By John DayalPosted on Feburary 10, 2001

The praise is of course well deserved, for did not television news show, for hours on end, men in khaki shorts scrambling over the debris of skyscrapers, carrying the injured to medical camps. Moot point or course how the RSS cadres had time to go home and put on their trade mark half pants before joining the rescue operations.

Little camera focus on anonymous civil society volunteers who bled from hands skinned raw as they too dug into the debris of huts in more distant areas, their eyes on the victims, not on the media. Not surprising that there was little mention of scores of hundreds of nuns and priests, evangelists and teachers working in small hamlets which were little known in life, and still remain unknown in devastation.

There is comparable gradation in outrage, too. T John quite correctly paid the price for his political incorrect – and ethically inexcusable – `Wrath of God’ statement which displayed theological naiveté and social insensitivity. But what about the Sadhus at the Allahabad sangam who had no hesitation in saying that the quake was fated to devastate the Maha Kumbh but their collective spiritual `shakti’ diverted it elsewhere (to Gujarat). Would anyone care to lodge an FIR against the many leaders and spokesman of the RSS, VHP, and Bajrang Dal – among them the redoubtable Ashok Singhal – who say aid from the Pope should be rejected because he wants to convert the victims?

Indian and global media have by now seen through the game of the Sangh parivar, even though a few self styled national magazines and newspapers continue to curry favour with the men in shorts. In the last issue of Indian Currents, a couple of days after the Quake, we detailed at some length the sordid communalization of the rescue and relief operations. A week later, most responsible newspapers and newscasters had thoroughly exposed the greed of the parivar that seeks in the devastation the bricks to rebuild its political edifice.

As the focus shifts to rehabilitation, and the lessons from the Quake,  the questions become more serious. The first issue is of culpability. Sure it was a natural calamity, but as scientists have noted, earthquakes don’t kill people; falling buildings do. And more are killed by the delay in rescue cased by the fatal combination of a slothful administration and an absence of technologically savvy rescue management environment.

Investigative journalists have unearthed the nexus between the builders mafia surely with its own mafia linkage), the bureaucracy and the political leadership which has ruled Gujarat for some years now. As it turns out, many of the buildings that fell in Ahmedabad were built with criminal disregard to laws of the land, and codes of structural safety. Senior police officers, including the Ahmedabad police commissioner, shamelessly say on television it will be difficult to take legal action. As the commissioner said: “Just because a building fell does not mean there was structural fault or that someone is to blame.” It seems certain that most of the builders will go scot-free. An astrologer or two may however be rounded up and put in jail for spreading rumours.

Certainly, some of those who lived in these multistoried flats were salaried professionals who had invested the savings of a lifetime, or of two generations, in buying not a house but a home. Their loss is immeasurable. Insurance will not be sufficient to help them build a home anew. How are they to be helped? A matter for the government and the finance companies.

Many others invested considerable amounts of black money in buying fancy flats on prime spots. They are in no position to even give a correct estimate of their loss. An entirely new meaning to justice, one that even T John never intended.

Urban victims, very visible on television, have undeniably suffered much, whether it is in Ahmedabad, or in the rich enclaves of Bhuj.

The real tragedy, however, lies in rural Kutch. The devastation there is unbelievable. The only comparable visuals are of what was left of Berlin after the Second World War, or in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the first atomic backs. The earth is flattened. And the real extent of loss, of lives and of livelihoods, will take months to evaluate.

This must be the focus of all rehabilitation effort, particularly by NGOs and Church.

An entire sub-civilisation has to be rebuilt. The wounds have to be healed. The physical ones are easy to spot, and medical help from across the worlds will minister to these. But he psychological scars go deeper and will take an entirely different level of compassion to reach them. Delhi’s Convent of Jesus and Mary Sister Marie Therese, a veteran of counseling to victims of massacres and mishaps, highlights the need for trained cadres of counselors going to the children, the women and the men to give them the moral support they need to rebuild their lives.

Houses will be rebuild in time, and schools will once again function, possibly by the time the new academic calendar begins in a few months.

Jobs will however not be so easy to come by. Some jobs will be created in the very act of rebuilding and re-construction, but here is a question of refashioning micro economies in harsh semi urban milieus and an even harsher rural habitat. We seem to forget that these parts of Gujarat, the Kutch, are among the most difficult environments in India where life even in normal times was an unending duel with drought and want.

We, as a nation and as a people, will have to delve deep into our hearts to help the people of Kutch reclaim their future.