Dying For Relief

When residents of Mudalaimadu complained to the visiting food and cooperation minister Pollachi V. Jayaraman that their lives had been reduced to a heap of mud, the minister reportedly told them: "Your walls are anyway made of mud. Just use the slush to build your homes again." The villagers are also upset that ministers rarely get out of their vehicles to inspect the damage. Sometimes, they just don't come. In Mayiladuthurai, posters put up by common people ask a basic question: 'Will Mani Shankar Aiyar (Union petroleum and panchayati raj minister) visit his constituency or not?'

What has shocked and befuddled the lakhs of affected people is the indifference of civil societal groups,NGOs and the media compared to their post-tsunami response. Says Nityanand Jayaraman, environmental activist: "True, the tsunami claimed many more lives. Unlike the tsunami, whose instantaneous damage provided a spectacle for cameras, the floods crept in slowly. But the long-term damage here is worse. The domestic economy is completely crippled." In Cuddalore alone, 383 villages were marooned, 1.5 lakh houses damaged and 80,000 hectares of crops lost. While landowners are being offered Rs 10,000 per hectare, landless labourers and other casual labourers have no succour other than the government dole.

While the tsunami was a natural disaster, the repeated flooding owes a lot to lopsided development agendas nurtured over decades. "While funding grandiose projects to bring waters from faraway places to cities, the state easily neglects and undermines local systems. Instead of mooting dangerous propositions like interlinking rivers now, restoring local water systems should become an ethic of survival," says Jayaraman. Fact is the real damage did not occur in catchment areas such as Panruti in Cuddalore. It received 32 cm rainfall in a day but was not as badly affected as villages where the waters flowed along the Veeranam's 40-km path to the sea.

Today, the government is keen on demolishing the 33,000 illegal structures along the Cooum and Adayar rivers in Chennai. One of the first buildings to be razed was part of the privately owned MGR deemed university. The coastal regulatory zone norms, which cover rivers too, have been in place since 1991. But they have always been flouted. Governments have rarely paid attention to disasters-in-the-making. The people are only hoping that the lessons this time are being learnt for good.