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| Sunday, 9 January 2005 |
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Features |  |
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The right column Tsunami vultures If there is a single word that could encapsulate the horrors, destruction and grief of December 26, 2004, it is tsunami. In terms of energy released the tidal horror equals million times the nuclear blast at Hiroshima. Our intention here is not to recount that horror, death, destruction and grief. It is already history though it lingers alive in our memory. Nor do we intend to comment on the international and national relief efforts that have also reached tsunami proportions. Such humanitarian gestures were unparalleled in recent history. Our task today is to look at certain disturbing elements in the present scenario, namely the attempts by certain sections of our population to prey on the plight of the victims and plunder relief supplies, both local and international. Though we loathe to harp on negative phenomena, we are compelled in the present instance in order to minimise their occurrence and impact. These unsocial elements do not represent our society and are numerically insignificant. Yet, the impact of their action is highly damaging to the good name of the country and its civilized citizens. Much has been written in the media about those who waylay relief convoys and plunder them. They are the lumpen elements in the fringe, mostly associated with the underworld. This is a law and order problem, which the authorities could solve, provided they have the will. In the context of a nexus existing between certain politicos and the underworld mafia even law enforcing agencies could be helpless. Worse still is the scenario if recent revelations about a police-underworld nexus were true. There is another set of vultures that live on the present tragedy. They are avaricious businessmen who collect relief and sell them. Even this could be arrested with public support. As media reports confirm some have been already arrested. Yet there are two other categories that pilfer aid unseen. They are influential government officials and politicians who use aid either to curry favours to a privileged few or disburse them with no concern for priorities. Unlike the highway robber or the unscrupulous businessmen they are not easy to recognise. Hence, the need for more public vigil, and above all accountability in the distribution of relief. The distribution of relief is not just another routine office job. It needs the commitment of a dedicated social worker. In an era where self-aggrandizement is taken as a virtue with politicians giving the lead committed social workers are rare among public servants. It is for the sociologists to unravel the reasons for the prevalence of such anti-social elements, to find whether the advance of consumerism or the silencing of the common man by the emergence of powerful politicos had anything to do with it. Whatever it is, it is high time that this virus afflicting the body politic of our society be purged or surgically removed. - the Sceptic |
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