Democratic Disaster

How many of us have ever seen a government system work that suggests it is driven by some principles of management, accountability and responsibility?

After the deluge in Mumbai, government officials are now talking about preparing a disaster management plan forgetting how many times they had undertaken such a futile exercise in the past.

I had to put away at least half a dozen books from my book shelf to make room for two thick thesis like scriptures on Disaster Management published by Maharashtra Government that an official thrust into my hands while I was on a visit to Latur to learn about the earthquake rehabilitation programme there.

The step-by-step plan that the book talked about could have made scientists preparing for a shuttle launch in NASA look like primitives still ignorant of how to make fire.


It was the time when the rehab programme had almost come to an end. Meaning every single paisa of the crores and crores and crores of rupees of fund in the relief account had been spent. It was also the time when a much bigger earthquake had hit Gujarat.
I was there to do a story on what lessons our good neighbors could take from our experience in Latur and government officials assured me there were many.
Just picture me listening to the official as I sat turning pages of the book, barely able to balance its weight.
He sounded almost sad and dejected that the earthquake did not hit Maharashtra depriving him the great opportunity to implement the plan that he had so laboriously prepared with other colleagues.
Well, I guess, among the first of the countless things that were washed away in the deluge in Mumbai were copies of those bulky books.

Even while I held those books, I had little faith in what they had to say.

There is no sense making such a fuss about having or preparing a plan when we have made no assessment of our own accountability and responsibility towards the public.
From all that I saw in Latur, when the earthquake actually hit it, I remember the first of the real work began only after the army arrived.

Of course there were the enthusiastic locals who pulled out the injured and the dead from the debris, but without the army nothing much moves in such a situation. For all the dedication and professionalism of the police, it could not even get the traffic cleared in the first few days there.
But this professionalism and sense of duty never failed the police when they escorted politicians, as if they were entering into an auditorium where the Oscar awards ceremony was on.

Perhaps not surprising that the most emphasized of all suggestions in the govt's disaster management plan had nothing to do with the attitude of govt officials. Instead it pointed an accusing finger at the public -- the victims -- that they had not done much to help themselves. Of course it did not say in so many words. But I could read it every time the term `lack of community participation, ' appeared before my eyes.