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Committee
or calamity?
EXPRESS EDITORIAL
On
Sunday, the National Committee on Disaster Management, confabulated
for three hours on the Gujarat earthquake and not once did the most
obvious aspect of this calamity surface.
Yet,
although the observation that it is not earthquakes that kill people
but badly built constructions in which they live that do, has become
a cliche, no one thought it necessary to highlight that aspect.
Not
once during this meeting convened by Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee was the insidious builder-politician nexus, which had given
rise to a rash of dangerously unsafe buildings across the state,
referred to. If disaster management does not include, within its
ambit, a scrutiny of the basic cause for a particular disaster,
then what is the point of setting up such a committee in the first
place and wasting everybody's time?
The
sad fact is that committees have become just another way to manage
the political repercussions of various crises without really doing
very much to address them in real terms. Invariably, committees
of this kind end up only perpetuating themselves — more paper,
more red tape, more to-ing and fro-ing.
Sunday's
meeting, to nobody's great surprise, recommended the setting up
of a working group of professionals and experts which has, in turn,
been mandated to set up a task force to prepare long-term plans
for each calamity. There is, besides, the all-party committee on
calamity management headed by NCP chairperson Sharad Pawar. Clearly,
all this calls for another committee — one designed to coordinate
the activities of these various committees! At the end of a little
more than three weeks — a period when earth became a living
hell for the people of Gujarat — only the committees have proliferated,
unfortunately, not people's welfare.
The
ugly squabbling over the management of the Orissa cyclone seriously
affected the smooth conduct of relief and rehabilitation in that
state, the deleterious effects of which are being felt even now,
16 months after that calamitous supercyclone. Gujarat needs to be
spared this and that can only happen if politicians conduct themselves
in a fashion that rises above bipartisan interests.
This
is, of course, easier said than done in a situation where the party
in power, both in the state and at the Centre, is desperate to ensure
that the main Opposition party does not gain politically from the
earthquake. The main Opposition party, on the other hand, is wasting
no occasion to embarrass the ruling party. And so it goes, this
big fight that isn't doing anybody any good.
While
the president of the Congress highlights the discrimination in relief
on grounds of religion, caste and political affiliation, the BJP
chief minister and prime minister jointly rush to defend their record,
instead of duly acknowledging the problems and promising to set
them right. Politicians across the board must realise that the people
are watching their antics and their patience is running low. It
is not words and red tape that they need at the moment, but swift,
concerted and effective action.
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