EXCLUSIVE: Initiative To Support Daily Wage Earners Was Rajkumar Hirani's Brain Child Reveals Screen Writer Pankaj Dubey

The country is reeling under the coronavirus outbreak. It has been declared as a pandemic. The Bollywood industry is literally shut. The shootings are cancelled and releases are stalled, the promotions too are not happening. This is the time when the industry is suffering huge losses. Now, when the industry has no work, what will the daily wage earners do? There are so many who have been working tirelessly and are paid on a daily basis and now with no work at hand, there is no money also! There are many who want to go back to their hometown but with no transport, many are left hapless!

Recently, we have seen many celebrities including Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, Ekta Kapoor, Aamir Khan, Sanjay Dutt have come forward to contribute humongous amounts of money to the cause of providing relief to the daily wage earners.

And do you know who all are behind this initiative? Well, it was the brainchild of four people namely, director Rajkumar Hirani, Producer Mahaveer Jain, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and screenwriter and author Pankaj Dubey who also happens to be the spokesperson of the initiative.

In an exclusive conversation with us, Pankaj Dubey revealed, no one actually had the idea of what the lockdown might bring along with it. This issue became a talking point amongst Rajkumar Hirani, Mahaveer Jain and himself. Quipped he, “When the lockdown was announced by PM Narendra Modi, we thought it was absolutely essential a move to curb the Coronavirus pandemic in India. But at the same time, we were wary about the fact that this lockdown tenure can be extended. And if it indeed is extended, what could be the repercussions of it?”

He further went on to reveal how Mr Hirani was extremely anxious about the fate of the daily wage earners during this lockdown. Dubey further contended, “How will the daily wage earners, the workers and the ones who are needy fend for themselves? How will they survive? That was the big question. That’s when this became a constant topic of discussion between filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani, producer Mahaveer Jain and also in order to have a concrete result to the discussion, we also spoke to the Art of Living’s Sri Ravi Shankar. I was a part of the group as well. All three of them came up with an idea. The idea was to approach the film industry personalities so that we could gather some amount, do some crowdfunding and purchase some ration and distribute amongst the needy.”

He stated that this initiative didn’t just stay limited within the precincts of the film industry. “At that point in time, perhaps we were not aware that the lockdown will last for so many days. And we also didn’t know, not just from the film industry, people who don’t belong to the industry will also be contributing so generously as they did and now, this little initiative of ours has become a people’s movement. We have named it I Stand With Humanity and I have been vested on the responsibility to become the spokesperson of this entire movement.” Dubey elaborated.

Actor Sanjay Dutt has appreciated the entire initiative. He says, "It's so humbling to see that the #iStandWithHumanity initiative has reached out to over10 lakhs needy people across India with food/ration kits. Appreciate thousands of volunteers of The Art of Living Foundation & the support of friends from Bollywood."

He had earlier tweeted -