Everyday hero: B.V. Srinivas.
Helping hand: The SOS team members of the Indian Youth Congress have been helping people get oxygen.
Medicine and food
With cremations
THE PHONES KEEP ringing at 5, Raisina Road in Delhi, where the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) has set up its Covid-19 war room. It has been a month since the SOS team members (#SOSIYC) have had a full night’s rest. Amid the acute shortage of oxygen, ICU and ventilator beds, ambulances, remdesivir injections and plasma, the SOS team has become a beacon of hope for the common man.
And one man has been at the centre of it. From celebrities to foreign embassies and fellow politicians, everyone has been tagging IYC president B.V. Srinivas in distress posts on social media.
The 40-year-old, called the “SOS Man” and “Oxygen Man”, has been the go-to guy for thousands grappling with an overburdened health care system. The IYC war room is like a nerve centre and his network of 1,000 volunteers has been coordinating with Covid-19 centres across the states. “The state teams are constantly scrolling our social media accounts for appeals pouring in from their regions and following up,” Srinivas told THE WEEK. “We have formed three teams—one to track social media requests on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; a rural team that made WhatsApp groups to connect with village-level volunteers; and the third team to attend calls.”
He said he built his team in March 2020, after Rahul Gandhi asked him to create a volunteer base to reach out to people during the lockdown. A year later, on March 5 this year, the IYC passed three resolutions at its national executive meet—reach out to people during the second wave, work on tackling unemployment and support the farmers’ protest. “During the meet, Rahul ji warned us of the impending second wave and asked us to channel all our energy to help people across the country,” said Srinivas.
When not coordinating with his volunteers or overseeing distribution of food and medicine kits, he is busy giving protection kits to frontline workers, distributing face shields to daily wagers and motivating Covid-19 patients in hospitals and at home. He works 18 to 20 hours a day and attends around 400 calls a day.
One such call came from a family in Delhi recently. The voice on the phone sounded heavy: “Hum sab bach gaye! Aap ki wajah se (We all survived because of you).”
It was a Delhi couple and their two children who had just returned home after recovering from Covid-19. The husband had had a close brush with death, but got a ventilator bed just in time and survived after a 25-day battle with the virus. His family, like a thousand others, had sent a message to #SOSIYC on Twitter, tagging Srinivas.
But even he cannot help everyone. “I was outside a private hospital in Delhi to deliver medicines to a cancer patient and I saw a 28-year-old youth in an ambulance gasping for breath,” he said. “I promised to arrange an oxygen bed in a government hospital. But when I came back after 25 minutes, he was dead. These experiences are chilling. You feel guilty and helpless.”
Ray of hope: Srinivas says his team uses oxygen cylinders on a rotational basis and does not hoard them.
Srinivas has also had his share of controversy. On May 14, a team from the Delhi Police Crime Branch questioned him over “illegal distribution of Covid-19 medicines” after the Delhi High Court ordered an inquiry based on a writ filed by Dr Deepak Singh, chairman of NGO Hrudaya Foundation. Singh, in his complaint, had named Srinivas, Aam Aadmi Party MLA Dilip Pandey, BJP MPs Gautam Gambhir and Sujay Vikhe, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Congress MLA Mukesh Sharma, and had sought a CBI investigation into an alleged “medical mafia-politicians nexus”.
The court asked Singh to approach the Delhi Police and instructed the police to file a status report. “The Delhi Police has given us a clean chit,” said Srinivas. “The court sought the report a second time and we gave our response in writing, too. The court is justified in questioning us. But questioning us for helping others amid such a crisis is bound to intimidate and demoralise others who want to help.”
Dismissing all the allegations, he said his team was deployed at every hospital in Delhi to check for available beds and to direct patients there. The oxygen cylinders came from donors, he said, adding, “We use the oxygen cylinders on a rotational basis. We do not hoard them. A patient uses our cylinder till he can find a hospital bed. We got refilled cylinders from donors. We are a large organisation with a huge support base.”
As for distributing Covid-19 medicines, he said: “We only acted as a bridge between the 30-odd designated medicine outlets set up by the Delhi government and the patients’ families. You can procure the medicines in these outlets only if you have the patient’s Aadhaar card, Covid certificate, hospital admission card and the doctor’s prescription. We had enough units of plasma as we built a donor list and also conducted a donation drive. At no time did we bypass the system or resort to illegal means.”
Said Karnataka Congress president D.K. Shivakumar: “Instead of questioning cheats and black marketeers, the government is interrogating people who are serving the nation. My party will not be intimidated by any interrogation, notice or even jail.”
Srinivas—who hails from Bhadravati in Shivamogga district, which is Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s home turf and heartland of the sangh parivar in the state—identifies himself with the “Shivakumar team” in the Karnataka Congress.
Interestingly, his entry into politics was accidental. He had wanted to be a cricketer. “I came to Bengaluru and played for Karnataka in U16 and U19 cricket and also played county cricket in London,” he said. “I got selected as a guest player for KLN Agrotech and had signed a contract for a remuneration of Rs2,000 per month. But, in 2003, I quit after a ball hit my right eye and I underwent a surgery.”
He later joined the National Students’ Union of India while pursuing a pre-university course at National College in Bengaluru. “I got my first break in politics in 2011, when Rahul Gandhi floated an experiment in internal democracy called ‘Member Bano, Neta Chuno’ (Become a member, choose your leader) campaign,” he said. “He stood by me even in the face of some resistance against my leadership.”
It was during a stint in Uttar Pradesh that Srinivas, a Kannadiga, gained fluency in Hindi and honed his leadership skills. Coincidentally, two leaders from Karnataka are today heading the youth wings of the two major national parties. The BJP has picked Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya to lead its Yuva Morcha. “The BJP has chosen a dynast (Surya), whose uncle is a three-time MLA, to lead its youth wing. But the Congress has picked an ordinary party worker like me,” said Srinivas, who, along with his three sisters, grew up in a joint family. “I belong to a farming community. My father worked in a steel factory in Bhadravati and, after he passed away, my mother got the job on compassionate grounds. It was my mother’s unflinching support that helped me excel in cricket first and then politics. I am a first-generation politician and my mother was happy when I chose a secular party.”
When Delhi went into a lockdown, Srinivas’s mother worried about his safety and started calling him thrice a day. He had to block the news channels at his Bhadravati home to stop his mother from getting anxious. But, when the infection spread to rural India, it was the son’s turn to worry. “While there is fear of getting infected, the crisis has pushed us out of our comfort zone,” he said. “I have worked in flood-ravaged states like Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Bengal. But it is nothing compared with the current crisis. The pandemic is pan-India and needs gigantic efforts to overcome. People should come together and look beyond petty politics.”
He did not shy away from taking on the BJP in the recent “toolkit” row, in which the Congress was accused of trying to tarnish the Modi government’s image. Calling the government “complacent”, he said: “I am disappointed and anguished by the BJP’s attempts. They had the resources and responsibility to protect Indians but are shamelessly making toolkits to demean the work done by #SOSIYC. Let them arrest me or file cases, we will continue to save lives. The toolkit document is a forged one. Inse jhoot ko bhi sharam aa rahi hai (Even lies feel embarrassed by the BJP). The people can see through it all. People will change the face of politics in 2024.”