The southern state expects more from India than India does from itself.
Only Rs 100 crore? Only Rs 500 crore? Only 20 helicopters? People are drowning, people are dying, why aren’t you helping? Why is the Delhi media not reporting our plight? Where’s your humanity? Where’s your conscience?
Over the past few days, Kerala has shamed the Indian conscience. But it isn’t merely the north Indian apathy towards south India. Neither is it just the ruling party’s indifference to a state that doesn’t vote for it, nor is it merely our Hindutva bigotry for a state where even Brahmins eat beef. There’s more to it. Floods and natural disasters have become so common now that we’ve become immune to them.
And, truth is that the response of the state and central governments is far from adequate. The media attention is even less. The affected people complain about how little the state is able to do for them during every single flood. It’s just that in the case of Kerala, the voices have been louder.
Also read: Here’s how you can help the flood-hit people in Kerala
Unlike the areas that usually see floods, such as Assam and Bihar, Kerala has a high rate of literacy and urbanisation, and low poverty rate. No matter what the BJP and its supporters say, Kerala is also better governed than most of India. It is thus natural that people of Kerala expect a better response from the country when they face the worst flood in a century.
Greater access to education and social media has helped Kerala make a noise and be heard despite a national media wanting to cover polarising political stories. By contrast, people in remote villages of eastern India literally drown in the waters and yet can’t get their voices to reach us.
Take last year alone. In separate floods, at least 514 people died in Bihar, 224 died in Gujarat, 85 in the northeast, 17 in Rajasthan, 50 in West Bengal, eight in Jharkhand, and 14 in Mumbai.
These death counts hide the misery of millions of people displaced by floods – people who saw their homes drown, their cattle die, their wealth destroyed. These death counts don’t even begin to tell you how many people had to spend countless nights in the open, on rooftops, in poorly-resourced shelters without clothes, food, drinking water or medicines.
Also read: Remember this catastrophe when rebuilding Kerala, respect nature, say experts
Their voices never reached us. That is partly because we didn’t listen, partly because we don’t care, and partly because they don’t expect us to listen and care. Kerala is different. Kerala expects better from us and, in doing so, it has set a higher standard of what the national response to a disaster relief should be.
It is not enough to feel proud of the Indian Army, Navy and the Air Force for rescuing people stuck in flood-hit areas. When we do so, it sounds like the nation is doing these people a favour. “What more do they want?” asked an insensitive proud Indian on Twitter.
But this was certainly not enough for Kerala, which expected every single person to be rescued. The government and the defence forces had to step up their efforts.
Also read: Kerala floods – The science behind what went wrong, and what we have to learn
As climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent, more people will die. The Indian state, truth be told, does not have the capacity to save everyone or to rebuild everyone’s life and home. This is going to get worse. Get ready. Pro tip: make a lot of noise. Scream.