Disaste-R-Us

What else can I say? Think of any natural disaster, and we've seen it happen in India. Earthquakes? Yes. Floods? Yes. Fires? Yes. Tsunamis? Yes. Apart from a volcanic eruption, I think we've seen it all, have it all.

Add to that the man-made disasters. Corrupt politicians? Yes. Inept administration? Yes. Illiterate masses? Yes. Corrupt police? Yes. Greedy bureaucrats? Yes. Irresponsible ministers? Yes.

After every calamity, there's one common denominator: loss of lives, running into the hundreds and thousands. In India, it doesn't take much for the toll to cross a few hundreds, given the fact that people are so closely packed together, no matter which part of the country you go.

And after each calamity, we hear the same statements, the same farce, the same shameless explanations from our ruling classes. Will nothing ever improve us? Will we continue to accept the flimsy excuses time and time again?

Will we have to keep hearing pathetic excuses about shortage of funds for a decent early warning system? OK, I'll grant that tsunamis are - before this - a phenomenon local to the Pacific and therefore, it may have been pointless to invest in a system that warned of tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, but to attribute it to a lack of MONEY?

Other comments to the story brought up more than a few valid points.

• Assuming that India did have a warning system in place, would it ever work?
• Does any administration have an effective disaster management plan?
• Do they have even the foggiest idea what to do when the disaster actually strikes?
• Would they have been able to get the message across to people along the coast and affected areas?
• Would they have been able to ensure an orderly and timely evacuation for all those thousands?

The answer is a "probably not" for all the above. The fact is that the Indian Meterology Department DID have some inkling, but since there was no precedent and no clear procedure, managed to mess up the communications entirely.

And the charades and faux-pas continued well into this week, underscoring the fact that we - India - are disaster personnified.

• We had our closet-Commie FM remarking that there was no shortage of funds for disaster relief. A few hours later, I found out why. Or, more appropriately, how. Squeeze us!
• An ambiguous clarification by the PM followed later. Will we, won't we?
• A knee-jerk reaction from the Indian Government that they would install a deep ocean assessment and warning system after all. In other words, money will be allocated for this and quietly disappear, until the next time that a tidal wave strikes.
• The Home Ministry unilaterally sounded an alert about fresh tsunamis on Thursday morning, creating panic and diverting relief efforts. Hours later came a retraction from the Union Science and Technology Minister, but not the Home Minister.
• The blame-game spilled over into Friday with both Kapil Sibal and Shivraj Patil, intent on covering their arses so that Mrs. G wouldn't see the shit. Unfortunately, the world at large can.

We simply come across as a country that is happy to be labelled a third world economy, get lip service for our IT industry and are unconcerned about human life. We have a billion plus people, so what's the problem with losing a few thousand? What's wrong with being tagged as a Disaster? Maybe we should have a new Internet prefix for India.

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