Uttarakhand natural calamity

 Uttarakhand's natural calamity


The recent natural calamity, in the form of cloudburst, in the northern state Uttarakhand witnessed more than 20000 deaths, both from the state natives and the tourists/pilgrims. The pictures displayed on the television sets and newspapers were such that even a stone hearted person would be emotionally moved. The continuous and untiring effort by the Indian army and Indian airforce could make it possible to rescue the unfortunate souls who were stranded in the hills. As a fact, these natural phenomena cannot be avoided and we have to reconcile ourselves with the state of affairs ensuing after such calamities. The support system from the governments, the people in power and the common citizen has to be active and considerate in rehabilitating the victims of such calamities. This is the ideal situation which should prevail in any just society with strong base of humanity. The rescue work was mostly completed by the army and the local people. There were families who supported the sufferers with their own stocks of food and went with them together.

In contrast, what happened post devastation is a matter of concern for the Indian citizen. It seemed that all those who were supposed to act promptly, i.e. government machinery and the disaster management team of the state, did not do their duty in a proper manner that delayed the rescue operation and led to loss of many more lives which could have been saved.One can look at the events and the causes thereof, one by one. We should not be content that such a calamity would not hit us in our lifetime. Everything is possible and we may be the next victim of the phenomenon.

1.  The news came that the prices of eatables and drinking water skyrocketed as soon as the demand increased. The local shopkeepers started making money from the easy situation at hand. Localites resorted to looting the helpless victims of the calamity. I saw in the television that the police and army were frisking the 'so called saints in saffron' of the items of loot indicating that that the saffronites are also seen as one of the looters when the situation is ripe for them.

The question arises: How in the land, known for its philosophy of sacrifices, such a greedy behaviour crept in? So far as business is concerned profit making is always governed by the demand and supply. And this is what is happening in the society these days. Man made demand is created by the big businesses and thereafter profit is made. That means this business acumen is highly appreciated  and accepted in the society in the name of development. We have always kept such big business houses in high esteem. Although this profit making in some way or other finally affect the poor people of the land whose number has increased with time. If the same philosophy has been applied by the businessmen (so called shopkeepers) why was there so much diagreement with this behaviour? This indicates that somewhere we ourselves have made the society to show this behaviour. We reap what we sow..........

2. It has been an obvious feature in this disaster that the politicians wanted to take advantage of the situation and made statements that is not warranted from these people. In one of the cases, two MPs from Andhra Pradesh went to Uttarakhand to fetch the victims from their state. They made the mockery of the disaster when they started quarreling to take people from their constituency in the aircrafts brought by them. This was not surely their love for the people but their own love of the vote bank they wanted to ensure. One of the other politicians, who always quips venom, made no delay in undermining the quick rescue offered by some other politician. If I look at these behaviour  in terms of the future of the country I am extremely disappointed. How can we really get rid of these sycophants, opportunists, criminals and good for nothing 'so-called-indian-leaders'.

3. The disaster has made large population of Uttarakhand homeless, the infrastructure has been destroyed and above all the scar of the calamity is going to be felt in Uttarakahnd for at least 15 years to come. A large number of government organisation, business house, individual achievers and other organisations are offering finanicial support for the rehabilitation of the state by contributing to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. Our organisation has also decided to support the cause by contributing one day salary from the employees. I do strongly feel for the support and agree with such an effort.

However, the question comes: All along the government functioning, the public funds are very poorly managed and it is a well known fact that only a fraction of the money sanctioned for a given work in the government department is utilised for the work. The rest is going to the pockets of the government machinery and/or the contractors and the business houses. The way we make all the effort to support the victims of the calamity, should we not make a resolution to make the government machinery accountable for normal functioning of the system and ensure that all the public money is utilised for the cause it is meant for? I do support the casue but sometimes it pains that the taxes paid by us could have been enough to avoid the disaster or lessen it effect. But as the money has gone into personal pockets the common citizen are not getting the benefit of good infrastructure, the benefit of being a human and the benefit of share in the growth of the nation.

There are several such questions coming to the mind of most of the common people of the country. But they are helpless, they have left everything to the fate and this apartheid has made the wrong doers bolder and bolder in their heinous act of mascarading the national assets and the national dream of becoming a developed country.