Indian Americans in Philly help their ancestral homeland amid the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak

Manish Ingle returned to Montgomery County this week after visiting his 81-year-old father in India, and what he saw there offered no comfort amid the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak.

“You just can’t get a bed in a hospital right now,” said Ingle, chairman of the Council of Indian Organizations in Greater Philadelphia. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or what you have. A poor person cannot even see a doctor. … They were not prepared for something this big.”

The pandemic that’s raging across India is infecting at least 300,000 people a day and killing thousands, producing heartbreaking images of smoky cremation pyres — and driving a wave of concern and action among Indian Americans in the Philadelphia region.

Local groups, community leaders and doctors-turned-organizers are raising money and pressing congresspeople to ship emergency supplies to the world’s second-largest country. Sewa International, the Hindu-faith-based humanitarian organization, has raised $4.3 million toward a $5 million goal.

This week it’s sending India 400 oxygen concentrators — devices that remove nitrogen from the air to provide oxygen gas — and hopes to deliver an additional 2,000 soon. Oxygen supplies there are severely limited.

Desperately ill people are being turned away from hospitals, many of them dying as they plead for treatment that doesn’t come.

“The level of devastation in India is being seen, and people are moved,” said Syam Kosigi, a Delaware-based vice president of Sewa, which also aims to provide food and medicine to families, orphanages, and senior citizens.

In Philadelphia, what began as one doctor’s email plea for donations touched off a social-media campaign that’s now raised $50,000 — and already sent 25 oxygen concentrators to Lok Nayak Hospital in New Delhi. The government hospitals have been hardest hit.

“We were looking for a way to directly help,” said Ruchika Talwar, a 28-year-old urologic surgery resident at the University of Pennsylvania. “I lived through the first and second wave in Philly, and saw patients with COVID. It changes you.”

Ventilator supplies became limited in the U.S., she noted, but oxygen was available. Patients could be sent home with oxygen, increasing their comfort and freeing needed hospital beds. That’s not true in India.

Her inspiration, Talwar said, was her mother, a New Jersey physician who was raised and did her early medical training in New Delhi. Her mom’s medical-school friends all helped. Now they’re connecting to public hospitals in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Punjab, and tweeting and posting under the hashtag #IndiaNeedsOxygen.

“A lot of donations are coming from Indians who keep telling me their motherland has given them so much, and they were lucky to come to this country to pursue the American dream. They want to give something back.”

India reported more than 320,000 new cases and 2,771 deaths on Tuesday, slight declines from previous days’ records. Health experts warn that both figures are significant undercounts. Nationally about 18 million have been infected and more than 200,000 have died since the start of the pandemic.

The United States continues to lead the world in cases and deaths, at 32 million infections and 573,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.

India is home to about 1.34 billion people — four times the population of the United States in a country that’s physically one-third the size.

Social distancing has been difficult at best, ignored at worst, according to news reports. The government is being criticized for allowing large crowds of mostly maskless citizens to gather for religious festivals and election events.

After speaking with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week, President Joe Biden pledged to do more for other nations, a change for an administration that hesitated to share excess vaccine. The administration intends to offer up to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to other countries, provided that health regulators deem them safe.

The White House said on Sunday that it would provide raw materials for India to produce vaccine.

“I’m very upset with the Biden administration for not listening, for holding off on the raw materials despite [the U.S.] swimming in vaccines,” said Kinjal Bakshi, a semiretired investment banker in Collegeville who has family in India. “Almost five weeks! Now the fire has burned so much. It’s shameful.”

He’s phoned congresspeople and senators, urging them to act to help India. And every 12 hours he phones India to talk to his parents, both about age 90, knowing there’s little he can send them besides money and love. They live in Mumbai, one of the world’s most densely populated cities.

“If they get infected, I think I’m going to lose them,” Bakshi said. “They told me not to come even though I’m vaccinated. ‘We have lived our lives. Whatever happens, happens.’ ”

Pennsylvania is home to about 115,000 Indian Americans, the largest subgroup among the state’s 392,600 Asians. Most live in the Philadelphia area, with enclaves in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Lancaster, and Allentown.

South Asian migration to this region began in the 1800s, from India but also from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and nearby lands, according to research by Fariha Khan, associate director of the Asian American Studies program at the University of Pennsylvania.

After 1965, new U.S. laws encouraged immigration by those with specialized skills or academic degrees, and educated, English-speaking immigrants arrived from India and Pakistan, often to pursue advanced learning at Penn, Villanova University, or Temple University, she wrote.

The local Council of Indian Organizations has petitioned congresspeople to assist India, and been in touch with the India consulate in New York, said chairperson Ingle. During his trip to visit his father, he saw stores closed and seniors indoors.

“Everyone feels for their motherland,” Ingle said. “Some Indian organizations are trying to raise money. In my view, India has money. We need raw materials, vaccines.”

This article includes information from the Associated Press.