Cooperation and Collaboration are key to tide over COVID 19 Pandemic

These are unprecedented times, when the entire world is fighting with a common enemy –the corona virus or COVID 19. The World Health Organisation has declared it to be a pandemic since this disease has spread throughout the world. Like all other countries, India a country of 1.35 billion population is faced with a crisis of huge proportions. The country is facing umpteen challenges in these times – from creating awareness about the disease, ensuring adequate health infrastructure to take care of the patients, building the testing infrastructure to test a large population, providing stimulus packages to cover income losses of people and also ensuring that stranded Indians from around the world are brought back to their home country safely.

The challenge is humungous and it requires all kinds of cooperation from all strata of society. Under leadership of Hon. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India has taken valuable steps to ensure regional cooperation between SAARC nations by taking initiative to convene meetings amongst them. He also brought together the Chief Ministers of various states to formulate policies that are agreed upon by all. Timely action by our Prime Minister whether it was announcement of  nationwide lock down on midnight of 24^th March 2020 ,or preparing the people for the lockdown, through the one day Janta Curfew on 22^nd March 2020, or uplifting the morale of the front line corona warriors has definitely saved India a lot of damage. Though, the cases of COVID 19 continue to rise, it is for sure that foresightedness of Indian leaders bought us time to increase our preparedness to fight this pandemic.

The Indian politicians and representatives of different strata of society have worked with the belief that India as a country is one and its response to the crisis should also be joint and collaborative. The logic is simple, in order to succeed in defeating the disease, it should be controlled in all parts of the country. If it is delimited in any one part of the country; it is not possible to ease the restrictions of a lockdown as it would mean spreading the disease again. Hence, it is imperative that the efforts are joint and concerted.

The Hon. Prime Minister from time to time through his tweets, messages and programs like ‘Mann Ki Baat’ appealed to all citizens of the country to come forward and help the millions of people who have lost livelihoods and have been stranded away from home due to the lockdowns. It is heartening to note that several non- governmental organisations started and continue to do laudable work of ensuring that poor households are able to live through this lockdown in spite of complete loss of livelihoods. Many organisations like various corporate houses, NGOs, CSR organisations of big corporates, religious organisations like Gurudwaras rose up to the challenge and took up the work of ensuring meals for the homeless and stranded, distributing rations to the needy etc.

One such organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which has been committed to carry out welfare work for the people of this country during any calamity, also, started contributing through its swayam sevaks network and different sister organisations of RSS. According to a media statement by Shri Dattareya Hosabale, Joint Gen. Secretary, RSS, since the start of the  pandemic, “over 3,42,000 Swayamsevaks are carrying out various Sewa (help and relief) activities at 67,336 places, and till now, about 50,48,088 families and individuals have been benefited by these activities. Over 3, 17, 12,767 meals have been served by  Swaymsevaks. They have also distributed over 44,54,555 masks.”  “Swayamsevaks have started 25 types of sewa activities during the corona crisis from providing helpline numbers to various categories as per the needs to offering meals, shelter and medical help to people who are either stranded or coming from other states.”

The unique thing about this 90 plus year old organisation is that it is connected to the roots of this country and with time has established many different other ‘sister’ and independent organisations working in several spheres of social, political and economic life of the citizens.  This enables the swayam sewaks to collaborate with regional people and aid in providing relief work.

The members of this organisation and its various other bodies are spread in all parts of the country to carry out awareness creating programs, help the regional administration in arranging and managing quarantine facilities, distributing food packets or ration kits, carrying out sanitation and cleaning activities in COVID affected areas etc.

It is really appreciable that during these tough times, the topmost leadership of the country has displayed a spirit of unity and called forth cooperation by various governments, religious organisations, corporates and NGOs.

The COVID -19 pandemic has thrown open several types of problems and challenges that needs to be effectively dealt with not only to survive through this crisis but also be able to recover fast after the crisis is over.

 Firstly, millions of migrant labourers suddenly have no work because all kinds of construction activities, real estate, and production in factories came to a standstill after 22^nd March when India entered Lockdown 1.0. These are the people who have no past savings and rely on their daily incomes to feed their families.  Secondly, there was a need to provide insurance cover and income support to frontline corona warriors, the agriculturists/farmers and MNREGA workers, had to be provided additional income support, the MSMEs that would face difficulty in depositing loan instalments and paying salary to their workers.

Thirdly, in terms of provision of adequate health infrastructure in form of adequate PPE kits, digital thermometer scanners, testing kits, medicines etc. was a big challenge in front of the government as the pandemic had the entire world in its grips.

On April 14^th when Hon. PM Modi addressed the nation to announce the second phase of lockdown, he listed seven tasks for the people during the lockdown. These included taking special care of the elderly as the data has suggested that the virus is particularly dangerous t elderly people who are already suffering from a host of other diseases;  practicing social distancing; boosting immunity; downloading the Aarogya Setu application; looking after the needy; ensuring that people are not fired from their jobs; and respecting COVID-19 frontline workers.

In order to look after the needy who have lost their livelihoods and stranded away from their homes – many individuals and organisations came forward. They are helping such people from either ensuring that they get nutritious meals at least 3 times a day to distributing free rations. There were many reports where even the Police came forward to serve such needy people. The Prime Minister also warned the people not to lower their guard on social distancing norms while carrying out any kind of relief work. He also led by example when he asked people who are not sick to wear homemade masks.

In various parts of country, we can see fruitful partnerships between NGOs, Trusts, Corporates and other institutions who collaborated to carry out the relief work. For example, in the West Delhi area, the ‘Sai Baba Trust’ with support from educationist Shri R K Tandon, promoter of 'Kamal Educational Institutions' has been doing commendable work of feeding the needy people from the very beginning of the first lockdown period. Utilising their school campus areas and following all social distancing norms, they have been ensuring that the needy people in their area are not left to fend for themselves.

In times of crisis like this, we have always seen examples of exemplary dedication and hard work by people from all walks of life. In fact, it is only during such crisis that leaders are made who inspire people during tough times.

In a country like India, where there are massive income –inequalities, where 95 percent of people work in sectors that has no social security nets, it is impossible that the government can garner funds overcome the crisis without the social organisations and corporates coming forward to contribute.

‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’ – it is time that each one of us decides to live by that adage.

 

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