BENGALURU: As the raging Covid pandemic is causing great pain and distress across the country, BV Srinivas, president, Indian Youth Congress (IYC), is leading a group of volunteers to venture out to help others.
The young politician from Shivamogga district and his team have been delivering oxygen cylinders, medicines and food, and also rushing to hospitals to help needy patients at the national capital. “If one person helps another, we will not have a situation of people dying on the roads without treatment,” says the cricketer-turned-politician and the first Kannadiga to become Youth Congress president. Excerpts.
What is Youth Congress doing to help people?
We have a team of 1,000 volunteers, including 600 who had worked during the first wave. Beds, oxygen, medicine and plasma are the main issues that people are facing now. We have different teams handling each of those problems. The team attending to plasma transfusion identifies people who have recovered from Covid and convinces them to donate plasma. We organise medicines and arrange oxygen cylinders to those who are yet to find beds. Our teams help with doctors’ consultation, counselling, home isolation, medicine kits and food.
How do people reach you?
People call us over phone, message us on WhatsApp groups and contact us through social media platforms. These requests are handled at state offices. The ones that we get at our Delhi office are sent to respective states. Around two lakh people have reached out to us till now. We may not be able to help everyone, but we have reached out to maximum number of people.
When was the last time the Youth Congress did anything like this? What motivates you to do it now?
This is our party tradition and we have always been doing it. We had done similar work in Uttarakhand during floods, in Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha and many other states. Earlier, our work was confined to one particular state or four or five districts in a state, which was why it was not known in other places. Now, our teams are working across the country. Rahul Gandhi’s message to provide all possible help and support to people is a big motivation for us. It is teamwork and not just me alone. Our efforts are fully supported by the party.
How are you managing the resources?
First, we started with whatever we could pool in. Later, the party supported us and also, people extended support after we launched a donation link on our website. It would not have been possible without the support of the public.
Your help to New Zealand embassy employees was dubbed as a publicity stunt…
Indian culture is to help our guests. How can anyone find fault with that? They sent SOS and we helped them. We got a request from their official Twitter handle. It’s not the time to do a postmortem of what others are saying. We are focused on helping others and saving lives.
Don’t you and your team members feel scared?
Definitely. Everyone feels scared. My mother calls me three times a day. But we need to overcome that fear of stepping out, and help others. A small boy was taking water in his hands and trying to put off a fire that had engulfed a house. A person next to him asked how he can put off the fire as all water is slipping through his fingers by the time he reaches the house. The boy replied that it may or may not be possible for him to put off the fire, but he is making the effort. When this is discussed in the future, his name will be counted among those who tried to do their bit and not those who stood watching it. That’s the moral of the story.
Any particular incident that moved you most?
I had gone to LNJP Hospital in Delhi to give medicines to a person and saw 15 ambulances in the queue. In one of those ambulances, I spoke to a patient who was finding it difficult to breathe. I told him that I would come back and help him. But by the time I returned after 25 minutes, he had died. I was devastated. We come across many such situations. Imagine what happens to a person who goes to four or five hospitals but fails to find a bed. We should have been better prepared when we had time. It’s a shame that people are dying because of shortage of oxygen. There is no point in talking about politics. Young politicians must understand that irrespective of the government in power, we should help others. It is the responsibility of every citizen, especially youth, to come forward and respond to others’ pain. If one person helps another, we will not have a situation of people dying on roads without treatment.
Do you think a nationwide lockdown is needed?
Yes, I think so. We need a lockdown with proper planning. We have to keep aside politics, do what is best for the country and not make it a prestige issue.