By Himmat Singh Gill

AS the country was celebrating the 50 years of its Independence last year, nearly 59 of the most unfortunate amongst us, were braving the severe winter at Bhagat Puran Singh’s Pingalwara at Tehsilpura and the satellite homes at Ram Talai, Mahan Singh Gate, Pandori Waraich and Goindwal Sahib, in an around the holy city of Amritsar, awaiting the sunrise that would bring with it some warmth and hope. And though the first of nature’s gift is more or less assured, these physically and mentally handicapped can never be very certain of the latter commodity.

The insane men and women, boys and girls among them too, the breast-fed infants whose mothers cannot be located, the paralytics, the aged, the lepers and those seriously infected by disease and sores, are in this hostel-like abode, the creation of a man who is no more with us but whose work is a shining example for all humanity .

This is the story of Bhagat Puran Singh and his legacy. It is also the story of the present generation’s so-called leaders, who have little time for the social betterment of a segment of humanity that has no voice or vote. It is a tale that should make any government or any people sit up and ponder.

There are about 600 of them in this sanctuary of the infirm and the invalid. Deaf and dumb, children who are now school-going, the insane walking about aimlessly in the chilly verandahs, the three or even four to a quilt confined to their distant memories and their small steel cots, the down-in-spirit, huddled together, fearing even the pale morning light. They are all there and each morning when you and I are having our egg and toast, the Pingalwara Society, now run by Bibi Inderjit Kaur, is working its guts out providing its inmates their frugal meal and succour. Frugal because what is Rs 70,000 in a month for this large number of inmates? What, also, is Rs 1,65,000 a month for all the food and general kitchen expenses? Hospital care for the terminally ill, medicines for the sick, bedsheets, blankets and linen, laundry services, salaries for well over 300 members of the staff and others involved in Pingalwara’s daily chores, and, yes, the upkeep and repair of the buildings under its care, all cost money. The donations every year from within India and abroad, and the money gathered from the offerings in the Pingalwara collection boxes kept outside the gurdwaras are not enough to run institutions of this kind efficiently. Institutionalised aid from government agencies, in addition to the offerings and donations from the common man, is the need of the hour.

Presently, the Pingalwara is just a holding agency really, and not a hospital. One saw an ambulance or two on the premises meant for transporting the sick to Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Nanak hospitals, and others to the Government Mental Hospital. But they are not enough. Many of the inmates stay here till they die. So it is neither a hospital, nor a holding home with all the facilities, a TB sanatorium, or a mental asylum at the moment. It doubles up for all, and this aspect needs to be re-examined urgently. As the number of inmates increases and the control and stewardship gets unwieldy, a final decision in this regard would need to be taken by the Pingalwara Society, so that the best treatment possible can be assured.

Bhagat Puran Singh, who pioneered this selfless mission, bringing in on his shoulders and in his cycle-rickshaw the first destitutes who had no place or home to go to, would, one is sure, not mind a fully staffed and fully equipped institution, all-encompassing in nature, to provide a home and a hearth to the really needy. A charitable institution of this kind could be a trend-setter on the lines of the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan in New York and run by the Jews for everyone’s benefit, provided an integrated approach to its reorganisation and restructuring is taken jointly by the All-India Pingalwara Society, the Punjab government and other states since most of the inmates are non-Punjabis, the Central government, and importantly the other voluntary organisations willing to chip in any way.

A matter that has caused some wonder to this writer is why an institution of this kind and nearly as old as India’s Independence, has not ascended to the heights of Mother Teresa’s homes. Is it the sole responsibility of the S.G.P.C., the Punjab government which provides an aid of Rs 10,000 a year (as per the Pingalwara’s own literature), and a few organisations and individuals? Here, for example, is an institution that has given hope and a meaning to the life of a girl-child, Bholi, now 15 years old and a student of the class X, whose sick mother roamed the corridors of the Pingalwara once. Bholi can today look forward to a decent job and marriage thanks to the support given by this noble institution.

Bhagat Puran Singh ( June 4, 1904 — August 5, 1992), is now no more, but his name lives on. His brain-child too, though it would possibly require a little restructuring. One remembers him squatting near the entrance to the Golden Temple distributing home-printed literature to the visitors, in rain and torrid heat, and collecting donations to help the most needy. One has heard too of his selfless work in the refugee camps at Khalsa College, Amritsar, just after the Partition, and his utter disregard for his own health in the cholera epidemic that was then raging. Or of his service to the poor lepers and those with wounds and sores that bled. He was a man whose sole aim was service to the downtrodden as he believed that service to humanity was service to God himself.