The politics and economics of natural calamities

Cyclone Sidr has demonstrated once again how much we as a nation have failed to provide human security to the most vulnerable in Bangladesh.
Poverty and natural calamities that compound it are two aspects of our lives that have proved resistant to mitigation. Poverty in Bangladesh has made some handful of people very rich, and so have the disasters, both man-made and natural, that have visited us with uncanny and unfailing regularity. We have been inured by natural calamities. And, although poverty in Bangladesh has come down by nine percentage points over the years, it has enriched a handful of our people by the way it has been exploited to bring in hard cash from the donors, ostensibly for the purpose of reducing it, but the money that ensued had not been transmitted in an egalitarian manner.
Thus, it is very little wonder that the level of abject poverty in real terms remains where it was when we started. Our shortcomings and deficiencies have proved a boon for the few who made good "use" of them.
In similar vein, after every natural disaster, the promised money for actions related to disaster management and reduction of the after-effects of natural calamities, be it cyclones or floods, was received, but had not been utilised appropriately.
Take the case of the recent cyclone. Yes, it was more severe than what we have faced in recent times, and yes it has taken (from the figures available so far) fewer lives than any cyclone in history. But it is odious to reduce human beings as mere objects, and consider casualty figures as mere statistics.
Thus, the glow of satisfaction in the faces of some officials while recounting historical data such as the one and half million deaths in the 1970 cyclone or the hundred fifty thousand that perished in April 1991, as a demonstration of the efficiency of the administration that has kept the death toll to only around three thousand, causes anguish.
This is not in any way to slight the actions of the administration and all the relevant agencies, pre- and post-disaster that helped to save a great many lives.
One would have liked to see no deaths at all, but that is perhaps asking too much of Providence that is so upset with us as to vent its anger from time to time by casting its wrath upon us. And we can do very little except seek consolation in the fact that Providence acts in mysterious ways. And we might take some solace in the fact that its scheme is beyond our wisdom to handle.
However, we may blame fate as much as we like till kingdom come, but the fact is that it is not Nature but we ourselves who are to be blamed for the fate that has befallen us now and in the past. And both politics and economics are responsible for the casualties that we have suffered.
Let us consider the number of deaths caused by Sidr. Fewer number of deaths compared to the past is little comfort to the survivors. The casualty figure is around just over 3000 dead so far.
One might ask why so many, since one life lost is one too many. One of the reasons that we get to hear is that there were not enough shelters to accommodate all the people in the area. The other was the tendency of the people to wait and see till it was too late. Reportedly, in certain areas the agencies responsible for ensuring evacuation did not measure up to their tasks.
But what purpose would a full evacuation serve if there are not enough shelters where the people could be put up. This worked as a factor in dissuading the locals from moving to the cyclone shelters. But then, there is another cause that we tend to overlook. Evacuation means more than moving out just with husband and wife and children and parents only. The two cows and four goats for example, that are a source of sustenance for the poor family, are perhaps the most valuable possessions, parting with which is a very difficult choice.
These are realities that the planners seem to lose sight of. No doubt things could have been much worse had it not been for the government pre-cyclone actions that were able to move more than half a million to safety, no mean achievement at all.
But the single most important factor is the lack of adequate number of shelters. In fact the period, post-1991 cyclone, witnessed hectic activities in this regard and plenty of foreign aid was received.
That might not have been enough to construct the required number of cyclone shelters, but did we lack the ability to generate the necessary funds ourselves? It was not lack of money but lack of determining the priorities. This, I am afraid, demonstrates a type of indifference of the government of the time to the safety and security of the people.
Crores of taka have been spent, for example, on making memorial complexes in memory of late leaders, spending money that would have been better spent on measures to afford safety and security to the people.
A disaster that has affected almost 20 per cent of the population and 30 per cent of the land mass cannot be tackled by the government alone. We have seen very little of the NGOs and even less of the political parties on the ground.
It is the political parties in particular who, with their grass-roots level organisation, are better equipped to supplement government efforts in mitigating the immediate hardship of the cyclone affected. One would have expected these parties to be in the cyclone-hit areas already instead of splitting hairs on the modalities and their current status vis a vis the existing emergency.
This is yet another example of playing politics with people's woes. If the CAS commitment not to allow anyone to die of lack of food then the participation of all would be indispensable.
Interestingly, there was a Saarc workshop on disaster management held a few days after the cyclone battered the southern coast of Bangladesh. There is nothing absolutely new that has emerged from it, and there is nothing that our experts are not aware of that should be done to reduce the risk of natural calamities, except for restating the very obvious.
Regrettably, it is the very obvious that we tend to overlook more often. For one thing, we have not been proactive enough in this regard.
We are hearing the call from many quarters to make long-term planning to tackle natural calamities. There will be, no doubt, a flurry of activities for a few days and much talk about the issue, only to be forgotten till the next calamity strikes, and the process will be repeated. This must not be allowed to happen.
The author is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.