Time. Newsweek. National Geographic. The Economist. You name any international magazine. The reigning theme in all of them over the last few weeks has been the massive humanitarian aid effort needed to give relief and to rehabilitate people affected by a spate of natural disasters during the past year, particularly the last few months.
Be it the tsunami hit-Indian Ocean nations, hurricane-hit New Orleans, quake-hit Kashmir or our own flood ravaged TN, multitudes running into millions have been killed, maimed or rendered homeless. Add to that the refugees and victims in war- ravaged or insurgency-ridden lands like Afghanistan, Iraq and Uganda. Indeed, the question of rebuilding those lives gnaws at the collective conscience of the entire world. And, to be fair, individuals and nations have risen and rallied to embark on an unprecedented relief effort gobally to alleviate the sufferings of those unfortunate people. Given the magnitude of the disasters, any effort is bound to be dwarfed or seem inadequate, but every bit does count.
But what cannot really be counted as necessary is the unseemly politics that transpires behind the aid effort. Although it is the relief workers who, forgetting their own families and woes, toil tirelessly day and night, reach out to inaccessible lands and risk limb and life to bring succour to the affected, it is invariably the politicos who are the visible faces of such efforts, because they personify the government. Of course, they get the stick too from their opponents and the media, but for them the political benefits far exceed the risks, or so they think. And so when politicians control as well as hold forth on relief, can it remain just a humanitarian affair any longer? Indeed, blame-games are played out even in the US and UN, but this rational state of Tamilnadu surely takes the cake for its unique brand of misery-politics.
TN is now in the throes of a major humanitarian crisis wrought by three spells of rain, with the fourth threatening its shores this weekend. The damage by all measures is immense and in many cases irreparable. Out of the Rs 13500 cr sought the Centre has sanctioned Rs 500 cr for now with promise of more. That surely is a pittance, but strangely seems enough for politicking to take off.
The clamour for credit which has already commenced will soon climb to a crescendo. One voice will claim, ‘I did it, I got it’. ‘No, it is our effort’ will be the prompt response. The ’me too’ chorus will join in, for there is no dearth for allies and so allied voices. Already, a few have met the PM, FM et al independently, to record their efforts, just in case, for ‘securing‘ aid that will in any case flow in!
And all this chest-thumping is not for parting with any of their personal, often ill-gotten wealth, but to give public money back to the public! And in the process, make deserving beneficiaries seem like beggars with the politicos posturing as munificient donors. The trick is to make the people feel ‘obliged’, for the ultimate trade-off, namely their vote. Elections, the inevitable democratic disaster, after all, are not very far off!
It may sound crude, but a natural disaster is the greatest boon for politicos. But they are not the only exploiters. These days, disaster management and relief work, is also big business. There are now, scores of NGOs for whom people’s hunger and deprivation are actually bread and butter. TN has the dubious distinction of having the maximum number of registered NGOs. There is no check either on their source of funds or their end-use. On the contrary even the officialdom in several districts relies on them to deliver relief. The NGOs to their credit are very meticulous and extremely media savvy. Barring a few genuine ones, most are fly by night operators flush with funds from, often, well-meaning and unsuspecting donors.
Already, there are a number of complaints about the quality of their relief work, particularly post tsunami: Many boats, distributed with much fan-fare, were not sea-worthy, while several shelters built by them are more leaky than the sky! But, rest assured, there is no lack of tell-tale signs of their ‘charity’, with pompous nameboards displaying their names! We will see more again as the floods recede and relief(?) work takes over.
Really, after the visit of a disaster, the bigger disaster is the visit of the VIPs and of course, the aforementioned ‘good Samaritans’! And once a disaster becomes stale news and the media moves over to more ‘humane’ issues like, say, pre-marital sex, these champions too vanish, leaving behind hapless people with not only broken lives and broken homes, but also holding broken promises!
Can’t we give gracefully? Is donating for a cause a natural human instinct or a contrived photo opportunity? Is what is on balance the lives and future of tragedy-struck people or mere publicity sweepstakes and sinful profit? Does it really matter to the needy who gives? Should human misery be trivialised thus? After all, does not God himself remain anonymous?
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