Power Play

The Centre has now got around to setting up a task force headed by George Fernandes. It should have come into existence within 24 hours of the tragedy and come out with a strategy to mobilise and disburse governmental and non-governmental relief. And surely it should also have chief ministers and opposition leaders as members.

Suppose nine Cabinet ministers had gone even for a couple ofdays to the headquarters of the nine most affected districts to try and galvanise whatever was left of the administrative machinery. It would have at least shown that the country stood behind Orissa.

Gone are the days of aerial surveys. If aerial surveys are what the ministers are interested in they can just as well get satellite pictures sitting in their South and North Block offices.

With thousands dead, millions homeless, epidemics threatening to claim more lives, food riots breaking out, Orissa surely called for an address to the nation by the Prime Minister on TV.

Gamang has now asked the Prime Mini-ster for Rs 10,000 crore of aid. The government will need all of that. The question is: is it in a position to put this amount to use?

The state government just collapsed under the fury of the super cyclone.

Even Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Madhav Rao Scindia admitted as much when they urged the Prime Minister to give central help in the distribution of relief. It is unthinkable for districtcollectors to run away at a time of crisis. But this is what happened in Orissa.

The Chief Minister had no business to come to Delhi when the state was reeling under unprecedented devastation. Others in the Congress could have handled the negotiations on money for the state.

Orissa was a fit case for President8217;s rule, for a governor and his team to take charge, coordinate with the army, NGOs and other agencies. But given the elections in February, the Centre was squeamish about it. Sonia herself could have changed the leader in Orissa, or put a clutch of dynamic Congress leaders at Gamang8217;s elbow.

The quibbling that went on for a week ab-out the status of the money transferred fr-om the Centre to the state was shocking, wi-th the state governm-ent refusing to touch it unless it was declared a grant. On its part, the Centre should have cl-arified immediately that what was not a gr-ant would be offset ag-ainst money mobilised specially for relief. It was a spectacle with Gamang announcing in the morningthat the Prime Minister had waived a loan, and the PMO clarifying in the evening that it had merely been rescheduled.

We see sanctimonious suggestions fr-om the corporate bosses to the finance minister on the pink pages every morning. But there has not been one headline on what they have done, or plan to do, for Orissa. Have FICCI or ASSOCHAM ev-en written to their members asking for donations?

Money can be mobilised, provided there is a will. There are one crore Indians today who have the capacity to donate Rs 1,000 each. The corporate sector can easily mobilise another Rs 1,000 crore. Me-mbers of Parliament can give for Orissa Rs 10 lakh each from their constituency fund. The money spent this year on Diwali should have gone to Orissa. Many Oriya families in the capital did not celebrate. Surely other Indians could also have ma-de a similar gesture. If children go around their mohallas collecting clothes, medicines or food, they identify with Orissa. It shows a national feeling.

When General Dyerkilled a few hundred people at Jallianwalla Bagh, cooking fires were not lit in millions of homes across the country. When Bihar was hit by a famine in the sixties, Lal Bahadur Shastri persuaded lakhs of people to observe a fast every Monday, so that food could go to the hungry state. When millions of refugees poured into India after the formation of Bangladesh, thousands of young people spent their entire vacation helping the sick and the needy in the relief camps.

The country8217;s schools and colleges sho-uld consider collecting money for cyclone shelters on the Orissa coastline. They exist in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu but not for some reason in Orissa although cyclones of varying intensity are an annual feature on the eastern coast. There is then the question of the impending elections in Orissa. In five weeks8217; time, the state machinery which is barely able to grapple with the present crisis will also have to deal with the poll process. What kind of elections can there be in the nine badly-affecteddistricts? Putting off elections is also a bad precedent to set. Perhaps this time the campaigning should be limited to two to three days. The Ele-ction Commission and all parties will have to give a thought to this.