Can someone answer my questions?

As senior politicians assemble in the PMO with heavily hanging faces they have to ponder over these critical questions and find proper answers, unless they believe that all that needs to be done is enacting a drama of air-land inspections and making tall promises.

A flashback. In the morning hours of January 26, 2001, as the Indian state was proudly displaying its ‘‘military might’’ and ‘‘precision parading’’, thousands of its citizens were getting buried in the rubble and debris of Gujarat earthquake. Members of the Government of India’s Crisis Management Group (CMG) were enjoying the Republic Day fiesta. By the time the CMG met well into the afternoon, the earthquake had killed and gone!

On December 26, 2004, at about 6.30 am, we in Chennai felt the vibrations of a high-intensity earthquake ‘‘somewhere nearby’’. Around 7.30 am, Chief of the Air Staff and the Indian Meteorological Department had information about a ‘‘massive earthquake near Andaman and Nicobar’’. By the time the Cabinet Secretary got into the act at 10.30 am, the tsunami had hit the Tamil Nadu coastline with the ferocity of a hundred tornadoes. CMG, the Government’s nodal emergency response unit, met at 1 pm, by when the tsunami had come, killed and gone!

Exact repetition of what happened four years ago! Where was the Disaster Management System promised after the Gujarat earthquake and on which several crores of taxpayer money has been spent. Why are the CMG and the Disaster Management Cell still rickety in shape and laid-back in their response? Is it not time to wind up these bureaucratic outfits and replace these with professional and fast-responding entities?

What has been the response of state governments? Tamil Nadu, the worst-affected state, has several well-trained Special Police battalions. The state also has hundreds of celebrated ‘‘Veerappan killers’’ in a Special Task Force who have recently been pandered with extraordinary gifts of cash, housing plots and accelerated promotions. None of these forces was mobilised for rescue work, and hapless men, women and children on the state’s coast were abandoned. Even the call for Army help went out after three days, and by the time these men came, most of the bodies had decomposed. Why this callousness and rank inefficiency?

As the district officials were emerging out of their stupor, came the avalanche of air and land ‘‘disaster tourists’’, comprising VVIPs and VIPs. First it was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and her army of ministers. Then came the Union Home Minister with officials in toe. Then it was Mani Shankar Aiyar and Dayanidhi Maran as Prime Minister’s special envoys. This was followed by Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and her entourage. And finally the Prime Minister himself. The question is what have these ‘‘tourist inspections’’ achieved? What qualification do these worthies have to hang around the disaster sites distracting rescue and relief officials when lives were to be saved and dead bodies recovered with dignity?

As the rescue and relief efforts were gathering some steam came the infamous ‘‘hogwash’’ from the Disaster Management Cell in New Delhi. On the basis of a vague message from an experimental US research firm and some random Internet downloads, the Union Home Ministry issued a fresh tsunami alert. This set off a tidal wave of panic that hit the already battered and bruised coastline and brought rescue and relief work to a standstill. Is this the pathetic state of disaster management in a country that prides itself as a superpower and leader in Information Technology? What kind of novices are manning the Disaster Management Cell?

Coordination seems to be woefully missing in the relief operations with government agencies and NGOs pulling in different directions. In Tamil Nadu, politicians—state and central—were keener on winning brownie points by meeting the aggrieved sections than on concerted action. Central ministers seemed to go one way and state ministers another, and there is no liaison between them.

The images generated from Nagapattinam district, the worst-hit part of Tamil Nadu, of bodies rotting on the streets and pits dug hurriedly by local people to serve as mass graves show how those in charge got their priorities completely wrong. Can even a human tragedy of this magnitude not get politicians to shed their pomp and bring them together?

Some European countries that lost just a few citizens to the tsunami waves have declared national mourning. Even the US, which lost a handful of its citizens, is flying its national flag at half-mast. But there is not even such a thought in the minds of India’s rulers. Is death of itinerant politicians only worth mourning? Has the Indian state become so heartless?

These are questions in anguish and not in anger. Unless these are confronted, answers found and remedial measures taken, India will not be able to live down the shame on its system of governance.