The Jihad of a Humanist

Eighteen years ago today, the Air India Kanishka plane flew from Toronto enroute to London with its full load of over three hundred passengers. It never made it to its destination. Kanishka was blown to bits in mid-air above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland. All its passengers were killed. Almost all the victims were Indo-Canadians of Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or Christian faiths. Among those killed were Manjari, Srikiran (7) and Sarada (4)– the entire family of Dr. Chandra Sankurathri of Ottawa whom I met yesterday at a picnic sponsored by a charity founded by him.

When Dr. Sankurathri heard the news of the Air India disaster, his life was devastated. He felt that he had nothing to live for, and he started to search for a purpose in his life. He finally found one. In 1988, he gave up his government job of a scientist in Canada and went back to his hometown of Kakinada in the province of Andhra Pradesh in India. There he started a non-profit charity in his late wife’s name, Manjari Sankurarthi Memorial Foundation (MSMF), to help the poor rural people of Andhra Pradesh. Dr. Sankurathri identified three pressing needs of the people of rural Andhra: (1) lack of education for the poor children (2) eye care for the elderly and (3) disaster relief. He decided to concentrate his efforts in these three areas, especially the first two.

The school for poor children provided nutritious food, clothing and shelter to poor boys and girls, in addition to providing education to them. During the academic year 2002-03, all grade seven students of the foundation’s Sarada Vidyalayam who wrote their entrance exams passed with A Grades and can now look forward to admission in prestigious high schools for boys and girls.
The Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmology conducted 277 out-reach camps in 2002, serving 137,383 outpatients and performing cataract surgeries on 16,548 patients, glaucoma surgeries on 164 patients and other surgeries on 794 patients.

Dr. Sankurathri’s efforts have been rewarded with success. His foundation receives help from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as well as Help the Aged Canada programs. He attracts a large number of volunteers from Canada including many eminent doctors who go to India to perform free operations on the MSMF patients.

Dr. Sankurathri lost his family to a senseless terrorist attack by people who sought to seek revenge for events in far-off India on innocent Canadian passengers who had the misfortune to fly on an airplane bearing that country’s name on June 23, 1985. In turn, Dr. Chandra turned his personal anger and grief to serve the suffering humanity of people in that same far-off country.

We need more Sankurathris in this world.