Supreme Court’s ruling that doctors who died on duty during the COVID-19 pandemic are entitled to insurance under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana is not just a legal pronouncement; it is a moral thunderclap. It is the nation’s conscience finally stirred, a recognition that those who stood unflinching in the storm of contagion were not expendable footnotes but guardians of life who gave everything. Their sacrifice was not abstract; it was livid in suffocating wards, in the relentless rhythm of ventilators, in the trembling hands that held patients when families could not. To deny their families justice would have been to deny the very soul of our collective struggle.
Doctors were the riverbanks when the flood of fear threatened to drown us. They worked at times, through exhaustion, through shortages of oxygen and protective gear, through the despair of watching lives slip away despite their best efforts. Many never returned home. Their families were left with silence where laughter once lived, with absence where presence was needed most. Insurance is not charity rather it is recognition, a solemn promise that the state remembers. It is the flow of responsibility, carrying solace to those who lost everything while their loved ones served humanity.
In Kashmir, this truth strikes with particular force. Valley, already scarred by conflict and fragile healthcare, saw its doctors stand like lone bridges across torrents of suffering. In Srinagar hospitals, in rural clinics tucked between mountains, they fought with inadequate resources, often without adequate protection. When they fell, the loss was not only personal but collective. Each doctor gone meant fewer hands to heal, fewer voices to reassure, fewer shields against despair. Their absence felt like a river suddenly dammed, leaving communities stranded in grief.
The judgment must not be the end but the beginning. Insurance after death is justice delayed; protection during life is justice fulfilled. The pandemic revealed how vulnerable our healers are. To honour the dead, we must safeguard the living. Let the flow of this ruling extend into stronger policies, better protections and a renewed commitment to those who heal.
The people of Kashmir know the value of spirit, doctors here are more than professionals—they are lifelines, often the only thread connecting remote villages to survival. During COVID-19, they became symbols of endurance, working through exhaustion, separated from families, carrying the valley’s pain on their shoulders. Their sacrifice was not abstract; it was lived in the corridors of SMHS, in the wards of SKIMS, in the rural health centres where fewer doctors served hundreds. Their deaths must be remembered as the breaking of a dam that held back despair and the insurance is a small but vital stream of relief for families left behind.
Yet beyond compensation lies a deeper responsibility. We must ensure that the memory of these doctors flows into our collective conscience, shaping how we value healthcare, and how we protect those who protect us. Insurance cannot replace a father’s embrace or a mother’s guidance, but it can help families rebuild, educate children and sustain dignity. It is society’s way of saying: we remember, we honour, we will not let your sacrifice fade.
Supreme Court’s ruling is a river of recognition, carrying justice to the families of martyrs of compassion. But rivers must not stop at one shore. They must keep flowing, carving new paths, nourishing new commitments. Let the verdict remind us that doctors are not expendable, that their lives are not negotiable, that their deaths must not be brushed aside as inevitable casualties.