Avinash Aghav during COVID: The Police Inspector Who Redefined Commitment

    During the darkest days of the COVID-19 lockdown, Police Inspector Avinash Aghav told Avinash Chate why he kept showing up despite insults and danger. His answer is the clearest definition of workplace Commitment you will ever hear.

    Avinash Aghav during COVID: The Police Inspector Who Redefined Commitment

    Avinash Aghav during COVID: The Police Inspector Who Redefined Commitment

    In March 2020, while most of India bolted its doors and stayed home, a Police Inspector named Avinash Aghav stood on an empty street, doing his duty in a city gripped by fear. What he told me that day, in a few plain sentences, has stayed with me for years, and it is still the clearest definition of Commitment I have ever heard.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Commitment is the ninth trait on the EQ, the left side of the Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). EQ, RQ and PQ together lift the kite toward Success, you rise on balance, not on strength alone. Commitment is the emotional glue that keeps you attached to a goal long after the initial motivation has faded, and Inspector Aghav's story shows exactly what that glue looks like when it's tested by real danger.

    March 2020: A City in Lockdown, and the People Who Didn't Go Home

    Let me take you back to that moment. The country had just gone into lockdown. Nobody knew how bad COVID-19 would get. Streets that were usually chaotic with traffic and noise had gone completely silent. Fear had gripped everyone, fear of the virus, fear of the unknown, fear of what tomorrow would bring.

    Most of us did the only sensible thing: we stayed indoors. We worked from our sofas, cooked more than we ever had, and watched the news with a kind of numb anxiety. But there was a set of people for whom staying home was never an option, police officers, doctors, nurses, and sanitation workers who went out every single day into a city that had every reason to be afraid of them, and they of it.

    I spoke with one of them: Avinash Aghav Sir, a Police Inspector. He was out on the roads, enforcing the lockdown, managing people who didn't want to be managed, exposing himself to a virus we barely understood, at a time when even touching a doorknob felt risky. And he told me something I have carried with me ever since:

    “People may insult us. They may treat us badly. They may disrespect us. But we are committed to our job. Our personal interests don't matter here. It's our duty to protect this nation. We are going to change the world with this. And I feel proud that I'm making a difference.”

    Read that again, slowly. There is no complaint in it. No self-pity. No demand for gratitude. He names the insults and the bad treatment directly, he is not pretending they didn't happen, and then, in the same breath, sets them aside as irrelevant to the job. That is commitment in its purest form: doing the right thing not because it is rewarded, but because it is right, and because you have decided, in advance, that your personal comfort is not the measure that matters here.

    What Commitment Actually Is

    Commitment is an emotional quality that creates a strong attachment to your goals, whether personal or organisational. It is the ability to stay focused on what matters most, even when distractions, temptations, and setbacks try to pull you away.

    In the workplace, committed professionals are the ones who work round the clock when needed, who sacrifice personal comforts for the team's success, who stay late to meet deadlines, and who are ready to take on urgent missions at the eleventh hour. They are willing to trade short-term pleasure for a long-term mission. I call them the patriots of a company, the natural boosters, the ones who genuinely care about where the organisation is headed, not just what it pays them.

    There's a Bollywood line that captures it perfectly, Salman Khan's famous dialogue: “Ek baar jo maine commitment kar di, toh main khud ki bhi nahi sunta.” (Once I make a commitment, I don't even listen to myself.) That's commitment. Not saying you'll do something, doing it, no matter what.

    Inspector Aghav wasn't reciting a training-manual definition. He was living it, on a street, in a pandemic, with no cameras and no applause waiting for him at the end of his shift.

    The Company He Kept: Doctors, Nurses, and Sanitation Workers

    Inspector Aghav's words apply just as much to the doctors and nurses who worked 18-hour shifts inside suffocating PPE kits during that same period, away from their own families, treating patients without asking about caste, religion, or personal risk. And to the sanitation workers who kept clearing waste from hospitals and quarantine zones when almost no one else would go near them.

    None of them were chasing a bonus. None of them expected the applause that briefly came, the 5pm clapping, the banging of thalis, to last, and it didn't. What kept them going after the noise died down was something steadier: a decision, made and remade every single morning, that the job mattered more than the risk.

    That is the difference between performing commitment for an audience and actually having it. Commitment that only shows up when someone is watching isn't commitment, it's performance. Inspector Aghav's version showed up on an empty street with nobody watching at all.

    Visitors vs Residents: Which One Are You?

    In every organisation, I see two types of people: visitors and residents.

    Visitors come to work for the salary. They clock in at 9, clock out at 5. They do the bare minimum. They watch the clock constantly, count their working hours, hunt for credit, and become so blind in their own self-interest that they turn quietly negative toward the company. Any decision that goes against their personal convenience causes them real pain, and that pain creates a gap between them and the team, a gap where they end up lost and disconnected, even while still drawing a salary.

    Residents feel a sense of belonging. They take pride in their work. They care about the outcome, not just the paycheck. They readily make personal sacrifices for the team's goals, use the company's core values to guide their decisions, and actively look for ways to serve the larger mission. They stay loyal in tough times and put ‘we’ above ‘me.’

    Inspector Aghav was, in that moment, the ultimate resident, of his city, of his uniform, of his duty. He had every reason to treat the lockdown as someone else's problem. Instead, he treated it as his own.

    I've seen a smaller, quieter version of the same quality closer to home. Shrimant Nagargoje Sir, the Operations Head of a training company I work with, once told me: “As the head of this company, I am proud that I'm making a change in society. I always believe in keeping we above me.” He stays back when there's a deadline. He gives up his personal time for the team's goals. Different scale, same instinct as Inspector Aghav, the mission comes first.

    This isn't a call for blind loyalty. As management thinker Tom Peters has pointed out, the modern workplace runs on a more balanced version of loyalty, loyalty to your colleagues, your team, your project, your customers, and to yourself. Commitment done right isn't self-erasure; it's choosing, with open eyes, what deserves your best effort.

    The Four Moments That Test Commitment

    Commitment isn't proven on an easy day. It's proven in four specific moments, and Inspector Aghav's story touches every one of them:

    1. When distractions tempt you

    Will you stay focused on your goal, or will you get pulled away by something that feels good right now? During the lockdown, the easy choice for anyone in a public-facing government role would have been to do the bare minimum and disappear from view. Inspector Aghav didn't take the easy road.

    2. When setbacks hit you

    Will you quit when things get hard, or will you keep going? Public hostility, people insulting and mistreating him for simply enforcing the rules, was a daily setback. He absorbed it and kept working.

    3. When no one is watching

    Will you do the right thing even when there's no reward, no recognition, no applause? An empty street during a lockdown is about as unwatched as work gets. That's exactly when he chose to show up fully.

    4. When sacrifices are required

    Will you put the team's, or in this case, the nation's, success above your own comfort and safety? He answered that question directly: ‘Our personal interests don't matter here.’

    Why So Few People Sustain This Kind of Commitment

    If commitment is this powerful, why don't more professionals have it? A few honest reasons:

    Distractions and temptations. You're not distracted by things you don't love, you're distracted by things you do love. The evening drink, the cricket match, the social scroll. Each one offers a small, immediate pleasure that quietly outbids a longer-term goal, one evening at a time.

    Setbacks and failures. Businessmen abandon ventures after losses. Writers give up after rejections. Salespeople lose heart after a hundred refusals. Setbacks are part of the journey, quitting at the first one guarantees you never reach the good part.

    Lack of alignment with the mission. If you're only showing up for a paycheck, you'll never feel truly committed. Inspector Aghav's commitment was fused to something larger than his own convenience, it's our duty to protect this nation. That fusion is what carried him through the worst of it.

    Fear of sacrifice. Commitment demands late nights, cancelled plans, personal discomfort, sometimes real risk. Many people want the outcome without paying any of the price. Nothing significant gets built that way.

    The Golden Triad: Focus, Meaning, Action

    Here's a simple framework I use to explain how commitment actually gets sustained day after day: Focus → Meaning → Action → Results.

    What you focus on determines the meaning you assign to events. And the meaning you assign drives your action. If Inspector Aghav had focused on the insults and the personal danger, he would have found every reason to walk away, and no one would have blamed him. Instead, he focused on the larger mission: protecting the nation. That focus gave the hardship meaning, and that meaning is what kept him acting, day after day, on an empty and unforgiving street.

    Choose your focus wisely. It shapes everything that follows.

    How to Build This Kind of Commitment at Work

    You don't need a pandemic to practise this trait. Here's how to build it deliberately:

    This lines up closely with what Daniel Goleman describes as the emotional self-regulation core of EQ, the capacity to align your daily actions with a value you've chosen, even when your immediate impulses pull the other way. Avinash Chate's framework simply makes that capacity concrete and trainable inside a corporate setting.

    Bringing It Back to Your Team

    Every organisation has its own version of an empty, unwatched street, the project nobody wants, the crisis at the eleventh hour, the unglamorous work that carries no credit. The question Inspector Aghav's story forces you to ask is simple: when your team faces that moment, are you a visitor, or are you a resident?

    Dashrath Manjhi spent 22 years breaking a mountain because he was committed to a cause bigger than himself. Inspector Aghav stood on an empty road during a pandemic because he was committed to a cause bigger than himself. Different scale, same trait. Explore the full story of Dashrath Manjhi and 22 years of commitment, and see how this trait fits alongside the other 24 traits of EQ in the complete Commitment chapter guide.

    If you want your team to build this kind of commitment deliberately rather than hope it shows up during a crisis, explore Avinash Chate's Signature Corporate Training Programs or browse the full library of corporate training topics. Or reach out directly through our contact page to discuss a session for your organisation.

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    Avinash Chate

    TEDx Speaker · Founder, The Future Corporate · Author of Stars at India Inc.

    Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Who is Avinash Aghav?

    Avinash Aghav is a Police Inspector whom Avinash Chate spoke with during the COVID-19 lockdown of March 2020. His words about duty and commitment, spoken while policing the streets during the pandemic, became one of the defining real-life examples of the Commitment trait in the book Stars at India Inc.

    What did Avinash Aghav say about commitment during COVID-19?

    He said: “People may insult us. They may treat us badly. They may disrespect us. But we are committed to our job. Our personal interests don't matter here. It's our duty to protect this nation. We are going to change the world with this. And I feel proud that I'm making a difference.” It captures commitment without any expectation of reward or recognition.

    What is the Commitment trait in the Winning Kite framework?

    Commitment is Trait #9 on the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) side of Avinash Chate's Winning Kite framework. It is the emotional quality that creates a strong attachment to your goals, keeping you focused on what matters most even when distractions, setbacks, or personal cost try to pull you away.

    How can I apply Avinash Aghav's lesson at my workplace?

    Ask whether you are a ‘visitor’ who works only for the paycheck, or a ‘resident’ who takes ownership of outcomes regardless of recognition. Practically: align with your organisation's mission, set clear goals, take ownership when things go wrong, and keep showing up with full focus even when no one is watching or applauding.

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