Volunteering For Humanity: SFI-DYFI’s ‘Red Volunteers’ In Action Across The Country
Mayukh Biswas
“Put aside your differences and help those who are in need of help”.
Mario Terán entered history as the young army sergeant chosen to execute the captured guerrilla named Che Guevara on October 9th,1967. Four decades later, Granma, the mouthpiece of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party wrote, “…after Mario Terán attempted to destroy a dream and an idea, Che returns to win yet another battle.” This is because Terán was able to regain his vision because his cataracts were cured by a Cuban-run medical programme in Bolivia.
In recent times, one has been observing similar incidents in West Bengal. Reports are pouring in of ‘Red Volunteers’ being physically attacked even as they try to help with Covid 19-related emergencies. The overwhelming majority of ‘Red Volunteers’ are people below 45. They are not vaccinated, and therefore, are working with the great personal risk of contracting the virus. And on top of this, they are now facing violence. Besides this, activists of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) have also been trying to reach the Covid-19 victims in every corner of the state. There has been no change in the vigour and enthusiasm even after May 2nd, despite the Left’s electoral defeat. The ‘Red Volunteers’ in West Bengal have even reached the homes of those who once burnt, robbed or hit them. One may compare this with the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’. But we consider this as the strength of our ideology.
We can see that the government has miserably failed to plan ahead. We now have a health system that is overwhelmed, supply chains for vaccines, oxygen and medicines incapable of meeting people’s growing demands. Moreover, elected representatives of ruling parties have mostly vanished. The second wave of Covid-19, which is currently at its peak, has left most of our governments and lawmakers perplexed. Death tolls and positivity rates that break daily records have become the new normal. The central government has shifted the burden onto state governments, and this is true even in the case of ensuring vaccination availability. There is no provision of free transportation for migrant workers, even after what they had to go through last year. The government does not have any plan and there is no monetary or food relief offered for the masses either.
At a time when the government machinery seems entirely paralysed and most of the ruling party have fled the scene, the young activists of the SFI and DYFI are available round the clock. With the steep rise in cases and the system being overwhelmed, ‘Red Volunteers’ have hit the streets again, like last year, and are helping out in whatever way possibly. In different corners of country — Kerala, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, New Delhi or Tripura, the volunteers can be approached for help with any Covid-19 related issue, ranging from hospital admission and transport to procuring cooked food and medicines for quarantined victims. With an aim to help menstruating women during the current lockdown in several states, students and young volunteers have restarted the initiative of delivering sanitary napkins to homes for free.
We have come across multiple heart-warming stories from different corners of the country. Countless lives are being saved only due to the timely intervention of the ‘Red Volunteers’. For eg., an elderly couple from Dum Dum with no money for vegetables or medicines managed to get in touch with some SFI comrades of the area, who immediately reached them with all that they needed. Another example is from Kerala — an old woman who had just returned to her home in Calicut from Lucknow with high fever was clueless about how to go about it during the lockdown. Our activists soon contacted an ambulance and sent her to a nearby hospital. Pritish Menon, a PhD student at New Delhi’s South Asian University and the Secretary of SFI’s New Delhi State Committee carries oxygen cylinders to the needy on his bike on a daily basis, along with another activist. He carried this out even when his mother was hospitalised with COVID-19. A few days back, our activists in JNU received a call. An entire family nearby had contracted COVID-19 and the elderly father had passed away. The body was sent to the mortuary, but there was nobody to cremate it. The family requested SFI’s ‘Red Volunteers’ if they could claim the body and carry out the cremation, so that they could receive the ashes. After claiming the body, SFI reached the crematorium at Nigambodh Ghat.
SFI has also launched nation-wide movement against the inaction of central government in the face of this crisis. The money that the government is spending on image-building, which includes the Central Vista Project in New Delhi, could have been used to build hospitals and oxygen plants and thousands of vaccines could also have been administered. In such a situation, the Central Executive Committee of SFI has given a protest call for the 30th April, demanding free vaccination, free oxygen cylinders, pulse-oximeters, nebulisers machines, glucometers for all. Condemning the haphazard vaccination policy, SFI has demanded for immediate intervention in the black marketing of oxygen, beds and medicines and to offer proper protection to the front line workers. The organisation has also approached the Supreme Court with the demand to direct the government to provide universal free vaccination to all and to waive off the GST levied on the import of personal use oxygen concentrators.
Our comrades are with the masses — helping them through this horrible time by risking their own lives. For our red volunteers know that this is the land of Kotnis and our heroes are doctors like Norman Bethune and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Our presence and activities may not feature in the media but the common masses can find us beside them, helping them in their darkest hours.
Mayukh Biswas is the All India General Secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), and a PhD scholar at the University of Calcutta.
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