The list of winners of Padma Shri Awards in 2021 has made the Indians proud because it has signalled that the awards are no longer reserved for the elite. They are given away to the most deserving citizens of India working at grass root level. One fact is that these awardees are inspirers and have contributed to society silently. Their work is not marketed by journalists. One such inspirer is Mr. Jitender Singh Shunty who became ‘family’ for thousands during the Covid second wave last summer. Due to the strict Covid protocol thousands of families abandoned their own kith and kin’s dead bodies but Jitendra Singh Shunty and his Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal did humane work of cremating those abandoned bodies of Covid victims.
“I believe this award (Padma Shri) is a responsibility and a trust the President of India has bestowed upon us for continuing the social work. I will take it as a challenge”, said Jitender Singh Shunty on the occasion of being conferred with the Padma Shri award in the category ‘social work.’ Jitender Singh has been working persistently for service to poor people for more than 25 years in various areas plus by running ambulances to ferry and cremate bodies during Covid pandemic.
He gracefully announced that he is not the sole bearer of the Padma Shri award. He dedicate it to all Covid warriors working with him which includes ambulance drivers and people working on the cremation ground and assisting in transporting patients and carrying bodies.
Mr Shunty was born in a poor family and lost his father at an early age. As a child, he witnessed multiple hardships and did odd jobs to make ends meet. It is in 1995, after Mr Shunty’s business picked up some momentum that saw him start his own organisation ‘Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal’ which runs operations in Delhi. The organisation was established with the objective of saving lives through promoting availability, accessibility and effectiveness of emergency services. Since inception of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal, Mr Shunty and his team have been taking care of the cremation of unclaimed bodies and those of poor people by providing ambulance service, mortuary box, and hearse van. In the last 25 years, the team has cremated over 56,000 bodies.
The team stepped up even during the COVID-19 pandemic and worked for 18 hours at a stretch given the horror of the task at hand because of massive emergencies. In the last one and a half years of COVID-19, the team cremated 4,000 dead bodies. Talking about his motivation and the belief that death must have dignity has kept him and his team going even when faced with extreme distress and disturbing circumstances. He and his teammates were deterred by others that Covid is an infectious disease, they must stay home. But he and his team continued their humane work of giving dignity to the dead by cremating the bodies gracefully in time.
To ensure the safety of his team and at the same time, assure that the COVID warriors are at the top of their game, Mr Shunty arranged for courses on first aid and dead body management for his frontline warriors. Mr Shunty believes the COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opener for many as it showed the real face of people. Many found a family, an amigo in a stranger. While signing off, Mr Shunty gave the message of preparing for the future and helping one and all. During the pandemic, in many cases, even the family didn’t come forward to perform the last rites. On contrary, strangers came forward which shows that everyone can be a protector. The security forces sitting on the borders, guarding the country cannot take the sole responsibility of protecting the nation; while they protect us externally, internally every civilian is police and a guard.
Earlier in September, in an exclusive interview with NDTV, Mr Shunty had shared heart-wrenching stories of the suffering he witnessed first-hand. Recounting one such story, Mr Shunty said, during the worst phase of Covid a 20-year-old girl brought her father’s body to him and requested to perform the last rites. She told him that the previous night she was searching for a hospital but failed to find any and eventually she saw her father taking his last breath in the car itself; the ordeal didn’t stop there, she was struggling to find space for cremation. While working on the frontlines, Mr Shunty and his family tested positive for COVID-19 twice, he lost one of his ambulance drivers; sometimes he himself had slept in a car outside a cremation ground and sometimes in the parking area. But the passion to serve people kept the COVID warrior and his team going.
World across In most religions acceptance of cremation is a determining factor for many when considering the final disposition for themselves or loved ones. There are many religions, and even more sects, with attitudes that range from cremation as the preferred method to those that forbid it. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) this year in the month of May issued an advisory to the Centre and States on “upholding the dignity and protecting the rights of the dead” in view of the large number of deaths during this second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges in management of the bodies.
I salute Mr.Jitendra Singh Shunty for his most humane work of protecting dignity of dead people; honestly he should have been the “Padma Shri” much earlier.
