More
Horrifying Than Tsunami:
The Ground Beneath The Waves
The HRLN Report
26 December, 2006
Countercurrents.org
NEW DELHI:
It has been two years since the tsunami washed over the Andaman &
Nicobar Islands and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of its residents.
Although the government made a lot of promises, and spent a lot of taxpayer’s
money, very little actual relief and rehabilitation work has been done.
Most islanders are still waiting for compensation. The shabby temporary
housing built in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami has not been
replaced by permanent housing. Instead of ensuring that people are able
to return to farming or fishing or trade, the islands’ economy
is being parcelled out to vested interests from the mainland. The environmental
degradation is reaching crisis proportions. In this on-the-spot and
analytical report, based on prolonged spells of painstaking research,
we present a summary of the relief and rehabilitation situation in the
Andaman & Nicobar (A&N) Islands: the hard realism of truth behind
the rhetoric of illusions and lies.
Two years after the homeless
survivors of the tsunami look for straws of hope in the once pristine,
now devastated islands of Andaman & Nicobar. All they discover is
that they have been brutally betrayed by a corrupt nexus even while
the government plays footsie. As people struggle to survive in hot,
subhuman tin sheds, with no food security, electricity, education, basic
health or livelihood, the terrible question comes back: where have all
the massive aid and big promises disappeared? What sense of importance
did it give the government of India to reject offhand the offer by the
European states to provide grants, materials and equipments for the
victims of tsunami in India, only to thereafter approach the World Bank
for a loan albeit with low interest? What drove the government to provide
relief by sea and air to the tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, when the
victims in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are without housing and clean
drinking water till today? For how long will the central government
hide the suffering of the tsunami survivors in India from the rest of
the world?
There is something fundamentally
wrong with the way we deal with relief to the victims of disasters and
their subsequent rehabilitation. In the aftermath of the Latur earthquake
in Maharashtra, money poured in from all over the world. The state government
forced its employees to make a contribution. Notwithstanding all this,
the situation on the ground remained pathetic. A disquieting feature
of all disasters is the reluctance of the administration to publicly
acknowledge the specific details of the funds coming in, and the identity
of donors. Leading newspapers invariably list their donors when they
raise money for public causes, as after an earthquake. But the government
is loath to do this. The reasons for this are to be found in the greed
entrenched within the system, and the cruel attitude towards the poor.
When the tsunami broke in
the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on December 26, 2004, very few people
from the mainland reached these remote areas. There was total confusion.
Some policemen and government officials abandoned their posts and the
people. Others made heroic efforts. A member of the Human Rights Law
Network managed to land up on Kamota in the Nancowry islands. The people
had been deserted by the administration. Were it not for the air force,
many more lives would have been lost?
The government of India repeatedly
promised the people that they would be given permanent housing, but
as we publish this report, apart from the model houses constructed for
display, not a single house has been built for the 10,000 tsunami survivors!
Instead of allowing the people to construct traditional houses made
of wood, a prefabricated model of tubular steel is being imported from
the mainland, obviously for the benefit of contractors and bureaucrats.
The people have no understanding of how this structure is to be maintained
or repaired. It is frightening to think of what these beautiful islands
will look like ten years from now with 10,000 prefabricated steel structures
rusting and in disrepair.
Then the people asked for boats and nets so that they could resume fishing
and get back to living as normal a life as possible. Their jetties had
to be repaired so that the boats could dock. Cold storages had to be
made so that fishing could become a commercially viable proposition.
Two years after the tsunami, in many of the islands, the boats have
yet to come, nets are yet to be distributed, jetties remain destroyed,
and cold storages do not exist. There is fish in the sea but not for
the tribals of the islands.
The other source of traditional
livelihood are coconut plantations, but these have been destroyed. The
seedlings planted will take seven years to yield fruits. There is no
work or meaningful employment. This is why the administration provides
free rations to the tsunami-affected. When we met with the people we
found that kerosene had been discontinued. The supply of free rations
was irregular in many areas. And then came the announcement that free
rations were to be discontinued. The intervention of the high court
saw better sense prevail. The stand of the administration now is that
free rations will continue for some time. Unless alternative livelihood
options emerge, free rations cannot and should not be discontinued.
For a country, which considers
itself a super power, safe drinking water on the islands is not available
in most places. People are still drinking from stagnant water pools
and streams. They suffer all kinds of diseases as a result. Perhaps
it is the remoteness of the islands that allows for such a colonial
administration to flourish. The newspapers from Port Blair give details
almost on a daily basis of cases of corruption. Nothing happens. Justices
come on a rotation basis from Kolkata to man the high court functioning
at Port Blair. They get to hear the administration’s point of
view, but there are few NGOs or civil society groups who interact with
the judges to give them the other side of the story. As a result, judicial
intervention through PILs is hardly known. The <Lok Adalats> operating
at Port Blair are ineffective principally because they require individuals
to travel long distances at considerable cost and come to Port Blair
-- instead of holding the <Lok Adalat> in inaccessible and far-flung
islands.
In the middle of all this
confusion, it appears that the minister for tourism is pushing for these
pristine islands to be opened up for “high value” tourism.
Deals are being struck with a string of five star hotels. Bureaucrats
support this initiative with talk of the tribals being backward. They,
like our colonial masters, see their role as bringing primitive people
into the “mainstream”. Globalisation has now reached the
southern most tip of India. The result of the above is that a terrible
scenario with awful consequences for tribals of the islands has emerged.
Forty islands that have a fragile ecosystem, particularly after the
tsunami, are to be opened up for tourism. It is craftily packaged as
eco-tourism. But for the vulnerable islands -- this means doom.
Tsunami affected families
face discrimination in the distribution of ex-gratia relief. Such discrimination
is visible in the enumeration process where a large number of families
have been left out of the compensation schemes, and in cases where families
have been provided wholly inadequate amounts of compensation.
In the Nicobars, there is
an apparent discrepancy in the figures of the dead and missing. Compensation
for family members who are missing or dead has not been completed to
date. Instead of solving the problem, the administration takes refuge
in the various guidelines from the Centre, compliance with which causes
innumerable delays.
This Report was prepared
by Human Rights Law Network (HRLN)
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights