Indian diaspora chips in to support virus fight

Every morning begins with a sense of dread for Ms Gayathree Devi K.T. The Indian doctoral student at Britain's University of Oxford goes through her WhatsApp inbox first thing in the morning to check on her family and other loved ones back home.

She is especially worried about her mother, who works for a government bank in Mumbai and goes to the office daily. She is yet to be fully vaccinated, and several people who work in the same building as her have tested positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks.

The thought that her mother could be next haunts her.

"It's always, you know, at the back of all our minds that it may just be a matter of days before she tests positive," Ms Gayathree said.

For many in the Indian diaspora, estimated to be over 18 million, being away from their loved ones in India while the country battles a crippling second wave of Covid-19 infections has been distressing.

From their relatively safe bubbles, but overwhelmed by guilt and helplessness, they have watched the sick queue up outside overburdened hospitals and the dead pile up at overworked crematoriums.

"It's difficult to pretend everything is okay, just because you are far away. In fact, that sense of survivor's guilt - it is what they call it - most of us feel that quite intensely," Ms Gayathree, 25, told The Straits Times.

Deeply concerned about the catastrophe unfolding in India, she and some other Indian students at Oxford rallied together and set up an online fund-raising page on Wednesday targeted at the Oxford community. Donations will be shared with Indian charities. It has already surpassed its initial target of raising £10,000 (S$18,470) in a little more than two days.

It is an example of how members of the diaspora are lending their financial muscle and mobilising social media to empower organisations fighting Covid-19 in India.

Mr Prithviraj Ammanabrolu, a 23-year-old doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, donated around two months of his student salary and has been amplifying calls for help through his Twitter account.

"I'm just trying to help in whatever ways I can," he told ST, aware of the privileges that come from currently being in the United States.

He has received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, but worries about his parents in India, who are yet to be fully vaccinated, as well as other unvaccinated loved ones.

Every call from home, in Bangalore, these days sends his anxiety levels soaring. "You're like: Oh my God, who is it this time? It is like living on the edge, it's just a lot of anxiety," said Mr Ammanabrolu, who lost one of his high school teachers as well as a paternal uncle to Covid-19 in this ongoing wave.

Indian-origin citizens in the US, including members of Congress, have also urged the American government to do more to support India through this pandemic.

Diaspora voices continue to campaign online on important issues such as getting pharmaceutical companies to suspend patents on Covid-19 vaccines.

It is with this idea of a sustained campaign of help, one which goes beyond donating money, that Toronto-based social media manager Aswini Sivaraman put together a Google Doc that went live last Saturday. The "one-stop resource" includes crowd-sourced leads on what diaspora members can do to contribute in a more helpful and meaningful way.

Suggestions include commenting on social media posts of Indian politicians to hold them accountable and urge them "to do more, to do better". Other tips include signing online petitions calling on foreign governments to help India and urging Indian-born global corporate leaders to provide "concrete, on-ground, relevant solutions".

"I'm not sure if there is one large diasporic movement that someone can join," said Ms Sivaraman, 35. "But there are, I would say, smaller tactics and smaller things that we can do to stay involved and keep staying involved because it doesn't look like this (the pandemic) is going to end any time soon."

Doctors of Indian origin are, meanwhile, inundated with calls for help from India, where families struggle to get medical care for their loved ones. Based in the US state of Georgia, Dr Sudhakar Jonnalagadda receives 20 to 30 calls every day for help with either sourcing oxygen-related equipment or medical intervention.

He is the president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), which launched a teleconsultation platform for Covid-19 patients in India last year. It has now been ramped up and handles around a hundred consultations daily.

"It is big teamwork here," said Dr Jonnalagadda, who was born in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh.

AAPI has also raised more than US$500,000 (S$664,000) in an ongoing charity drive.

"Members have been very generous and they all came out and opened their wallets," he told ST.

Part of these proceeds has been used to purchase oxygen concentrators and the association hopes to send around 1,000 of these machines to India soon.