Chardi Kala in Crisis: How Youth Became First Responders in Punjab Floods
From using tractors for relief to setting up medical camps, the youth have been at the forefront of relief efforts.
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Punjab is a land that feeds the nation and guards its frontiers—sowing grain and sending soldiers with equal pride. Its youth carry the moral imprint of Baba Nanak’s bani, based on the principle of Sarbat da Bhala—the welfare of all. Their identity is unmistakable: the dastaar worn with dignity, and a spirit of courage and service, a complete contrast to the negative stereotypes spread in sections of the media.
As monsoon torrents swelled the Ravi, Beas, Sutlej, and their tributaries, water breached embankments and swamped villages across districts including Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Pathankot, Ferozepur, and Fazilka. Farmlands drowned, homes were marooned, roads erased. This year’s deluge is already being widely compared to the devastation of 1988—when much of Punjab reeled under one of the worst floods in living memory.
When the water levels began rising, it was the youth who responded the fastest. Tractors and trolleys became relief convoys; boats—too few and too late through official channels—were sourced via community networks.
Tractors became the means for transporting relief and rescuing people.
(Damanjeet Kaur)
Volunteers ferried families to safety, evacuated belongings from submerged homes, and ensured relief supplies reached where they were needed most.
'This is Our Punjab...It's Our Duty to Save it'
Doctors like Dr. Sharanpal Singh, Dr. Navjot Brar, and Mehtab Mander set up free medical camps in villages such as Machhiwala, treating allergies, fevers, coughs, and infections caused by contaminated water. “This is our Punjab,” they said. “When dark times fall upon it, safeguarding it is our duty.” Their camps became lifelines for families cut off from hospitals and pharmacies.
Ravan Khosa, Daman Singh, Mandeep Singh, Harman Sidhu, and Avtar Singh recalled that on the very first day, floodwaters rose over ten feet in parts of Gurdaspur, and no one else dared venture in. They mobilised boats through local networks, waded into the swirling currents, and brought stranded villagers to safety. In the process, they also salvaged essential belongings—medicines, documents, livestock—delivering them to dry ground.
Young volunteers are leading relief efforts in Punjab.
(Photo: Damanjeet Kaur)
When boats proved too few for the scale of the disaster, young volunteers improvised further. They pooled resources to bring in Hilux trucks, Thars, and other high-clearance vehicles, using them to reach villages cut off by waist-deep water. These makeshift convoys became lifelines—ferrying the elderly, children, and supplies along submerged roads where ordinary vehicles could not pass. When systems faltered, Punjab’s youth found a way.
Meanwhile, every day, nearly 300 tractor-trolleys loaded with rations have rolled into relief zones. Volunteers distribute food, water, and clothing with quiet efficiency, ensuring no family feels abandoned.
Human Cost
The human cost is written on every lane. Jodh Singh of Chitti Pind, Gurdaspur, says his family’s three rooms collapsed in the floods, leaving them with nothing but daily mazdoori to survive. What stings most, he adds, is that no warning ever came that the Ravi would overflow; families were caught unprepared—not by nature alone, but by the silence of a system meant to protect them.
Manjeet Kaur, a mother from the flood-hit belt, describes her ordeal. One of her sons is ill; the other earns a modest wage at a local bakery. Their home’s floor has been completely washed out, leaving the family without clean drinking water or functional toilets. “All our important belongings have been destroyed in the heavy flow,” she says—her voice carrying fatigue and quiet resilience.
For Darshi, a driver from Sandalpur in Gurdaspur district, the loss is almost existential. He had only just built his home and was paying an EMI of ₹15,000 every month to secure that roof. The floods tore it down completely. Standing amid the rubble, he wonders how to begin again—how to pay for a house that no longer exists.
The floods have left many displaced in different parts of Punjab.
(Photo: Damanjeet Kaur)
The disaster has also devastated livestock—the backbone of rural Punjab’s economy. With fields under water and no cattle feed available, countless animals have starved, while many others drowned. For families already struggling to rebuild, the loss of cattle is a double blow—robbing them not only of livelihood but also of the security that dairy and livestock once provided.
There is a civic lesson here. Decades of unchecked sand mining, encroachment on floodplains, and neglected embankments have transformed seasonal floods into calamities of immense scale. If 1988 was the warning, 2025 is the reminder: without course correction, history repeats with heavier costs.