[Assam] Editorial from Tehelka

[umesh sharma]

It is the same psyche - doing charity work is considered a blue collar job - unfit for leaders. So throw money from afar rather than go among the people and provide for the needy and help them become independent (self-dependent).
   
  Umesh

Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
  The Humiliation of Relief

We Indians are accustomed to the idea of India as a corrupt State. 
Even then, this has been a season of particular mortification. 
Parliament questions can be bought. mp funds can be bought. We've 
known it all, now we are shown it all. There is little one can 
believe sacred in this country. Now comes the most mortifying fact of 
them all. In India, even relief can routinely become disaster. This 
is not just a product of corruption; it is something even more 
humiliating: It is the absence of thought. Of respect. Of basic human 
regard. We are accustomed to the idea of India as a feudal State. The 
stampede deaths in Chennai give this idea urgent brutal shape. 
Ceaseless rain. Floods. Acute discomfort. More than 4,000 people 
lining up for relief tokens linked to merely three public 
distribution shops. Lining up 12 hours in advance because in our 
country there is always the fear there will not be enough. And then 
the sudden rush in the belly of the night. A mad scramble and 42 
dead. A lead picture of three children weeping inconsolably. Then the 
heaping ironies. Instant relief for the dead: Rs 1 lakh. Much less 
for the living and hurting: Rs 15,000.
The Indian State does not hand out relief, it flings
it at us

Chennai echoes Lucknow: 22 dead stampeding for cheap Rs 40 nylon 
saris. The shadow of Kashmir and the Andamans looms over it all. 
Terrible disasters of earth and sky and what is the relief we send? 
Trucks of sanitary napkins the tribals finally use as pillows, and 
thin cotton for a bitter winter. No tents even two months later. Much 
has been written about the absence of disaster and relief planning in 
India. Corruption and bewilderment abound. No systems kick in. But 
the real neuroses run deeper. The humiliating story of relief 
measures in India is the humiliating story of our latent unresolved 
feudalism.

We stampede because we are a people bred without the idea of 
entitlement. The State owes its citizens nothing. It does not hand 
out relief; it flings it at us. Crumbs chucked without thought or 
regard or propriety. No information given, no order imposed. No calm 
transmitted: There will be enough for all. With each disdainful 
chuck, the wounded are reduced to the craven.

The drowning of New Orleans roused heated debate about racial 
discrimination in the US. In India, it is not just one town. Ninety 
percent of the country is vulnerable to the humiliation of relief. 
And ten percent of us do a favour if we think we care.



Dec 31 , 2005


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Umesh Sharma
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 1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
		
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