Walking the Untrodden Path The Daughters of Gujarat

Life is transient, fleeting and comes with an expiry date. One realises this eternal truth of life on witnessing a cremation. To protect the delicately tender sentimentality of women, many of Hindu families do not encourage women to go to a cremation, as they may find it difficult to reconcile and consign to flames a person who walked the earth with them. However, from the trying times of Corona19 pandemic, was born the possibility of something new, brave and courageous. Few extraordinary women took a stride towards an untrodden path. The society witnessed a surge of collective bravery of a few exceptional women. They came forward and shouldered the responsibility of cremating unclaimed dead bodies. This is the rare tale of extraordinary volunteer sisters of Rashtra Sevika Samiti.

During the Second Covid wave in April 2021, the turmoil and outcry due to fear of infection confined people to their homes. Many families refused to perform the last rites of their Corona positive deceased. It was in these trying circumstances of grief and anguish that 10 sisters of Rashtra Sevika Samiti along with Ms. Hina Velani, Ms. Rinku Vekariya, Ms. Sumita Bhudia, Ms. Tulsi Velani of Sukhpar village of Kutch, Gujarat, rose to the occasion. They displayed incredible courage by adorning PPE kits and giving a final and honourable farewell to the departed. 

It all started on the evening of April 15, 2021, when the Development Officer of Bhuj tehsil contacted RSS volunteer Ramji Velani seeking help for last rites of Covid dead accumulating at the Government Hospital, Bhuj. Families of deceased had turned their backs for the funerals and the government employees were insufficient. The Sangh workers responded to the dire situation with a team of male volunteers for the task at hand. Ramji’s daughter Hina expressed her desire to join in and assist. At first father's heart and mind were apprehensive, but his anxiety turned out to be unfounded as nine other sisters of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti joined the endeavour. These resilient women were ready for a rendezvous with need of the hour.

Sharing her experience, Hina Didi the State Publicity Head of Rashtra Sevika Samiti of Saurashtra province explained, "We were working in teams of three. We did not feel the slightest difficulty in performing the last rites wearing PPE kits in the scorching heat, handling all aspects starting from cleaning the regular cremation ground, onwards. During the lockdown, the dead bodies from the hospital in Bhuj and surrounding villages were cremated at the ghat of our village Sukhpar. The villagers cooperated wholeheartedly, contributing firewood, ghee and camphor from their homes. 

This was a long campaign which lasted about 45 days and more than 450 dead were given a respectful farewell by a team of relentless volunteers and sisters of the Samiti. As the work progressed, many young people got involved and took to managing the funeral pyres, whereon these sisters handled the responsibility of providing food to the needy in quarantine, personifying Maa Annapoorna. They also undertook door to door distribution of handmade cloth masks and sanitizers, as also reached out to helpless, needy and elderly delivering fruits, medicines etc. In addition, supporting people staying alone, they even assisted the Police as well as the administration. In brief, their generosity knew no bounds and there was no service that the volunteer sisters did not undertake during the pandemic.

Responding to a query about this unconventional task Hina Didi responded, “everything was possible because of the values and training of the Sangh family”! That is why they say "Sanghe Shakti Yuge Yuge".