Social Implications Of
Tsunami Relief: ReflectionsBy Medha Patkar
14 January, 2005
Countercurrents.orgMore than the earthquake, it’s the disastrous impact of tsunamis that has shaken our country and the world. The death toll and the unprecedented destruction in the coastal region have posed a challenge before the human civilisation, which is both short term and long term. The vague analysis and opaque reasoning of the disaster is much more confusing than ever before, including that of the Orissa cyclone. The debates can wait, but the immediate task of supporting the affected through relief first and rehabilitation to follow, is an unavoidable endeavour and that is already under way. “The dear and indispensable, who died are no more but we, the living who are left behind have to face destitution which is deadly,” said Mariamma in a camp at Nagaipattinam.
It was obvious that common people as well as people’s organisations including small civil society groups to large labour unions would respond to the historic call of the calamity, but the state too had to stand up to the occasion and show its capacity and commitment. The blow was such that no one would like to question anybody on either the honesty or ability but rather join that large band of humans in the run for survival. This indeed happened. People, not just in the office but on the streets; not only in the churches, mosques or temples but also in the struggles for just wages and employment, and children in the schools threw in money, clothes, bed-sheets, even food. That was the test nothing less than of humanity.
As in the case of every disaster in the past, within a few days since the flow of material to the coast had begun, since the collection by the newspapers to theatre-owners grew into crores, a shrill voice and few doubts emerged about whether the poured money and material, not just love and solidarity, had reached the needy. It was like each one, a witness to the ‘wave’ of charity, searching for the signs of its impact, as people looked out for the one on the land and the sea, once the tsunami waves receded.
When our team reached the Cuddalare district in the coastal village, Killai, we didn’t have any intention to investigate or monitor anything. With a small fund of about one lakh rupees, we were more keen to offer our services as a faithful band of volunteers, ready to do anything as social activists, doctors, counsellors or community organisers. Having worked in rescue to relief during the past disasters - Andhra Pradesh cyclone, Marvi dam tragedy or Kutch earthquake in Gujarat, some of us had an urge to use our experience in the post-disaster tasks whether of distribution of material or motivating the people to start their normal life. One more, though. Having struggled to seek the right to just a fair rehabilitation of the displaced due to dams, mines, highways, mega cities or urban beautification and tourism, we knew the ins and outs of the packages and policies, the various option that did work or did not, and the reasons behind it. Our experience in motivating, even sensitising the bureaucracy and demanding a political will and attention was suggestive of the enormous effort that would be needed to work with the official machinery, but not without the affected people themselves. The messages of what provisions were in plenty and hence not required any more and what was still in the dearth, had reached Mumbai before we started, more than a week after the disaster. We, therefore, took with us, some bags and sacks full of bed-sheets no doubt, but much more, our openness to fit into the situation, readiness to rough out and work, work and work hard with whatever skills and all commitment.
Working with the people from the village that were no more, Chinnavaikal, Pillamedu, Kannaninagar, and the other partially affected, MGR Nagar and Killai in the Killai Panchayat we witnessed, on one hand, the pain and agony that survived the first shock and shattering. The suffocation felt by each one of the affected could simply burst into long narration of story. Ammakanni an old Irula adivasi woman had lost Pandian, her husband, with his name still in the ‘missing’ list with little hope to be found. Holding on a branch of a tree she could not even see Pandian lost in the wave but could save a child flown away from his parents. All scratches on her body as on many others, she as did everyone around there at mid night still like to ‘prove’ to us vividly describing the event, that they went through it, unbelievable even to themselves and go on miming and weeping till they were convinced we could understand and empathise.
With no Tamil at our disposal, we used all our senses to console and convince; touches, pats, holding their hands, to hugs. I had to keep Vinesh, our Tamil speaking colleague, trained social worker, clinging on to my back, to get every sentence, if not word, every point translated. It was like slow prompting in a low voice with a care not to disturb the flow of conversation. A mother having lost three children to the dragon sea in front of her eyes; a child Sneha, left without her two brothers and mother; or Kalidas clinging to his only brother orphaned by losing both the parents were just a few of those we saw and heard. But more, we met and felt with our heavy hearts, and humility of humans not helpless but powerless before the nature’s fury. Our analysis of coastal destruction, degradation, the state’s offences and society’s apathy was nowhere in the picture, when we stood at the burial ground with tens of children underneath, and candles burning out.
Living through this, we could see the truck after a tempo or a van coming in and throwing packets or plastic pots, blankets or stoves out. Free distribution of brand new materials in this commercialised world was a deviation no doubt, but also a sign of human purity that still exist. Women in groups would stand pouring on to the streets around the three statues of Gandhi, Kamraj and Rajiv Gandhi made by a local sculptor (trying hand to make it resemble the original faces), and wait till noon and again after lunch, till sunset, collecting the material it distributed in a queue but also catching, if thrown at them.
The distribution and material gain, why even the occupying task of waiting and receiving has its own counselling effect, but only till the grief erupted and the irreparable loss blasted from within. Amidst the hectic activity, mobility of vehicles and an unprecedented number of visitors to the village, the vacuum felt was disturbing. Everything would shiver and everyone shudders when the loud voices of the day would drown into the mass morning in the night, loud yet ruptured and deep, cold yet gripping.
The community of fisher people spent the 16th night after death on the bank of the river or at the seashore, lit the lamps at the dawn and realised that a chapter in the life was closed forever. Not everyone, every child, a widow or an aged was reached out to. Our counsellor, Geetha Balkrishnan from Nirmala Niketan, College of Social Work, reached out to hundreds of women, individuals or in groups, but the need was enormous. Busy in distributing materials, NGOs or medical missionaries too mostly had no one with the required skill to be invested into this task. Children to be involved in activities and play to get them back to life, to ventilate and relate, remains to be done.
While carrying out our role in the community – getting together arious clans and all the villages in the Panchayat and around to interact and reflect on the situation, to check the records of the dead, missing and surviving families, to opine and decide on the next move and the right path, the relief phase and the role of various actors as also their own, we learnt a lot. There is no doubt that large amount of material has reached the nook and corner, hamlets and villages in Tamilnadu. The most and the worst affected fisher people, have received a unique support of the world and are full of gratitude for the same. All creeds, classes and categories of people - corporate sector as well as NGOs, individual philanthropists as well as well-organised political organisations have moved in. But almost all have chosen not to really involve the community or even its leadership – social and political - in planning or even distributing the relief. With an anxiety to see that the things reach the needy beneficiary directly and avoid the intermediaries, they all were dealing with the people, an individuals and families. Most followed the lists of affected families provided by the officials, read out and delivered to whosoever came forward. All and one, would leave the village and go back to either tahsils or district headquarters, to a town nearby, for night halt. Rather since each covered many villages, and had limited manpower, also because most had not till then definitely chosen the geographical area, certain of the affected village communities or urban localities to work with, and their lack of experience in community level processes, that they spent little time in each village, mostly what was required for distribution and related tasks. Some did invest time and energy in systematising the work, through surveys, which too were carried out by the activists and volunteers mostly without the locals.
Couldn’t each of these tasks, even in the relief phase, be carried out involving and in the process, building or strengthening the local leadership? Would the spree of activity - of recording, distributing, assessing the impact and need, linking with the government agency and co-ordinating the non-governmental groups, serve to provide the locals - youth, women, elders, also the children, an opportunity to regain confidence through meaningful contribution to life? A vast potential, we felt, was lost by the good Samaritan's approach even when, the families and communities appeared ready and capable, but feeling obliged and awkward to come forward, but for receiving.
The result was, overlapping and duplication as always. One family would get third store and with no more pieces in the tempo, the truck with volunteers coming from Karnataka or Uttar Pradesh would turn back leaving out a group having received no store. But more, underwears, tooth powder, and such material, we were told, wasrarely thought of. No one felt confident to suggest this. One must admit, however, that lot many needs were fulfilled. Those in the relief camps put up in large temples or wedding halls had no place to pile up things. The camps, mostly managed by the Tamilnadu Government, had the material supply from non-governmental donors. An integrated approach was in a way commendable and there was no complaint on the services therein although the situation in Nagapattanam again left much to be desired. Hundreds of women, sitting idle, remembering the demised brethren, felt helpless that their services were never sought in cooking and they had to eat and feed the children with tasteless food.
Since we didn't have things to distribute, we could enquire and investigate. No one asked for more relief. Everyone wanted a house - even if temporary, a boat and net, the only livelihood for thousands of the affected… Why not, if people did not want to just beg or mourn. The tenacity was appreciable. But the lag and lapses were obvious. Government official teams with a young cadre of IAS officials coming from Rajasthan, U.P…many northern states were no doubt contemplating and trying to allocate. They were mostly dependent on NGOs - giant and big mainly. Welcoming everyone, the policy was to motivate and make NGOs pick up the share. A large meeting at the collectorate had a packed agenda. Each giving village names and numbers. How many houses would each build? One could see that the lists prepared were somewhat open and changing. The agency representative may get more funds from a new source and number would grow or vice versa. What surprised us was that, there was not much discussion on why did a NGO select a particular village. Not donating anyone, it was difficult to ignore the hush-hush voice about who, with what socio-cultural religious background was serving whom. Moreover, there wasn't till then any discussion on the housing design or the capacity of the organisations to build within what time, with what approach - participatory or otherwise. Our architect, Sudhir from Chennai was disturbed. With years of experience in post-disaster and other rural housing schemes, he and his colleagues knew the great potential of local material and housing with local skills, local labour, local criteria and suitable, acceptable design, as not just employment generating but a satisfying endeavour, especially when both shelter and the shattered human was to be rebuild and reconstructed. Some designs were prepared and well-written notes brought over by NGOs were shown and seen but there was only a general consensus about houses to be fireproof. Why not waterproof and not earthquake proof? No house in the megalopolis may stand all the tests, we felt. Why such unrealistic criteria when the rural India lives in thatched roof houses, which was the choice for temporary shelter, of Killai villagers too. So why not listen to Gunasekhara, the leader of Chinnavaikal, "Let them give me 5000 and I will build my own house within 2 days." But the Tamilnadu Government has passed a GR, promptly offering Rs. 5000. Toilet could be included, we felt, but only after seeking community's acceptance since they were used to only the open shores. Who would carry out the process? The meeting, a frequent exercise, between NGOs and officials, had became a decision-making forum but with no community leaders or representatives. They came in when activists - seniors, juniors, with experience, expertise and commitment all in service of the communities, had left the meeting hall. Why this division - we failed to understand. Even questioned. One thing was clear. Most of the villages didn't know who had ‘adopted’ or ‘sponsored’ them, their shelter, their rehabilitation. This saddened us the most.
With all genuinity and respect, concern and commitment, we could see some NGOs working day in and day out. There was a unity but not in their approach, skills and methods. Obviously. There was no possibility of government testing the NGOs - intervening or issuing a format to be filled in but a dialogue, checks and balances no doubt was needed. While the bureaucracy itself was trying to act differently, we could see both - a DFO all ready to sit among people, try and discuss all issues, non-forest, non-official ones and act with flexibility unlike of any forest official as also a BDO and his team, holding a meeting to check the lists of affected families, calling each clans leaders (this task couldn't be done without them) but in a jeep with door closed, for hours. we also found a doctors team, cut-out __ for a different, specialised work obviously, trying to grapple with a community meeting that they were compelled to hold. They wanted to build houses for the Irulas but only 40. That was their number. Now, the particular community has 173 houses, all Kachcha, needing repair or reconstruction even of the same type. Thirty -three families had lost to the Tsunami, not houses but boats and nets. The doctors had decided and conveyed to the government, they would only build pakka houses within whatever, the shortest, time. The meeting to convey this and make the community select and give them a list of 40 was held. Sitting on the chairs, they were discussing with people, standing in front of them for at least half-an-hour. We could see the great difficulty with which the leaders were trying to find a random, objective criterion to select the forty favoured. One in every ten houses in a row or something like that. It was no one's fault, may be. But after having those adivasis- Irulas - included on to the record, conflict of exclusion started by even the fish workers with a long rooted social conflict through their own organisation and leadership of the Surpam Drula Toziyali Sangh (Snake Catcher Irula's Organisation). We felt, this was an unfortunate and avoidable follow up. It indicated great problems in rehabilitation that had begun. 0
The pace and promptness sensed at the collectorate with a pro- people team of officials, was not seen reflected at the grand level. Land was the main factor. Land for housing selected by the Government , almost finalised, was rejected by fisher people even in a village, considered to be favoured by the officials. We were surprised to hear Meenwar (Fish workers) Panchayat leader, Swamy ventilating his anger and then giving us a written protest letter addressed to the Collector. People were not ready to go away from the sea, their mother feeder, come tsunami or whatever may. They didn't want the same land of the dead and destroyed but another one, nearby. The Collector had sensed and responded but the problem emerged in one community after another because the process of identification and selection, also finalisation and purchase was parallely progressing through the community who were sitting, discussing, anticipating on their own as well as the government and NGOs. Private land, where government land was not either available, acceptable, identified by people, had to be accepted after a few days of wasteful exercise by the government to push the Porambuke - Government waste land as the only option. Who would purchase it? The answer from an official shocked the people of Killai: NGOs or the affected people. If the affected families could purchase land, why not rice, clothes and stores? Why give relief? The officials accepted but left it to NGOs finally. The Government was committing to 50% of temporary houses but nothing else. Why not? Where are hundreds if not thousands of crores and dollars to spent? NGOs not only movements have to keep pushing to get involved in statutory process. Here they were the first to be offer a chance. Perhaps, they were the only one to depend on.
We were surprised to find NGOs came forward - one after another mobilising more funds from wherever. State within the State? The displaced people from the Narmada Valley too may have to leave the callous government and approach _some big NGO: should they, we thought! The question remained, if land is purchased not by the government, who would own when resettlement site is established - 'the resettled families or the NGOs?'
In the Nagapattanam district collectorate, a band of highly committed and concerned officials led by an alert and active lady official, Shantasheela Nair, was discussing this issue after hearing us at 10.30 in the night. Wide-awake and engrossed in planning for the next day and more, one of them quipped: "We can't leave any possibility of some NGO, even if are among hundreds, to sell out a part of the land to some other company or project". The land, we asserted, must be handed over with due legal rights, to the affected families and that too, through government. After all State can be held accountable and must be responsible. But in Nagapattinam the officials were unaware, till we told them of the possible purchased private lands in the _adjacent __ district. Not necessarily due to lack of co-ordination but a sign of decentralised and flexible approach in planning in Tamilnadu has been one of the major reasons for its prompt service and unexpected reach. We had all appreciation. One of our young team members had this to say: "We wish Narmada was flowing through Tamilnadu and we could get such active and sensitive officials to rehabilitate them. After all, thousands and thousands of families were reached out to within days, the civil society at large too rushed out to the hamlets and shares, the Centre reaching the periphery and the peripheralised, we thought. The millions, displaced in a planned manner, with a justified cause 'development' and not 'disaster', who are not rehabilitated with a shelter and livelihoods, even after years and when the project is completed and the builders, planner, executors are gone, have much to be envied!
But all was not well - not for all. There was a huge difference between the fish workers, even if belonging to backward castes and classes mostly and the dalits or Irullas, the destitute and dejected over generations, even if living on fishing and nothing else. The Irullas, DFO agreed were not just the fisher people, they were the real workers on the boats or in the mangroves. The mangrove protectors were left out of the list and brought in later. But the dalits had to fight, here too. The forum of Dalit organisations, thanks to the young active cadre with them, had to establish not merely through the press and publicity but a systematic survey that many dalit bastis were simply not in the list. Again, the response of the media was fine but also of the official team, which was working to fill in all gaps, was found to be immediately accepting and revising the list. There came the lists of other categories of labourers too, with no owned property (but for their own toil and skill), unorganised yet the most contributive.. Who all? They were the labour force on the boats but also the dalit women wearing beautiful bamboo baskets for carrying fish.
Krishnamma of Gram Swarajya Movement, rooted into the area had identified them and listed with Geetha-akka, senior activist committed to the justice to the unorganised, we came across the construction workers domestic workers, agricultural labourers who too had no earning since Tsunami. Mr. Radhakrishnan, Kumbakonam (a school burnt to ashes) fame collector, now in Nagai District, was prompt to admit, "We realise," he said, "that those who have lost their sources of livelihood and their employment affected, need to be included and we expect our list to go up from 66000 families to 1.5 lakh families. Give us the list and we will consider these villages. I will send my men and you can assist." What a difference, we felt. Our experience in Narmada was of an inch-by-inch fight to get a few thousand families included over 20 years and continues even today.
Not everything was perfect, performing and paying in that state either. There are equally troubling spots in the history of the developmental struggles by the dalits and marginal farmers of Tamilnadu too. We remembered the incidence during Desh Bachao - Desh Banao campaign - tour of ours. In Tillaivizhagam village of Tiruvarur District, we faced along with hundreds of women and men organised by Krishnamma - Jagannathanji, the Sarvodayi strugglers, for opposing the modern aquaculture farms, Those owned by rich investors, politicians to the corporates. Those had a life of 7 to 10 years but had polluted life-long and generations old aquifers as also land by salinising due to the sea-water taken in. Tsunami too was sea-ingress. Did it benefit these farms? It didn't. The land under prawn farms too was destroyed due to extra-salination with the wave partly breaching the embankments around a farm. But the same bunds had caused water locking and water logging even after the wave receded. We were shocked to see flooding with North East monsoon waters in October that couldn't end due to the same, farm bunds. Paddy farmers lie destitute with no relief and no rehabilitation. I couldn't but remember Biharis, the poorest, with 5 lakh houses and 23 lakh hectors of land destroyed with floods. We met hundreds and hundreds of farmers who had lost their land and the landless, their wage employment, to the farms, inhuman, illegal but licensed. Again to our surprise, the Tamilnadu officials even amidst Tsunami, discussed this issue with us and unhesitatingly admitted that the impacts were severe and that they would withdraw the cases filed against the agitators.
With all this, the feeling that if there is a political will and social awakening which no doubt, comes more with a shock and a shake death and sudden devastation than with destitution with displacement, disasters too are taken care of. The latter being slow poisoning to kill the communities and dismantle cultures, it doesn't give a blow. Not only large NGOs with funds but activists with a socio-political understanding of communities and able to link the State with people, their priorities and popular processes, mobilising civil society support, too can play a role. The failure of the State in managing the Coastal Regulation Zone, involving the fish-workers in protecting the coastal land, fish as well as mangrove, casuarinas, the green cover, restricting the tourism, sand-mining, or prawn farming (expect one based on traditional technology) from degrading the coastal resources and depriving the fishing communities, protecting the unorganised labourers in fishing, forestry and all the sectors with proper recording, recognising, with labour laws and benefits is obvious. Yet if the crisis is an opportunity, as the Chinese proverb goes, it can be compensated, even if partly. Let the dalit landless labourers be rehabilitated with at least one hectare of land. Let not the non- violent or violent struggles on the temple land issues be branded as a conspiracy of a handful of antagonists but the land be taken over, here and now. Discussing this, there was a response from the dalit rights activists but also a district Panchayat leader, known to have been fighting as a trustee of Kanchipuram Mutt. The kattanayakas, members of a primitive tribe, deprived of relief, and rehabilitation, till then, working as landless labourers, on boats or streets, were working to demand land and the non-dalit Panchayat leader expressed willingness to support the same. We couldn't be naïve to believe everything would be smooth. Yet new alliance may emerge… will those be taken ahead skilfully into the rehabilitation phase and the end results sought? Much depends on the people's organisations which will have to bring in new perspective, carry out and demonstrate community based processes and strategies; take firm position and work with dalits and adivasis, mobilise women to identify the needs, not the market opportunities but livelihoods; offer alliance with government and also non government agencies ready to invest in material and human resources both, but also not be afraid to question the wrong policies, callous execution or lack of participation and coordination. This is what is in demand from Tsunami affected, not clothes and blankets, not food and stores, houses and economic opportunities with sources will follow. The task is to carry out process-social, environmental, economic planning. It's political but above all, human.
II
Although after Tamilnadu, I had to reach Kerala. The fish-workers of Kerala Matsya Tozhiyali Sangham, the National; Federation of Fishworkers, Thomas Kocherry, Peter and many women activists with others belonging to the left tradition of struggle and various fronts including of youths, workers have been raising battles which we have had supported, reaching out to the coastal communities. Not just to express solidarity, I wanted to know about the situation there. With much less a death toll and smaller scale of impact, compared to Tamilnadu, we expected more progress. I have always felt fascinated with the youth activism in Kerala, ideologically clear, socially conscience, aware about environmental or human rights issues, could link and weave these into a vision. The politics, tension to rifts among the political fronts and other people's organisations was not absent but where is it? So did we anticipated a faster and clearer policy to plans, democratic process and secular perspective applied even by the Congress Government in power with its counterpart at the helm of the affairs in Delhi to support. Frankly, we thought and we even had heard that relief in Kerala is much more organised and coordinated.
The burial grounds in the Allappad panchayat of Kollam District had 150 lives cremated. The first ever condolence meeting couldn't bring out the tragedy in toto. The children had died not roasted in the school as in Kumbhakanam but disappeared leaving their teacher in a vacuum and his grief without words.. One could feel the vibrations not just huts but the pakka houses with life's wealth - furniture, TV, basic to luxuries, the silvery scales on the fish and fisheries, collected by the toiling and trailing fish-workers were lost. Only the coconut and the peepal stood as if in the witness boxes in a silent, vacant court, no pleadings, questioning, not even a judgement. I remembered all my poems on the sea as also the struggles to save the coast and the coastal people, all in vein. No one was in a mood to talk to the media as in other situations.
We were moved. The surroundings were not ignorable though. Mata Amritanadamai’s Mutt, call it a place, was the only most modern and postmodern structure that stood just behind, a few furlongs away. It was saved but not the houses they had built specially for the fishing community. As we moved on the 17 km long single road, we saw the houses collapsed like a bungalow of playing cards. Almost all were pink – Mataji’s colour. But those now are seen to have a colour of politics, of corruption, of neglect, even cheating. A bad construction was a result, now exposed. No one questions her on this, I was told and hence her 100 crores rupees worth offer for relief and rehabilitation of the tsunami affected is under serious consideration. There is some discussion and issues raised in the press but no political body has. Mataji and RSS workers are now working together, with a much advantageous position than of the student volunteers, cultural troupe members, worker's union leaders and small groups of environmental activists who too have worked to rescue the dead bodies, to collect and distribute some material and are engaged in removing the debris, dredging with their won hands. AIYF volunteers with Modan Das and Vinodan took me to the camps.
Allapad was a village but a Keralite village with pakka houses, all amenities, roads, schools and hospitals. Affected people were put in a school - with no problem of water or food. Clean they looked, as I know Keralites bathe, once, even twice. How so ever poor and deprived, they are clean and tidy. So was Saji, a strong fisherman, left with nothing. He used to ride the sea but this time, sea didn't just ride but took away his house, his earnings. What have you got now? Clothes, mats, pots… I could recollect the list of relief material in Tamilnadu. He had got almost nothing. One mat, one bed sheet, a package with a few small children's clothes, one mug, one toothbrush and one . For a family of five, and we checked and checked again. Person after person, only one woman could speak Hindi since she had worked in Mumbai just as we met Ambagam in Tamilnadu who was a Reliance worker, proud and knowledgeable of the world. Through her, we could talk to many people. The answer was the same. The camp was managed and controlled by the Government. Aren't there NGOs here? Haven't the Jains, Christians, Hindus - the missionaries brining in truck-loads of material to the camps? No government vans delivering things at the hands of the officials and their guests? My question was answered only after a long enquiry… queries posed to the people in one camp after another, their possessions checked and confirmed. Mr. Nissar, the camp-in-charge contacted on phone, reached the place probably hearing my tone and sensing the mood. Finally, the Collector was asked to explain during a long convention - partly inquisitive, partly confronting. No one was convinced of the difference in Tamilnadu and Kerala situation that I was trying to describe. My shock and indignation. My frustration with the Congress Government. My repentance for not coming to Kerala before.
Saji had only one shirt, on his body and in his belongings. Malayamma had one old cloth to wear while bathing and one saree to manage otherwise. She had a wardrobe full of clothes before, had one mat not enough for children to sleep and one bedsheet, to cover them but not her. Nissar was a bit apologetic and shared his store room locked with a few mats and a few vessels inside, with some grains and potatoes - onions spread on the floor. Room was almost empty. I couldn't believe. That's all? I had seen even DYFI office in Tamilnadu stocked with things. Was here any other place? Did the material not reach Kerala or was not allowed to reach? The Collector an Andhraite, wasn't apologetic but a bit irritated with questions and justifying everything. "We will give them whatever we have, when the houses are ready." But what and when? Why not even basic things they had, now?
The government had asked all individuals groups and organisations, the donors, to hand over the material to them and stocked it. "If you don't believe, you can come to our godam in Kollam and take photographs or shoot." I was upset but behaved. I convinced him of the motive - genuine shock felt, described the situation in Tamilnadu. I must have appeared favouring NGOs and facilitating their entry. I was not. I was just shocked to see the difference and the deprivation. "My people are not poor. The affected fisher people here were better off. They had own houses, boats, and every thing. So they need only good, pakka houses." He finally said, he is to open the tenders for temporary houses on the 22nd and building those would take a month. People were convinced that it would take more. But his design, simple and appropriate for temporary shelter, was rejected by his colleagues, the seniors and the better ones. Yet time taking had come up. But the land was yet not finalised. He said, two acres was available, people heard for the first time. Our comrade CRN concluded that if would not be adequate to house 69 families in the camp. The Collector couldn't be contacted again. He sounded relaxed and satisfied with own contribution, paces and progress. He said, “I am roping in a few agencies.” He took the name of Oxfam. We called them to know that, the government is not using them enough. The Collector was to get money for cooking gas from NGOs. Rs 2000 *3000 = 6000000 for all Kerala Tsunami affected. If they don't fund, he would go in for stoves. He has no final answer as yet but that 6 crores too can come easily, provided the government is keen to mobilise and encourage. That is what is lacking. We would expect this with Amma not with Anthony or Oommen Chandy. Congress rules are known for more space - political, social for social organisations and even political fronts including the militants, the opponents. In a crisis so severe and challenging, why was it different?
Is it a result of political ambition or just competition? Or allergy to NGOs in a left-oriented State? Or just a political strategy, in a context of the 'foreign funding' related debate ongoing within the left parties? Why were other political parties, their fronts, even NGOs not questioning? Any one or more of the same reason? Whatever it may be, the questions are wider and our voice has to be louder. Amidst death and deluge, we can’t but ask:
What is the State doing? How much has it received from the common people - their earnings, which is their sweat and blood? How much has it received from another state government and what is done with the same. The collection centres, are still functioning, day and night. The newspapers are still appealing. The NRIs are pouring in - money and big NGOs writing their proposals for more and more and more.
Where is all the money going? What has it been spent on? Who have spent on what and who all on the same items and at what rate? Who has benefited? Who will build the houses and temporary apartments? Will there be a white paper presented before the legislature? What has relief done to the affected? If there is a wave in Tamilnadu, why it is not in Kerala? If it has receded or it is to, soon, what after effects will it leave behind? Will the auditors ask each of their client agencies – Government organisations and NGOs, to produce all receipts and accounts? Will it be transparent and made public? Will relief be contributive or contradictory to the rehabilitation goals of help with dignity and self-reliance? Will the fisher-people have their nets, boats, but also coastal territorial rights and courage back? Will Irula and Dalit fish-workers too have something of theirs when it is proved that nature doesn’t differentiate between titled property and the untitled one? Will all affected people, get justice and rehabilitation with dignity, not just those thrown out or taken in by the wave but all those evicted, unprotected, their 'property 'and 'livelihood' forfeited for development?
