
or homes where people have died. They
VAIBHAV WAGH, 36
sanitise the bodies, pack them in plastic
Filmmaker, Pune
IN TERMS covers and bring them to crematoriums,
OF DEATHS, primarily the Seemapuri facility, which What he has done Volun­
THIS TRAGEDY they have taken on lease from the MCD. teered at a crematorium,
Shunty’s service predates the pan- cremating 50 bodies in a week
COMPARES TO
PARTITION OR demic. He founded SBSSD when the
THE ANTI­SIKH sight of a poor villager gathering half-
burnt wood from pyres at Nigambodh
RIOTS
HELPING
Ghat to cremate his own child shook
—JATINDER SINGH SHUNTY him. Since then, he has helped cremate

IN THEIR
44,000 people: mostly unclaimed or
whose kin were too poor to pay for the funeral. Friends and donors have
pitched in with funds. “It is not my effort but God and Guru Tegh Bahadur
who’re working through me,” he says. Widely recognised for his work in
national and international media, he won the Padma Shri this year. LAST
What inspires him to do a task traditionally considered ‘unclean’? “I
am guided by the Gurbani verse: De Siva bar mohe ihe, shubh karman te
kabahun na tarun (Grant me this boon, O lord, that I do not turn away
JOURNEY
THIS FILMMAKER BRAVES THE
from doing a good turn),” he says. Our conversation is interrupted by a call
HEAT OF THE BURNING PYRES
from Vineeta Johari, 59, a schoolteacher in Ahmedabad, who lost both her AND A STIFLING PPE SUIT
parents on April 29-30. She had retrieved his number from a TV show. TO ENSURE COVID VICTIMS
Calling him “a living saint”, she tells him, “It was because you kept my DEPART WITH DIGNITY
mother’s body for a day at the crematorium morgue that I could cremate
her. I want to touch your feet.” For Shunty, that’s another ode to his Guru. n BY ADITI PAI

72 INDIA TODAY M AY 31 , 2 02 1
 CONSIGNING TO
FLAMES Vaibhav at the
Vaikunth Smashanbhumi
crematorium in Pune

E
VERY DAY, AROUND MIDNIGHT, filmmak­
er Vaibhav Wagh steps into a different role.
Donning a PPE suit, he volunteers at the Vai­
kunth Smashanbhumi in Pune’s Lokamanya
Nagar locality. He notes the details of the de­
ceased persons, stacks the wood on the funeral
pyres and works a gruelling shift till eight the
next morning, braving the searing heat of the
I AM DETERMINED
blazing pyres in a stifling PPE suit. Though his nephews
TO GO WHEREVER
Chinmay and Vedant take over during the day, Vaibhav’s THERE IS A NEED
work continues as he collects the ashes and gives it to the AND WHERE I CAN
next of kin who come for them the next day. MAKE A DIFFERENCE
When infections began surging in Pune in mid-April (the city
—VAIBHAV WAGH
was reporting daily infections of up to 10,000 by April 26), so did
the number of daily deaths (139 on April 26). Pune’s largest cre-
matorium, Vaikunth Smashanbhumi, created a separate enclosure
for Covid cremations. But the facility’s 15-member staff was soon Are Awaz Konacha besides making
overwhelmed. For two days in a row, the crematorium received more corporate and political films. He has also
than 50 bodies of the Covid-deceased, apart from regular crema- been a social worker for 15 years. Last
tions. It was at this time that the Waghs stepped in to volunteer, year, he helped distribute food parcels
with Vaibhav alone helping with 50 cremations in one week in May. for students stranded in Pune during the
He is not afraid of contracting the virus. “It is probably safer here lockdown and food kits for street dwell-
than working amidst crowds in the streets, which I have done for ers, daily wage labourers and others who
the past one year,” he says. Vaibhav has produced the Marathi movie had lost their livelihood. n

M AY 31 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 73
 SUMAN SINGH RAWAT, 49, Founder, Power Wings Foundation, Lucknow
REPUBLIC OF SELF-HELP
What she has done Helped cremate Covid victims who either
LAST RITES have no one, or whose families are too poor to pay for a funeral

A KIND TURN Suman Rawat outside the Bhainsakund crematorium in Lucknow

ARRANGING THE
LAST RITES OF THE
UNCLAIMED DEAD IS
A TRUE SERVICE TO
HUMANITY
—SUMAN SINGH RAWAT

A resident of Gomti Nagar in Lucknow,

Rawat’s husband has an electronics busi-

MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
ness. Engaged in social work for the past 20
years, she established Power Wings Foun-
dation in 2016 to work towards women’s
safety and health. Currently, the organisa-
tion has 34 active members and more than
500 volunteers. As Covid-19 cases began
surging in Lucknow after April 1, Suman

FIGHTING FOR split the responsibility of the different areas

of Lucknow district among the foundation’s

THEIR RITES 34 active members. She set up a centralised

A GROUP OF VOLUNTEERS HELP FINANCIALLY DISTRESSED
FAMILIES OF COVID VICTIMS ARRANGE A DIGNIFIED CREMATION
BY ASHISH MISRA
control room at her residence, from where
she directed pleas for help to the concerned
area member. Each active member con-
tributes Rs 1,000 to build a corpus of Rs
34,000. Once it is exhausted, they add
another Rs 1,000 each. Between April 1

W
HEN HIS ONLY SON, 31-YEAR-OLD
RAJIV LAL, died on April 21 at the King
George’s Medical University (KGMU) in
Lucknow, Bachchhulal, 65, had exhausted
all his money on his treatment. He had
first taken him to a private nursing home
in Nanpara, Bahraich, where he lived.
When Rajiv did not get better, he was re-
ferred to KGMU. Here, he was refused admission without an
investigation report due to a suspected Covid infection. As the
hapless father stood outside the hospital gate with his ailing
son, a volunteer informed Suman Singh Rawat, who has been
running Power Wings Foundation, a social service organisa-
tion, since July 2016 with a group of friends.
and May 15, the foundation has spent more
than Rs 12 lakh. Suman has hired two
ambulances and two hearses, which are
provided free to poor patients. Suman has
left her number with the security guards
at the main gates of almost all prominent
hospitals in the city. These guards, in turn,
inform her directly if a poor patient dies
or if there is an unclaimed Covid body.
Suman then instructs the active member in
the area to reach the hospital and arrange
for the body to be brought either to the
Bhainsakund or the Gulala Ghat cremato-
rium. The volunteers then complete all the
formalities of the cremation. The group has
organised some 300 crema-

300
Rawat managed to get Rajiv admission in the hospital tions of Covid victims so far.
but he passed away the next day. The Covid test result after The foundation also pro-
his death came positive. This meant his body had to be vides free rations to poor pa-
cremated per Covid protocol. With Bachchhulal left with tients in hospitals or families in
no money, Rawat stepped in to help again. She arranged a CREMATIONS OF home isolation. It has also given
hearse for the body to be taken to the Bhainsakund crema- COVID VICTIMS more than 600 free washable
torium, and saw to it that the last rites were performed. She ARRANGED PPE kits to poor families want-
then provided for Bachchhulal to return to Bahraich by bus. ing to visit their patients. n
 LEISURE

Q A
THE
GOOD
VILLAIN
Actor Randeep Hooda may have
mastered the negative role when it
comes to his films, but in real life, he
is trying to spread positivity by
getting medical aid to those who

DENZIL CHRISTIAN
now need it most

Q. Radhe is your third film
with Salman Khan. With
each project, it seems your
screen time has increased.
What is he like to work with?
You have got to sing his tune, for
sure. We have been friends off-
screen for over a decade now. He
is always [someone who works] in
the spur of the moment. Radhe is
not the kind of film you get a script
and prepare for. You just turn up
on the set in a good mood and do
the best you can on that day.
Q. Extraction was one of
the most watched films
of 2020. Is Hollywood on
your mind?
I was pleasantly surprised and
grateful. It was uncharacteristic
for an Indian in a Hollywood film
to drive the screenplay and do
action. There is a lot of interest
from the West and I’m in talks
for a few projects. The pan-
demic has slowed those plans
a little. I hope to pursue them
once travel to the US resumes.
Q. You have waited to jump
on the OTT bandwagon.
You shot for your first web
series, Inspector Avinash,
only early this year.
I don’t differentiate between
theatrical and OTT. What matters
to me is a good story and script.
I have been offered a lot of re-
makes of international series, but
audiences the world over have
already seen them. I would rather
do something that is rooted here
and says something original.
Q. You have been
proactive in amplifying
calls for medical aid
during the second
wave. Does being
socially conscious come
naturally to you?
As a human being and citizen,
one feels like doing these
things. Instead of feeling
depressed about the misery,
helping someone helps you
boost your own sense of
well-being.

—with Suhani Singh

76 Volume XLVI Number 22; For the week May 25-31, 2021, published on every Friday Total number of pages 78 (including cover pages)
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