28: Narendranath Damodaran, ED, PRADAN: The impact of the pandemic in rural India

Shownotes Most of us have seen harrowing images in the media of the havoc wrought by the second wave of the pandemic in India and have heard stories of helpless and desperation from family and friends. The missing piece in this conversation is the impact on rural India - which constitutes above 65% of India. In today's episode I speak with Narendranath Damodaran, Executive Director of PRADAN which is leading on civil society response and working tirelessly with frontline workers to support local communities in the second wave of the pandemic. They work in 9,000 remote and backward villages (in 7 states) touching almost 4.5 million lives every day. In this episode we talk about 👇🏾 The devastating impact of the second wave on rural communities struggling to recover from the first wave Rapid Rural Community Response (RCRC) to COVID-19 a civil society coalition formed of 54 CSO Poor healthcare infrastructure in rural India and the need to create local isolation facilities for those who test positive. The fear, social stigma around the disease, vaccine hesitancy The importance of protecting those on the frontline The need for immediate cash injection into rural economies through revival of National Rural Livelihoods Programmes The urgency for donors, the private sector and individuals to step up on funding to support the work being done PRADAN and other civil society organisations do invaluable work by supporting local communities and facilitating government response during times of national crisis - they should be recognised for the pivotal role they play and more importantly have the access to funding to do continue their work. Listen to the full episode Apple, Google Podcasts or Spotify Memorable passages from the episode: 👉🏾 Last time when the pandemic came and it obviously kind of came as a shock to everybody. But that time it was a fear that it might spread to the rural areas. And then we were kind of bracing for it. But the impact by the time it reached the rural areas, it kind of waned and it was predominantly an urban phenomenon. But this time, it took us by shock, as you said. And this time the pandemic really moved into the rural hinterland. And as everything in this country, when something goes to the rural areas, it kind of goes into a national black box as it were. The public consciousness of what happens in the rural areas is pretty limited. So there is very limited information on what happens in the larger scenario. So even though currently, as we speak, the numbers are waning, the daily deaths and the daily positivity cases, it is reducing. But when it is going to rural areas and the counting is also limited, so we really do not know. But from our own direct experience from the field, it is rampant in the rural areas this time. And it is actually a very difficult situation right now, as a journalist recently called it, it is a virtual hell out there as it were. And there are reports from alternate media, mainstream media is really not covering it much, but in alternate media to personal reporting, et cetera. One is really able to understand and we can counter verify it in our own personal experience. 👉🏾: Right, you just reminded me, this is an everlasting image. All our collective consciousness, the picture of hundreds of thousands of people trekking back in the heat. Of the last summer, I think really one will never forget it. And we have equally dismal images from this time, but of another kind. In the initial few days we were also kind of in a shock. I mean, as the whole country suddenly went into lockdown and people started trekking back and really hell broke out and we were also not sure what was happening and obviously, in the urban areas, we were also scared, so we were not stepping out. So we were kind of trying to organise our own lives in the beginning, but then we realised that the rural economy was...