The Coronavirus pandemic has unleashed a mob of activists and what one would call the elite-brigade, who are otherwise occupied with full-time protests, to theorise on what the government should or should not have done to control the spread of the disease. These activists mainly focus on what the government did ‘wrong’, which is pretty much everything per their worldview, that revolves around unbridled hatred for Prime Minister Modi. At the same time, they shield the super-spreaders of Tablighi Jamaat simply because it is their religion that mandated them to defy lockdown, spit and defecate in corridors etc, maintain studios silence when the world takes note and praises the efforts by the Prime Minister to get a handle on the global pandemic and sit at homes, looking pretty, not moving a finger to help the ones they seem so concerned about. One such full-time protestor and part-time actress is Nandita Das.
Speaking to NDTV, Nandita Das recently said in respect to how the Coronavirus lockdown has impacted migrant labourers, that there exists two Indias, one where people are walking miles to get home and food, and the other, where people are wondering where to get their wine from.
While there is nothing wrong with the statement made by Nandita Das per se, as the great divide certainly does exist, considering the source of this statement one can only chuckle and wonder what it takes to be a hypocrite on so many levels, so blatantly and openly.
While Nandita Das likes to fashion herself as a frugal activist who identifies with the poor masses and it her, her statement becomes hypocritical because she is exactly the kind of wine-sipping elite who likes to talk about the poor from the comfort of her own home, curse everyone for their plight and do nothing herself.
Nandita Das’ father, Jatin Das, who is a famous painter, presumably doing very well for himself, was actually squatting in a government flat until he was served an eviction notice. The father of the women who like to talk about the downtrodden was staying in government accommodation illegally for years when originally the flat was only allotted for 3 years.
Read: With 1500 squatters kicked out from Lutyens bungalows, it might explain why its always Modi vs All
It is rather interesting that while Nandita Das waxes eloquent on the plight of the poor, she was using the taxpayer’s money to squat in a government property while her family was more than capable of paying for their own accommodation and had no need to leech off public money.
Jatin Das, Nandita Das’ father, was living in the Asian Games village flat for 26 years. He was meant to use it only for 3.
There are indeed two Indias that exist, but what the media or even Nandita Das herself refuses to acknowledge is that these are the people who belong to the category that wonder where their next bottle of wine is going to come from.
While such wine-sipping elites indulge in blatant poverty-porn, the very people who they abuse have been toiling hard to ensure that the poor man gets food on his plate while the country collectively tries to fight the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic.
Similar to the RSS, its affiliated organisation, Sewa Bharati, has also been working relentlessly, extending a helping hand to the marginalised at the time of this crisis.
The organisation Sewa Bharati is headquartered in Delhi, from where the relief work is being carried out across the country. From distributing food packets to manufacturing masks at war footing and reaching out and distributing at places facing a scarcity to distributing bed sheets and blankets to providing basic medicines, Sewa Bharati cadres have been in the forefront in extending crucial help to the needy at the time of this pandemic. Moreover, almost 2.10 lakh cadres have been reaching out to the remotest corners of the country in order to extend their assistance.
According to the All India general secretary of ‘Sewa Bharti’, Shravan Kumar, the organization does not see which state are they working in or what is the caste-religion or identity of the person who needs help. He told that the organization is specially engaged in reaching places where even government assistance has not reached.
There are 2.1 lakh volunteers engaged in work across the country under the banner of ‘Sewa Bharati’. The organization has contact with a total of 1200 institutions in India and is working closely with all of them. Together with these 1200 institutions, it is being ensured that no area across the country is missed at the time of this pandemic.
Shravan said that he has direct access to almost 26 lakh people, who are being provided with food by the organisation.
The RSS too stepped in and started helping the authorities. They distributed food, masks and even cleaned the dirty hospitals and quarantine facilities to ensure that the country can fight the pandemic effectively.
Nandita Das is right. There are indeed two Indias. In fact, there are three Indias. One, where the labourers struggle to make ends meet. The other where volunteers like those from the RSS, Sewa Bharati and several good samaritans come forward in the time of pandemic to ensure that those living in the first India are taking care of, and a third India – where people like Nandita Das and her father mooch of government money and then talk about helping the poor and needy.
It is indeed the bane of the country that such hypocrites are considered credible voices by media houses that have a vested interest in projecting the worse about a country of 1.3 billion people, pulling together in solidarity to fight one of the greatest pandemics witnessed by the world.
