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Viewpoint
Comment: Democracy needs freedom of speech
Comment: Atrocities against the poor
2/2005 |
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Atrocities against the poor
The areas worst hit by December’s terrible tsunami were those with the poorest infrastructure – and they were also the last to report. While a high tech warning system may seem desireable, it is far from obvious that any such system would have helped disadvantaged, rural communities. Our Indian author assesses the situation in his country – but the lessons to be learned are no different for the governments of other nations.
[ By P. Sainath ]
The blame game unfolding within hours of the tragedy is mystifying given that few explain what they would have done in those 90 minutes between the Sumatra quake and the wave’s arrival had they got the warning. Warnings without practised, in-place response strategies and drills might have meant little.
The question is not so much whether India should have been a paid-up member of the tsunami warning system. Until December 26, elite wisdom would have viewed that as so much money saved. The question is whether governments in India today will ever spend the modest sums required along the coast to protect the millions of poorer Indians dependent on the seas. And whether we need a disaster this scale to re-think some of our priorities.
The surprise expressed by many (arriving from Delhi) over the poor medical facilities in these regions is misplaced. The capital city may have such facilities. But we have spent the better part of 12 years gutting public health care, privatising hospitals and charging user fees in government ones from people who cannot pay. Fracturing an already inadequate and fragile system. Now, when there is a deadly danger of epidemics, there is little to fight them with. It is odd that we allow governments to get away with atrocities against the poor. But sternly hold them to blame for an unprecedented natural disaster.
Hundreds of fishing villages have been squeezed into narrower, tighter settlements as “development” Indian-style sets in. Many have moved into unsafe terrain, pushed by resorts, hotels, construction of highways. Mangrove forests that have always acted as a brake – however limited – against tidal waves, have increasingly vanished. So have another natural barrier – sand dunes, looted by the construction industry. We have put a lot of effort into making the coastline increasingly unsafe.
And not just the coastline. There seems to be no concern over the fact that the many small dams in the western part of the country might be responsible for what is known as “reservoir-induced seismicity”. Our planners still aim to turn every river into a chain of lakes. Growing seismic activity in Maharashtra has not led to a re-think on the ever-higher skyscrapers being planned there. Especially in Mumbai city. Nor has the harrowing experience of the Gujarat earthquake had any impact on Mumbai’s mighty builder lobby. We could perhaps have done very little in “those crucial 90 minutes,” but there is much we can do on other fronts, if we wish to, to make people safer.
It would not be too much of a challenge to India’s much-celebrated IT and software genius to make the lives of traditional fishermen along India’s coastline a lot better. A PCO type box, modified for at-sea use could do plenty. It could act as a weather alert and SOS mechanism. It could work as a GPS device. It could even be used to help fishermen in shoal tracking — a huge advantage that predatory big boats and trawlers have over them. All in all, it might be possible to install these in the vessels of traditional fishermen at maybe less than Rupies 2000 a boat. It is a small thing that may have little to do with tsunamis. But it could make a big difference in many life-threatening situations.
That it has never happened on a major scale means it is just not a priority. When advanced technological systems do come in, they will likely be installed with an eye on tourists rather than fisherfolk. The latter, right now, do not even have boats on which to install any safety device. Thousands of boats, catamarans and fishing nets were simply destroyed in the calamity.
Maybe we can never fully and correctly predict a tsunami or, more importantly, its likely impact. On the other hand, it is easy to predict that our priorities, our ways of thinking and living, render us vulnerable to disasters of our own making.
P. Sainath
is an Indian development journalist and author of the book “Everybody loves a good drought”. The views expressed above were first published in “The Hindu”, a broadsheet from tsunami affected Tamil Nadu.
psainath@vsnl.com
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