14 September 2014
It is terribly bad form to “play politics” with human suffering, especially if they are a consequence of natural disasters. Yet, even before the waters have receded from human habitations in Jammu & Kashmir, a fierce battle that goes well beyond the normal blamegame played by political parties, appears to have started.
You just have to surf the news channels to get a sense of where it is all heading. The TV reportage is marked by a discernible political schism. There is complete unanimity over the fact that once again the Indian Army has come out with flying colours. Its attempts to get some elementary relief to the affected peoples and evacuate those who have been stranded away from their homes have been much appreciated. At the same time, there has been some understandable criticism of the inability of the State Government to back the Army’s efforts by managing temporary relief camps and khichri kitchens.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s argument that he was hamstrung by the collapse of the civil administration because the floods also disrupted life in Srinagar has some merit. However, the claim that State functionaries were too busy attending to their own families to venture out to the larger community cannot be used as a justification for the National Conference-Congress Government’s larger failure. What distinguishes Government functionaries from the rest is their larger social responsibility. Take that away and the whole basis of a modern state collapses.
Under British rule, the handling of both man-made and natural disasters left a lot to be desired. This was not necessarily because all colonial administrators were heartless, blood-sucking monsters. Many of them, in fact, were exemplary human beings blessed with notions of Christian charity and compassion for the poor. The problem was that the colonial State never really saw itself as a development agency. Its principal function was the maintenance of law and order, dispensing some elementary justice and collecting revenue. Consequently, its long arm never reached the deep interiors of India. The best such a state could do in the event of floods, famines and earthquakes was to set up a few camps, rush some officials from the Health department to prevent epidemics and leave the rest to charitable organisations (those were the days before NGOs constituted a separate industry).
Going by media reports, the State Government appears to have under-performed even the colonial State. It is a commentary on the larger philosophy of governance in J&K that the huge expansion of the State after 1948 has not been accompanied by a corresponding enlargement of the State’s responsibilities. The State police, in the Valley at least, was nowhere to be seen and were busy attending to their families. If a natural disaster — and by no means the most devastating calamity India has witnessed — can totally cripple the local administration of a crucial border State, we can only shudder over what may happen if a hostile power across the border decides to step up its subversion.
The complete collapse of the State machinery in J&K is a problem that goes well beyond the electoral fortunes of the Abdullah family. It is a matter of national concern that must be addressed as soon as a semblance of normal life returns. Indeed, it is a matter of national security.
The history of the subcontinent has shown that, ineptly handled, natural disasters often provoke larger political convulsions. The aftermath of the super cyclone that devastated East Pakistan in 1970 was mishandled by the authorities in Islamabad and created conditions for the Awami League’s electoral sweep in 1971. This, in turn, precipitated the constitutional crisis that led to the break-up of Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh.
I am not for a moment suggesting that the mood in J&K is one of near-total exasperation with the Indian state. However, it is all too evident that the separatists who have suddenly become invisible in the face of a calamity will try and use the deficiencies of the state government to create an anti-India mood.
Whether consciously or otherwise, some of the English language channels, while underplaying the scale of the tragedy in Jammu, are already giving a platform to covert separatists who are conveying the impression that “nothing” has been done by either the army or other State bodies. It is worth observing if the so-called self-help, community groups that some of the people interviewed say are providing the only help turn out to be arms of fundamentalist outfits. Those who claim that the “local sensitivities” of the people of the Valley must be respected may actually be suggesting that the field is left wide open to allow religio-political organisations to emerge as the natural alternative to a corrupt and incompetent local administration.
At present these are just stray indicators and it is possible that many of the early signs of future trouble could well end up as false alarms. However, it would be imprudent to take chances. Once the waters recede and the people begin the task of rebuilding begins, it is important to ensure that that separatists are denied the ammunition to spread imaginary tales of an insensitive India. At the same time, it is imperative that the age-old neglect of the Jammu and Ladakh by a Srinagar-dominated political establishment is quite decisively reversed. Since recreating a robust civil administration in the Valley is likely to be a long haul, there has to be an adequate backup in the other regions of the State.
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