MadMan’s anger is justified. He blames official apathy as the cause for not being able to save hundreds of lives by raising alarms in advance. Which is true. Apathy yes, but more importantly, the attitude of chalta hai, which seems to have been ingrained in our blood. The cruelty of this chalta hai attitude has manifested again: how many times do we need to be reminded? The Lattur & Bhuj earthquakes, the cyclone in Orissa, and now this. What good would it do to lament after tragedy has struck when you can try to prevent and/or minimize damage to thousands of lives? The rescue and restoration operations are anyway inevitable–they’ll be done–but why don’t we try to minimize the death/injured toll with something as simple as widespread warning messages being sent out all over the country?

Apart from the Trash of India, which seems to think news is all about parading semi-nude pictures on its pages, I was more appalled by this:

??In India such an event is so rare that we never felt a need for it,?? says Shetye. ??The economics of such a system would have to be considered.??

The said Shetye is director, National Institute of Oceanography (NIO). To this man, the “economics of the system” holds more water than those that might be drowned in the waters. Chalta hai personified. Here is another statement by a similar eminence:

In Hawaii, tidal wave warnings are flashed over televisions and through the civil defense sirens. Pant says the setting up of a tsunami warning system in India would be ??administratively difficult?? since it is a rare phenomenon scattered over open seas.

Wow! Can he qualify how issuing a warning statement is “administratively difficult?” This statement from the director of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology! It is not a feeble excuse as MadMan says, but a blatant display of official arrogance. Would he still say the same thing if (God forbid) his near and dear ones were victims of the Tsunami? These statist idiots are so mired in their official procedures, systems, paperwork, and other trappings of babudom to which they’ve mortgaged their commonsense that they think anything can be explained away in bureaucratese.

To return to MadMan’s angst,

An 8.9 earthquake hits in the vicinity and you don’t think anything will happen? If not an evacuation, couldn’t they at least sound a general alarm to the eastern coast towns and cities? It would’ve moved several hundred fishermen out of the waters. It would’ve got people off the beaches. It would’ve saved a few lives that have now been snuffed out. Three hours and our government didn’t do anything.

I’ve stayed for days on end in Pondicherry, and observed in some detail the simple lifestyles of the fishermen. Now my heart goes out to all those poor fishermen who go out to the sea early in the morning… hundreds of them will never return. And read on further, how the learned eminences here ease their collective consciences:

??Right now, we know how a Tsunami is created and how it works, but as far as predicting Tsunamis go, we have a long way to go,?? Shetye says. ??After all, this was the first recorded Tsunami to have hit India.??

Yeah, and a few thousand lives have been extinguished. Now we know the gravity of the situation, we’ll set up a committee to closely monitor the next Tsunami if the economics of the system deems fit to erect such a system after all administrative difficulties are solved.

Chalta hai.

Tags: Commentary, General, Society & Culture