The hills of Northern India, especially in Uttarakhand, more so in the Garhwal region, are experiencing floods and destruction of unimaginable proportions. Even those who have lived there for ever and have known the area to be brittle and flood and landslides prone, are amazed at the fury unleashed by the combination of relentless rain and wanton construction activities in total disregard of norms.
The images of roads being washed away and landslides blocking highways and bulldozers in action were pretty common in the region and experienced travellers knew when to avoid this area. But the extent this time has been of epic proportions. As the fast flowing rivers gathered volume and girth, they became unstoppable and washed away everything in their way with the force that makes anything man-made look puny in comparison.
However, even as nature unleashes its fury, the political reactions are along expected lines. No-holds-barred attacks on each other and attempt to score brownie points even as the common man is caught in misery, without water, power, food, blankets, indeed without a roof over his head. Dear politicians of all hues and shapes, these hapless people who vote for you and give you the power, need help right now. They can do with your mock indignation once their basics have been attended to, with the sensitivity that one should get when their lives are in a turmoil. Of course, even among politicians there are some who do genuinely good work, and they, along with whatever resources they can mobilise, have been doing their bit in a fairly selfless manner. But they would scarcely be seen or heard, perhaps by design, for their main focus is reducing the misery of the suffering people and not getting publicity.
And this brings me to the practice of aerial surveys of affected regions by the nation’s top leaders. I can never understand what can be achieved by such surveys. How can a Sonia Gandhi or a Manmohan Singh, flying thousands of feet above the affected area, in poor visibility, figure out what is happening? They could, perhaps, gauge anything if they had something to compare it with, but how on earth would they know how people are caught or whether rescue teams can reach a spot etc or not from their lofty perches?
These things are best assessed by surveys on the ground, for which you need people with proper equipment and understanding of the area, so that they can direct rescue teams to the right place, quickly.
As for the choppers, does it ever cross the minds of our rulers that they are best utilised in rescue operations themselves? We all know we can never have enough of choppers in such circumstances, where thousands are stuck in unreachable places with the only mode of reaching them is air. There is need to airlift those stuck and if not that, to air-drop essentials to those stranded in relatively safer places, but without supplies of food, water, blankets and all that is necessary to survive in the harsh environment, exacerbated by the rain. But no, to most of these insensitive rulers, this is one photo opportunity that cannot be allowed to go waste. If they only have to come back and make statements that the ‘disaster is unimaginable’ and that they are making a contribution of X crores from some fund, why couldn’t it be done without making the tamasha of the survey?
What’s worse? The hapless administration, that is often reviled for not doing enough fast enough, is invariably asked to divert its already stretched resources to provide logistics for the VIP visit. This ridiculous practice must stop. This is the same as VIPs visiting hospitals after a terror attack, where, in the name of these VIPs’ security, gates to the hospital are shut and roads are blocked, inconveniencing the common man and patients no end, resulting even in the deaths of some critical patients at times.
I am using the last para of the blog post I wrote in July 2011 – Politicians have to get out of this habit. They may not realise, but with a growing socially aware citizenry, they would be helping their cause a lot more. People now realise the futility of such trips. If a politician thinks he is getting a good photo op that would help him with his constituents elsewhere, he is mistaken. With the active social media, the negative impact of his needless visit is amplified a lot more than it ever did in the past. At times such as these, the politician needs to think thus: to hell with what the people elsewhere think, let me worry about those who are directly affected first.
I think it still holds true, except, I am sure the negative impacts are amplified far more than they were then. But do you expect the insensitive politician to have learnt his lesson?
In the meanwhile, our armed forces and para military jawans work tirelessly, selflessly, not fearing for their lives, to help mitigate the miseries of the commoners. Thank God, for them!