COVID-19 and the Youth: Reinstating the Indian Civil Society
Posted on : July 5, 2021Author : Sristhi Ghosh
As India continues to face the wrath of the coronavirus pandemic, the unprecedented rise in the number of cases and the ever-mounting death tolls are causing misery and distress to the people of India. The severity of second wave in particular, has exposed the underlying limitations of India’s medical infrastructure. Fear and panic caused by resource scarcity with cities running out of hospital beds and supply of essential services like ambulance, medical oxygen and other drugs have magnified the crisis to a great extent. The feeling of not having enough has, in fact, heightened the problem of resource scarcity. Some reasons behind this are panic buying, hoarding, crony capitalism, unethical profiteering, smuggling and black marketing; thereby exploiting people’s misery. SOS calls and requests for critical COVID help, reporting of supply by hospitals and general public has flooded mainstream as well as social media. While public health care structures are overstrained, private institutions most, if not all, are utilising the pandemic as means for their lucrative business. Beyond medical constraints, common people have been facing everyday challenges of survival, unable to arrange for themselves the basic means for living like food, rations, and other emergency services. Rising to the pandemic and its consequent challenges, the nation witnessed the acclivity of the ‘third pillar’ of strength, complementing and supplementing efforts of the government, collaborating at the same time with the private health care systems.
Civil Society, through its various arms – governmental organisations (NGOs), self-help groups, religious trusts, student unions, local community groups and philanthropists have stepped in through their act of volunteering, reaching out to people as partners in pandemic response. Such an active role of civil society in India nonetheless complements global trends and forces. International organisations, from the beginning of the pandemic have extensively stressed on the potential of civil society in general and youth in particular to work as “an advocate, a watchdog and a trusted authority”. WHO in ‘Engaging young people in the response to COVID-19’ mentions how by empowerment, action and participation the youth can act as valuable stakeholders in COVID-19 response. India has successfully adopted community-based volunteerism in the form of virtual and frontline support, harnessing the immense potential of our youth in multiple sectors. Delivering food and sanitation, creating databases for emergency access in open forum online, raising awareness, handling of non-critical patients and volunteering for vaccine trials are some areas of youth action. Recognising their potential, the Government of India with UNICEF and other partners announced #YoungWarrior in May 2021, inviting 5 million young warriors to mobilise, connect, learn, influence, and lead action against COVID-19 and accelerate a return to normalcy.
In India, the challenges are multifaceted. Beyond insufficiency in healthcare, misinformation, stigma and lockdown crisis of the poor and marginalised are some of the major areas that need intervention. This is exactly where youth engagement and response comes to play. In fact, today the role of social media and youth response groups are remarkable. ‘Our hero’ Sonu Sood’s contribution is beyond what anyone could imagine. Since the pandemic hit the country in April-May 2020, the man has been working selflessly for the country. Sood, who launched the ‘Ghar Bhejo’ campaign for the migrant workers, came to be hailed as ‘the messiah of migrants’. From accommodating health workers troubled due to social stigma, lauching apps like ‘Pravasi Rojgar’ to provide jobs to the poor, bringing back students strangled in other countries, ensuring access to medical facilities and medicines and ensuring welfare and protection to the frontline workers, his philanthropic works has pulled in praises from around the globe. In various states, student bodies have organised themselves, providing digital and frontline help to the flooding SOS calls on social media. The Quarantined Student-Youth Network (QSYN) in Kolkata and Delhi, Students Federation of India (SFI), a left-wing student body in West Bengal and Hyderabad and Medical students all over the country are actively engaging, rendering yeomen service to people. In fact, as second wave hit West Bengal, at a time of the State Assembly Elections, the Red Volunteers of West Bengal took the onus of acting to the crisis at a time when unavailability of medical resources, black marketing and unresponsiveness of centralized government enquiry system caused delays in treatment. Several ‘Oxygen Langars’ have been set up by youths of the Sikh Community in Gurudwaras in Delhi, Kolkata, Ghaziabad, Bhubaneshwar and other parts of the country. The ‘Langar on Wheels’ initiative by network of Gurudwaras during 2020 lockdown hurled praises. #DilSeSewa campaign of Delhi based Gurudwara Committee; supplying of free oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators and required medicines by Sikh youths in Hyderabad; call centre for free oxygen cylinders in Mumbai are some initiatives taken by the youths of the Sikh community. In addition, youth volunteerism in form of initiatives by local clubs and individuals providing free meals, sanitization services, securing medicines and other essential items are ways ‘youth engage in the #NextNormal’.
Today, social media functions as an excellent platform enabling humanitarian response during the pandemic. It works as a critical tool for consolidation and dissemination of data; verification and authenticity of dealers; constant updating on availability of beds, oxygen and medical drugs; generation of crowd fundraisers for treatment; launching awareness campaigns for mental health; urgent actions for SOS calls, etc. Lakhs of teenagers and youths engage on social media as digital volunteers helping the society in flattening the curve. Social Media platforms like Twitter and Facebook not just facilitate information and create awareness of possible frauds and fake news; but acts as means of greater communication and reach to doctors and medical practitioners. Medical videos by doctors on when and how to act on situations, tutorials on proning, handling of oxygen cylinders and several other issues including vaccination contributes greatly to the cause. It is through social media that WHO, ICMR, Government of India and State Governments reach out to the people with valuable information, scientific findings and social messages- breaking stigmas and encouraging unity in the fight against the pandemic. However, there is no doubt that social media is also a source of misinformation, panic, anxiety, frauds and fear.
Swami Vivekananda, one of India’s iconic social reformer advocated that youth are the problem solvers of the nation and had faith on them as the ‘heroes’ of the future.. His insights continue to guide our young warriors in this fight against Covid-19-
“Go, all of you, wherever there is an outbreak of plague or famine, or wherever the people are in distress, and mitigate their sufferings…Preach this ideal from door to door, and you will yourselves be benefited by it at the same time that you are doing good to your country. On you lie the future hopes of our country.”
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- https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/why-civil-society-is-essential-to-covid-19-pandemic-recovery/ (Accessed 1 June, 2021)
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- https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/the-sikh-community-keeps-doing-what-it-does-right-serves-the-people-selflessly-even-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-51161/ (Accessed 3 June, 2021)
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- https://en.unesco.org/news/covid-19-pandemic-youth-engaged-nextnormal (Accessed 3 June, 2021)
- https://www.narendramodi.in/VivekanandaQuotes/Quotes%20of%20Swami%20Vivekananda%20on%20Youth.pdf (Accessed 4 June, 2021)
Sristhi Ghosh
Intern, Asia in Global Affairs.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and do not in any way reflect the point of view of Asia in Global Affairs.
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