The mi­nus­cule num­bers of Sikhs in var­i­ous towns and cities have not de­terred them in putting up makeshift fa­cil­i­ties in their re­spec­tive schools, in­sti­tu­tions and Gur­d­waras to ben­e­fit all and sundry around them in the true Sikh tra­di­tion of Sar­bat da Bhala. As the gov­ern­ment has im­posed a strict lock­down to meet the rag­ing Covid chal­lenge, Sikhs in­di­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively are pitch­ing in to pro­vide re­lief to the com­mon man bereft of oxy­gen and other needs in these dif­fi­cult times. WS­N’s Gurmeet Singh re­ports.

JHARK­HAND, A STATE BLESSED WITH NAT­URAL RE­SOURCES  and in­hab­ited by the poor­est of poor in­dige­nous peo­ples with an in­dige­nous leader -He­mant Soren, as its Chief Min­is­ter, is bat­tling Covid19 with min­i­mal med­ical in­fra­struc­ture and fa­cil­i­ties. The Ra­jen­dra In­sti­tute of Med­ical Sci­ences (RIMS), the biggest state-run su­per spe­cial­ity hos­pi­tal sit­u­ated in the cap­i­tal city Ranchi, is not fully equipped to deal with the pan­demic. With the cri­sis deep­en­ing, the gov­ern­ment im­posed a full-scale lock­down.

The scare of deadly im­ages from Delhi cre­ated a sense of fear and ten­sion, yet the Sikhs came for­ward to pre­pare for any im­pend­ing dis­as­ter. Mer­ci­fully, there have been no deaths in this state re­lat­ing to lack of Oxy­gen or want of timely med­ical aid.

The Lan­gar of Guru Nanak has taken wings.

The Cen­tral Sikh Gur­d­wara Com­mit­tee, Jamshed­pur took the lead in the state and started the Oxy­gen Lan­gar Sewa on May 3, 2021. CSGC is an um­brella and co­or­di­nat­ing body of the 34 gur­d­waras in Jamshed­pur. Speak­ing to WSN on the phone CSGC Pres­i­dent Gur­mukh Singh Mukhi said, “With deaths hap­pen­ing, peo­ple run­ning in need of oxy­gen day and night, no beds be­ing avail­able in the hos­pi­tals in the city, they were wit­ness to this and see­ing this they de­cided to jump into the sewa and pro­vide re­lief to peo­ple.”

“We had oxy­gen but there were no cylin­ders and we started col­lect­ing them and Guru Sahib blessed us,” he added.

Now with 70 plus oxy­gen cylin­ders and beds in the Mod­ern School in the Sakchi Gu­rud­wara Com­plex, run by Sikhs, they are treat­ing 30 pa­tients on a daily ba­sis in the in-house fa­cil­ity. Pa­tients who do not re­quire beds also walk in to get oxy­gen and once they re­cover they leave. On some days, when beds were fully oc­cu­pied, oxy­gen sup­ply ser­vices were of­fered on the road­side in the ve­hi­cles of pa­tients.

Ef­fi­ciently man­aged, one team of 10 Se­wadars man­ages the hos­pi­tal and an­other pro­vides food for Covid19 pa­tients across the city to those who can­not cook un­der the cir­cum­stances.

In Ranchi, the Guru Nanak Hos­pi­tal and Re­search Cen­tre has been treat­ing Covid pa­tients since last year. Speak­ing to WSN, Pradeep Singh Chadha, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the man­age­ment com­mit­tee said that they are work­ing in the foot­steps of Guru Sahib to serve the com­mu­nity and so­ci­ety. Their charges are less than the gov­ern­ment rates, they pro­vide ex­cel­lent food and ser­vice, are treat­ing all kinds of pa­tients, in­clud­ing symp­to­matic, crit­i­cal care and emer­gency cases.  A ded­i­cated covid ad­min­is­tra­tor and a spe­cialised doc­tor have been given in charge to deal with the pan­demic cases and they are avail­able round the clock. He added, “Akal Pu­rakh has been kind to us as our in­sti­tu­tion has less mor­tal­ity rate.”

Guru Nanak Se­nior Sec­ondary School, run by Sikhs of Ranchi, has re­cently started with Oxy­gen Cylin­ders Sewa. with 15 cylin­ders and more in the off­ing. Speak­ing to WSN, Ra­jen­dra Singh, Sec­re­tary stated that they have started a small pro­ject of giv­ing out oxy­gen cylin­ders to needy fam­i­lies on a re­turn­able ba­sis. Their at­tempt is to help peo­ple who need oxy­gen at home.

Harbinder Singh, an ac­tive par­tic­i­pant in Ranchi Sikh af­fairs men­tioned that should the need arise, they have oxy­gen cylin­ders in the Piskamore Gur­d­wara to cater to emer­gency needs.

Paramjit Singh Tinku, gen­eral sec­re­tary of Guru Gob­ind Singh Pub­lic School  Ranchi, a hote­lier and promi­nent youth leader in­volved in var­i­ous so­cio-po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties in the town and state, has made avail­able rooms in his ho­tel, strate­gi­cally lo­cated on the Sta­tion Road of the city for fam­i­lies of po­lice and other per­son­nel, who need iso­la­tion af­ter re­port­ing Covid19 pos­i­tive.

Ash­meet Singh Sidak of the In­dia Young Foun­da­tion has been dis­trib­ut­ing Oxy­gen cans di­rectly and through the dis­trict ad­min­is­tra­tion as emer­gency aid dur­ing the Golden Hour be­fore the oxy­gen-de­fi­cient pa­tient reaches a hos­pi­tal fa­cil­ity.

When this re­porter spoke to the lo­cal Adi­vasi pop­u­la­tion in the mar­kets, they were ap­pre­cia­tive of the work of Sikhs in Delhi and were look­ing for­ward to a repli­ca­tion of the same in Ranchi and around. It would not be wrong to say, the Lan­gar of Guru Nanak has taken wings.