Disasters Count In Life

It is nearly three months since Cyclone Aila struck 18 districts out of 19 districts in West Bengal, affecting 6.8 million people, killing 139 persons, and over 100 million dollars in damages. The most affected were two southern districts : North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas. By the time the relief operations were over in south Bengal, the northern districts of Malda, Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar were affected by flash floods and river erosion. The landslides in Darjeeling however went without much news, other than for little media report on the problems relating to transport of materials during emergency from the plains to the hills. All these took place between 15 - 19 August 2009. Then came another disaster in southern districts of Bengal, where 10 districts were affected due to heavy rains. Worst hit was the Hooghly district, along with some parts of Burdwan and West Midnapore districts. These districts were thrown out of gear due to opening of two dams in the borders of West Bengal. According to government estimates, at least one million people were affected in the district of Hooghly alone! Over all, 180 persons have died and assets worth over 150 million has been wiped out since Aila, besides the long term impacts on children, livelihoods, education and health services. One thing seem to be becoming more and more clear: wherever there is a disaster....I seem to be the victim! That's on the lighter vein. I have been involving over 30 organizations to do four multi-sectoral assessments of the damages (3 in north bengal, 1 in south bengal), and over 35 persons to complete the exercise. The disasters have changed my life. Changed for ever!!!

Counting the Migrants

During a meeting of Non-Profit Organizations serving the people affected by Cyclone Aila in South 24-Parganas District of West Bengal, I was faced with the severe problem of people migrating to other parts of the State and the country for livelihood options. Since these places are known for migration, but this time it seemed to be more in distress, I sat down to write a project to do a study on "Has Cyclone Aila led to increased migration--if yes, to what extent, and how this is socially, economically distributed? What are the implications of this on gender and children related issues?

The project was proposed to Catholic Relief Services, which has accepted to fund the study. And so a team has been formed to do it : The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) will support for three Panchayats, WWF will support with personnel for two, Palli Unnayan Samity will be the local coordinating partner, Ms. Bhaswati Thakurta of Women Studies Research Center, University of Calcutta, and Puthumai A. Nazarene for Data Management and Analysis. The team will begin its work from 6 Aug 2009 and the study is expected to be completed by 31 Oct 2009.

Lightings : Are they More Powerful in the Evenings?

The month of August has begun with two tragic events in West Bengal, besides the death of the State Minister of Transport, Mr. Subhas Chakraborty. On 4 Aug, Tuesday, at 6.00 p.m. a group of villagers conducting post-funeral rites, after the death of a 60 year old man 12 days before in the village, about 150 kms North-West of Kolkata, were struck by a lightning, and eight of them were killed on the spot, and one died in the hospital. On 5 Aug, Wednesday, a group of workers repairing a damaged embankment in another village (Bagbagan, of Rangabelia, in Gosaba Block of South 24 Parganas district) in the Sunderban forests in the Gangetic delta of West Bengal, about 130 kilometers South East of Kolkata were struck by a lightning, and one person was killed, and two are seriously injured, with four others suffering minor injuries. The incident took place at 4.30 p.m. in the afternoon.

This makes me wonder --are there no lightnings in the mornings? Why the lightnings seem to kill a lot more people in the evening than in the morning? Are they more "powerful", or is it sheer chance that the people just come on its way, and get killed? Any clues? Any answers?

The Paper Girl

The second weekend of July month was really hectic at Malibari, a tiny village with five hamlets surrounding it. Malibari is less than 25 kilometers from Raiganj. But the differences are vast. There is no electricity, no road, no sanitary facilities, no internet connection, restricted cellular connectivity, and lack of access to basic amenities of life--including health and education--make it an ideal setting for any Indian cinema for shooting a film, with river Nagar adding to the music of the little cluster of villages. Malibari is also blessed with great mixture of animist tribal communities, Bengali speaking Hindu communities, Mohammedans and some converted tribal Christians. It is just two kilometers away from a larger village called Bhatol. Malibari has a little school with tin roof and partly raised open wall, placed under my guidance. Since a teacher had left couple of months ago, and that I had just taken over the school only from the first week of July, I had to identify a teacher. Now, for the starters, in these little village schools we are not looking for “teachers” who are trained in the best schools of pedagogy. That is so for three reasons : the rural setting is too alien to the urban educated teachers who love to live in comfort; there is a need for teachers who can reach out to the children and their parents on day to day basis; and, the payment for teachers is abysmally low in these rural private run schools. So, I have to find someone who has completed at least 10th grade, and can teach and understand children.

On Saturday and Sunday, besides all the other celebrations, meetings and marketing that I had to complete, I came across one girl who impressed me while choosing a teacher. We had a three member team to interview the girl who is just touching her twenties. Her name is Piyali Roy. She hails from Bhatol, and her father used to work as a cleaner of a vehicle; he gathered some money, and purchased a jeep on loan, and runs it to manage a family of five, while he continues to pay back the loan. Piyali on her part contributed to the family actively since she was seven years old. She used to be a “paper girl” in that little Bhatol which boasts of a population of about 1,500 residents. She was issuing 100 newspapers every day. That is really impressive for a village like Bhatol, because for about 300 families and 30 odd shops, that is really a good reach. So, our questions revolved around how she made a successful business? She had the mantra. Reach the paper on time! People wanted the papers at the same time each day. So, she would go around on her bicycle to reach the 100 families and shops to deliver the newspapers. Then she came out with the truth. “Since last year I have not been delivering the paper on regular basis. May be five to six times a month. My brother takes care of it.”. “Why?”, we enquired. “Because people think that I am too old to deliver papers as I am a young girl. And so they make funny comments about me from behind. So, I go to deliver the papers only when my brother has something else to do.” We insisted on enquiring further : “Do you really mind the comments?” Piyali replied, “Those damned people, I don’t give a damn! That’s why I deliver the papers even now when my brother is out, or for study. I had to stop my studies three years ago, to support my family. But I want my brother to study. I shall continue to deliver papers even if I get a job or not!”

Needless to say, Piyali got the job!

Prodigal Fathers

I have begun to observe a trend in the emerging global power – India. As I travel across the country and various parts of the State of West Bengal, I see there are many irresponsible parents who are not able to match the pressures of the modern world, and they just lose out as mentors and guides to their children, abdicating the responsibility of parenthood as accepted in Indian culture. Let us look at an example. Every Indian family knows that it is the responsibility of the parents, specially the father, to ensure that the girl children are married off in time. Now, look around you. You begin to see an alarming number of girls in their late twenties and thirties, unmarried, and remain so, simply because they have not found a proper partner either by themselves or by their parents, in spite of the fact that sex-ratio in India is clearly leaning towards the male child. I have known cases of irresponsible parents who want the salaries of their employed daughters so that they need not fulfill the obligation of sending away the daughter after marriage with the son in law, and lose the income! I have known older brothers fleecing on the earning of the sister siblings until they reach their mid thirties when the parents are dead early in life. I have seen parents not letting daughters married by defaming their own daughters so that the income continues to remain at home. Where are we heading to? What has happened to the culture of parents ensuring their girls get married in their late teens, or at least in their early twenties?

Besides the economic reason attached with it, as we have explained above, I can see two important elements that are afflicting the parents. Firstly, the pressures of parenting are so high that the elders do not have the strength to withstand the pressures of a modern world that communicates across the globe in seconds. The generation of parents we talk about are well meaning decent people, but they have not culturally out grown their age of slower communication. So, in a globalized economy, the socio-economic pressures and cultural wedge seem to be so high that the parents themselves fall into depression and they find it hard to handle the needs of their children.

The second is equally important. There is a conflict of moral values which the parents have not been able to digest and so they react by doing nothing about it. Let us take the same example of marriage again. The world of fidelity and long-lasting love of the parents has been challenged severely by increasing divorces, infidelity in marriages and rampant “love” marriages that does not give a damn to the opinion of the parents. In this cultural alienation some parents have become, in a sense, dumb spectators while few others have become arrogant exploiters of the lucrative economic benefit at the cost of women—to say, their own daughters!

Guilty Bystander

Six weeks have gone since Aila, the killer Cyclone struck parts of West Bengal and Bangladesh. I have been traveling far and wide in the last weeks, discussing and planning, coordinating with persons and corroborating information for the benefit of all. But yesterday was different. I traveled with two young men and Fr. Sarto to some parts of South 24 Parganas district. As we left Kolkata it started raining. As we reached the district, it was pouring cats and dogs. That makes all the difference for people who are already fed up of living in water. Some need the heavens to shut up, while the farmers need it to open up further.

We still saw good many people, still living in some of the huts beside the road, made of black polythene sheets given by the government. The huts were not bigger than the size of my bed - 3 ft x 6.5 ft. I could see children and women inside them, trying to cramble for space. If this is all life is all about, I feel like a guilty bystander. I wish to do more for these people. I wish to show them some ray of hope. I wish to be their father...brother...and friend. In the rain the whole day went without doing anything, but for visiting and meeting some volunteers who were braving the rain to be in touch with people. The volunteers had nothing to give, but to alert the people about drinking water safely, so that cholera or any other endemic disease may not take their lives. Already about 40 persons have died of diarrhea since the Aila.

No more relief materials are in sight. No food. No clothes. No gruel kitchens that were feeding thousands. Suddenly all seem to have come to a halt a month after the Aila is gone. It is time for rehabilitation. But, these people.... they are still in water. It all looks like a sea. By noon, the high tide had hit. Once again you could see the whole area was under water, as if everything was one large sea. If only I had the means....and if I have more hands... Should gods be blamed for this? Or, should we blame ourselves?

Gershom!

You could always find yourself as a stranger in a foreign land. That's what you consider yourself to be. That's how others look at you to be. I ran into number of strangers while staying at Calcutta in in the past few weeks. Some of them left indelible marks. I must mention a few of them here. There was a French girl with some beautiful name...I don't remember hers. I was amazed by her commitment. Every early morning she would walk down faithfully to the Mother House (the place where Mother Teresa lived), and work there from morning to evening, and return back with a big bright smile...never complaining about the spicy food and large pieces of chicken floating in some gravy that was certainly not palatable for a French lady. I also met Fr. Bob from Michigan who came here with a group of about 12 young boys and girls from an University there. They were accompanied by also a few volunteers. Fr. Bob is a tall and bulky man for Indian standards. But calm and highly concentrated. Since I stayed in a room closer to his I could observe him better. You can say this man is highly committed and had a large heart (as big as his size) for the poor. He would never mind the heatwave that was scorching everybody here. The heat must have really taken its toll on him as he would sweat profusely throughout the day.

There was a thinner ever smiling and very sociable Michelle. She had joined a few of us as we were conversing about my own future options. And she got excited about it, and started following the story as if it was all happening to one of her own close friends. Michelle is inquisitive and curious to know how things are happening. She would always wonder at the way the India Machine (the whole country as it operates : its transport, the people, administration and everything) operates. I also found her to be very religious with strong trust in the Lord, and dedication to the poor.

I also met a Professor of Accountancy, Christina. She had traveled alone. She has some friends in Chennai. She too is equally inquisitive and extremely sharp in mind. She would always inquire to understand the why of the things. I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with her over the meals. She too would walk each day to the Shishu Bhavan (the children's home close to Mother House) to spend time with the kids, wash their clothes and care for the poor. I began to admire her over the period although I did not see her everyday. Somehow she seemed to portray a mature woman who was willing to take on the world by understanding its undercurrents of extreme poverty, channels of exploitation and discriminative social fabric.

Christina, Michelle and I planned a dinner for the night of 30 June, Tuesday. Michelle brought along with her three more volunteers. Cora (she too was with Fr. Bob's group) from Michigan, Cait from Ohio and Banks from Tennesse. Cait was the most vocal among all. She is a student of micro-biology and said she can help me out in relief work, if required anywhere. Cait is a good company, and you would never get bored in hers. Banks had been to Bangladesh to study the Psychological Impacts and Patters in Micro Finance! (Hi, I have been promoting micro finance for long....but I never thought of that.) He is tall, focussed and well meaning. Cora was not in best of her health. So, she did not talk much. I must come to know her more later.

For now, it is all a great new world.... Lord make me an instrument of your peace..... where strangers become friends, and enemies begin to speak to one another!

Protesting to Shine and have Light

I visited Malibari, the little village that I have taken up to develop, already three times in June. The first time I went I asked the caretaker Mr. George to look for a cook, and clean the place. The second time when I visited after a week on 20 June, I found that he had cleansed some of the rooms, and not the undergrowth that had become almost a jungle in the courtyard. And that day I had a long meeting with some 60 odd men and women--mostly tribals, with some Muslim and Hindu Bengali speaking communities from the neighbouring villages, speaking to them of the basics of modern development. The basics are down to three letters : BSP - Bijli, Sadak, Paani (which means : Electricity, Road and Safe Drinking Water). The village has no road, no electricity, no other communication systems, no health facilities, no drainage or sanitary systems, and of course no proper drinking water. With all such mammoth problems, it is the biggest hunting ground for me to challenge the forces of power and exploitation.

At the meeting on 20 June, we formed a small committee that would take our case to the administration. And it was decided that we would wake up, and show that we would like to protest the Gandhian way : Fast for a Day. We wished to do it in our village. We didn't want to do it in front of any of the office buildings for the reason that if the politicians can come to villages asking for votes, if they can reach polio vaccines from house to house so that no rich child is affected along with the poorer ones, then the Government can also come to the villages to hear the problems of the people.

On 27 June, we did a fast under a couple of large jackfruit trees (for those who who do not know: yes, jackfruits grow on large trees), raising slogans. Almost about 150 men, women and children turned up, and about 100 of us stayed put under the tree. I too remained with the people, lying on a plastic sheet that had been hired, in my lungi and a T-shirt, like any other ordinary villager. When the police and some of the lower rung government officials came, the people took care of them! They received the choicest of words (no abuse, but protests), and the government officials were forced to say that they would take some action within 15 days. The people had simply to say this : should we stay in dark even after 62 years of independence? Should any one? But that's how government's run. That's how people are kept in dark : in the darkness of illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, and in hunger. It is time to wake up. It is time for the tigers to roar!

N.B. : More action by people will follow in the coming weeks. Meanwhile some of the government officials are going around questioning why have these people woken up suddenly, and demanding that they get their rights within a very short period, where as for the last 20 years these people had never protested. They do not know that a leader has entered.

The Long Dry Spell

"After the Storm comes the Calm", goes the old adage. But no one thought that the entire long one month since Aila hit would go without a drop of rain in most parts of West Bengal. It is monsoon season after all! The meterorological department does not have much good news as the reports go. Three years ago we had a very dry year, so much so that most parts of the districts where I worked were declared "drought hit". People say El-Nino effects have two counter products--causing dry spells in one part of the world, and increasing storm in the other. But could an Aila, though was big in magnitude, but not so destructive as El-Nino, could have created such dry weather across the country?

I remember 1986 June 21, the day I landed in Bengal, and I had crossed the Vindhyas for the first time to enter into northern part of India. It was raining all along. Day and night. And the thunders were so strong that I thought each of them was falling just next to me. Nights would pass by without proper sleep. And days would go calling on the name of St. Barbara, whom I would faithfully invoke as my mother had taught me that she can take care of all storms and thunders. But in the last five years I have not seen many thunder clouds, nor any incessent rain. It is all changing. Blame it on Climate-change!! Who is responsible? Will I get to see some good cool rain that can leave the earth wet and buzzling with activities of birds and butterflies?

Where the Waters Stink

"In to that heaven of freedom my father, let my country awake". These were the words of that immortal poet Rabindranath Tagore. But today, the peace that is prayed for is in ruins. There are violent activities in Darjeeling, Nandigram, Lalgarh, and several other places of the West Bengal state alone. The people are becoming restless. There is a hope. Hope for change.

I always said it. The plan of the Marxists in West Bengal cannot stand too long. It is based on two correct premises used for wrong reasons; the correct premises are "in an utopian state everyone will give according to one's ability, and take away according to one's need" will prevail, and the other premise that "the class struggle of the proletariat will take the society to wage a war against the power of the bourgeosie". The wrong application was this : therefore ensure that maximum number of people remain proletariat and keep giving them a morsel of bread if they need a loaf, to ensure that the poor remain the poor, so that they keep voting the Communists back to power. This seem to have not paid off. The reds have lost the race in the last national elections.

One reason to this is that people of Bengal are moving a lot more than before. With very little job opportunities available in the State, even the poorest travel to far off places in India, and find the development and growth in those places. There is a general dissatisfaction that is set in the heart. The second reason why the Communism of the type that Indian Communist Party (Marxist) supports is found to fail is because the party has not given space for the poor to feel equal in dignity with the rich. Instead, it has been a struggle of the poor to raise their voices even for what is normally their right, to get access to it. Let us take for example the right to have electricity. This is a "fundamental right" whether the Constitution recognises it or not, for any ordinary citizen living in the 20th or 21st century. Without electricity how can children study, how can the women spend their evenings other than watching the famous soap operas, how can the men watch the favourites of their games, and how can medical, social, and communication systems function if not for electricity? Now look at the struggle. The government takes several years, and hell a lot of money before electrification to a village is completed, with a large sum paid in kickbacks.

Take the case of West Bengal. More than 60% of its villages are not electrified. No wonder, people are upset when they compare themselves with their southern neighbours where electricity is given free of cost for farmers, and over 80% of villages have access to electricity. This is just one example. The same is true for education, health, public utility services, administration and for every right of the citizen. One begins to wonder, "Do I need to shout each time, block the road, disrupt normal life that my voice may be heard?" If so, it is stagnant water. Stagnant waters stink. And in their stink, crocodiles and other deadly animals that eat up ordinary citizens flourish. It is time to change the stinking waters.