09 August 2018, Palakkad.
Scene: a residential compound near a stream where three siblings had
constructed their independent houses and were living with the best of both
worlds, the support system of undivided Hindu family and the freedom of a nuclear
family. Two of the houses, of which one was unoccupied temporarily, had only
ground floor, and the third was double storied. Early in the morning, the
couple living in the single storied house heard animated chatting from the
other house and came out to see what was happening. And they found water in
their porch. And even as they were looking at it the level was rising! They
realized the danger and moved. The other family chose to move to their first
floor and wait. But soon the first floor was completely under water and the
inhabitants, senior citizens, could be rescued using canoes only by evening.
500 meters away, in
another old house a 90 year old retired professor was bedridden. His wife
noticed water on the floor and its level was rising too. And before she could
understand what was happening she was waist deep in water. By the time rescue
workers, all local youth, reached them
water had reached their necks and the volunteers had to line up, wrap the
patient in a blanket and carry him over their heads!
Soon a relief camp was opened
in the UP School in the locality. And that was the first sign of the government
waking up. Volunteers were mobilizing everywhere and moving the flood affected
to safer areas and relief camps. While those in the fore front of rescue
operations were all youngsters, elders chipped in by providing food, water and
clothes. Unfortunately most of the clothes were used ones and there were
practically no takers for them. The common refrain amoung the victims was that
there had been no warning. To make
matters worse the water level in the dam here had reached its maximum level and
had to be released. Power also failed. But within 24 hours the water had
drained off leaving the affected houses in a mess. Mess is a soft term for a
house having a three inch layer of slippery slush, all furniture, beds, linen, cushions and clothes soggy, refrigerators and
washing machines toppled and dislocated. Nobody could move back in any short
time. Hours turned into days. Those who
had left their homes started the cleaning process, some after actually moving
back in and the others commuting from their safe havens. They were almost done
when there was another alert. Though water levels rose and entered some of the
houses again it was just sufficient to undo their effort of the earlier days!
But as it turned out what
had happened in Palakkad was only comparable to the trailer of a horror movie.
The real show opened in the hill districts and down south. Kochi, the
commercial capital of Kerala, Kuttanad, the rice bowl of Kerala, Chengannur,
Patthanamthitta and a few more places bore the brunt of nature’s fury in the
form of unprecedented floods. While rains, which had been continuing from early
May and gaining intensity by the day, added the final blow the calamity as such
was man made, or more precisely government made. The reasons can be broadly
classified into two heads- mismanagement of natural resources and failure to
take preventive action. Worse, what seemed to dominate the media, apart from
the heart wrenching scenes of the flood affected trying to escape in hordes,
wading through neck deep water, some carrying the elderly on their shoulders,
were the blame game and false propaganda by responsible public servants.
The mismanagement of
natural resources has a long history. Starting from encroachment of the western
ghats to quarrying and destruction of mountains and forests, sand mining,
encroaching the flood plains and river banks everything that has been happening
in God’s own country, with obvious connivance of those in government, had been
anti-nature. Encroachments were periodically legalized with the government
transferring the ownership of land to the encroachers in much publicized
pattaya melas. (Pattayam is the legal document of ownership of land.) After
getting ownership of the encroached land the same people would move to new
pastures which would be legalized later! In fact these people carry so much
clout with the authorities that some of them actually specialize is buying
disputed lands at throw away prices and get the disputes settled in their
favour! The discussion of the extent of this mismanage ment of land cannot be
completed without referring to the report submitted by the Western Ghats
Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by Dr Madhav Gadgil. In fact this report
can also be the last argument on the subject. The mandate of WGEEP was to
demarcate ecologically sensitive zones and suggest measures to conserve,
protect and rejuvenate the ecology of Western Ghats region. Dr Gadgil submitted
his report in 2011. However, it was literally thrown into the dustbin by self
serving politicians of that time crying (falsely of course) that it was anti
farmer and anti development. Even the church leaders had joined this chorus
against impleme ntation of Gadgil’s recommendations. Taking into account the
comments and suggestions made by different stakeholders including State
Governments and Central Ministries on WGEEP Report, the Ministry of Environment
and Forests constituted a High Level Working Group (HLWG) to suggest an all-round
and holistic approach for sustainable and equitable development while keeping
in focus the preservation and conservation of ecological systems in Western
Ghats. This Group was headed by Dr Kasturirangan, a space scientist! He had
watered down the WGEEP report by keeping vast stretches of Western Ghats in the
category cultural landscapes, which included human settlements and the sacred
groves of Kerala, which are rich in biodiversity, out of the purview of
ecologically sensitive areas. It was natural that Gadgil slammed this report
saying that it had replaced the pro-people and pro-nature report of the WGEEP
with autocratic approach in terms of development and ecological conservation.
However, the Kasturirangan report continues to provide the official yardstick
for ecological activities since 2013.
The best thing that
happened during the floods was the mass mobilization of the ordinary folks from
all walks of life in the rescue and relief operations. While the police and
fire and rescue services personnel were the face of government in the rescue
operations, the health services and the employees of the State Electricity
Board also can be given credit for doing a good job during the challenging
times.. District Collectors Raja Manickam, T V Anupama and Vasuki also became
heroes overnight due to their personal involvement in the relief operations. Of
these T V Anupama, District Collector, Thrissur even had to take a tough call
to break the lock of the Bar Association’s hall to set up the relief material collection
centre. Dr Bala Murali, District Collector, Palakkad could mobilize , using
social media, enough and more youth to
work in the relief material collection and distribution point set up in an
indoor stadium. Apart from these the involvement of the Government,
particularly at the higher echelons, was totally missing. It was the timely
involvement of the techies and the applications they had promptly developed for
locating stranded victims and coordinating rescue operations that mitigated to
a large extent the failure of the Government to requisition army aid. Even the
fishermen folk moved to the flooded areas along with their boats, forgetting
their own poverty and hardships, and did a commendable job in rescuing stranded
people.
It may be pertinent to
note here that not only had the Government of Kerala failed completely to
comply with the expert panel’s recommendations but also had been fudging funds
as evident in the transfer of Rs 20.29 Crores from the River Management Funds
of nine districts to the Calamity Relief Funds of 5 other districts in 2006. An
environmental activist, Dr P S Panikkar, had pursued this information and
sought the details of expenditure from the Calamity Relief Funds of Kottayam
and Kasargode districts. Having failed to get satisfactory replies he had filed
2nd appeals with the Kerala State Information Commission and had not
received any decision till he passed away suddenly in 2017. An application for
getting copies of the file notings leading to the transfer of funds also got
stonewalled with a reply that it had been destroyed by burning.
As much worrying as the
distress caused to the common folks by the floods have been the political blame
game indulged, particularly by the party leading the current government in the State.
One of the allegations
made by the opposition is that there was criminal negligence on the part of the
decision makers in releasing waters from dams and failing to inform the public.
This is an open secret amoung the public. In this context the effort made by
the Government of Kerala to blame Tamil Nadu for releasing waters from the
controversial Mullapperiyar Dam and aggravating, if not causing, the flood
situation can be considered to be hilarious but for the gravity of the
situation. It has been well reported in the media of how the decision makers in
Kerala waited for all the dams to reach the maximum water level and released
waters from 25 of them almost simultaneously. Media had also carried reports,
way back in July, that the abundant rains had helped the State Electricity
Board to produce more electricity from its hydel projects and make some profit
by selling it to other states. (However it had not stopped the Board from
hiking the price for its domestic consumers recently.)
The most serious of (false)
allegations is a post by the CMO on twitter that UAE had promised to contribute
Rs 700 crores to the flood relief effort. This was denied by the Union
Government. Bu it did not prevent the media, both social and mainstream, from
going berserk with allegations that the Union Government had refused to accept
the offer and even abusing the Prime Minister by name! Hoardings appeared in
Malappuram thanking UAE for the generous offer. Even after the Ambassador of
UAE clarified that no such amount had been offered they harped on the
allegation adding that the Ambassador had been pressurized by the Central
Government! Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, whose office had initially made
the false claim changed tacks and claimed that he had been so informed by the
business tycoon Yusuf Ali in a private conversation. The social media went wild
with a distorted version that if the Government of India refused to accept the
official aid, Yusuf Ali’s Lulu Group would make the complete payment. The last
thing heard on this was that Yusuf Ali has threatened to sue those who had
spread this false information.
Another canard that gained
ground was regarding deploying army in rescue operations. While there is still
doubt whether and when the Government of Kerala had actually requested for army
help, the media was abuzz speculating whether handing over relief operations to
army would amount to handing over the governance of the State itself to the
army. The statements of both the CM and his party secretary seem to suggest
that they at least believed so. A youngster in camouflage fatigues could be
seen actually telling the CM, through a video that had gone viral on social
media, that was shocked to realize what a dimwit the CM was. It has been
reported that he has been identified and a case charged against him.
Even the armed forces,
doing yeoman work in the rescue and relief operations were not spared. It was
the state secretary of CPM and former Home Minister, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who
made a false allegation that the army failed to respond promptly even after the
government request. Another minister, Kadakampally Surendran, went on to
comment that the army could only stand by with rifles while the whole people
were involved in relief operations. As things turned out he was treated like an
unwelcome guest when the State Government finally gave a modest send off to the
soldiers at the Headquarters of Southern Air Command at Thiruvananthapuram.
There have also been
enough reports of mismanagement and pilfering of aid material from relief camps.
But public servants indulging in such acts had to be dealt with severely. Social
media also shared photos of CPM cadres distributing aid material in bags marked
with party emblem and name. There was even a case of CPM and CPI cadres
fighting it out alleging that one had collected stores meant for the other. But
the most unpardonable is the case of leaving tones of aid that has reached
Thiruvananthapuram airport and various railway stations (addressed to the
District Collector/ District Magistrate) uncollected. This visible ineptitude
notwithstanding, there is propaganda that more food grains are required and the
Centre should provide them. Talking of food grains, the ruling party’s dirty
tricks department has been spreading the lie that the Union Government was
charging for the food grains provided as relief material. This, even after the
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had amply clarified that it had been provided
free.
At the end of the day, an
independent observer of the events that have been unfolding, cannot miss the
point that the decision makers in Kerala Government and their party followers have
been more interested in getting political mileage out of human misery than in
doing their job sincerely and honestly. The minister for coordinating relief
operations in Kottayam district going to Germany on 16th August (at
the peak of the disaster) for participating in the Onam celebrations of the
malayalees there only exposed the attitude of the state leadership towards the
people who had put them in their current offices and been pampering them like
nobodyelse!
28 Aug 2018
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