One wonders as to which of these is the bigger tragedy: The loss of thousands of human lives in Uttarakhand or the lack of national unity and absence of civilised conduct among our politiciansIJ
Apart from the death and devastation that it brought in its wake, the Uttarakhand disaster has brought to the fore the ugly side of politics, the complete lack of civility and decency in inter-party relations and regional politics in its most repulsive form. While at the national level, one saw lack of decorum in the exchanges between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party when the entire country was in mourning over the tragic loss of lives in Uttarakhand, the people have also come face to face with an obnoxious form of regionalism that poses a grave danger to national unity, and the feeling of oneness.
Before we discuss these disturbing developments, a word about the decline of national parties and the mushroomed growth of regional political forces over the last three decades. The last time a single party obtained a clear majority in the lok Sabha was in 1984. Thereafter, the Union Government has been run either by a minority Government with assured outside support or by a coalition of disparate parties. The proliferation of small parties is best explained by the fact that in 1957, the second lok Sabha had MPs representing 12 political parties. Fifty years hence, there were MPs belonging to 42 political parties in this House. These regional parties first gain seats in the State legislatures and, thereafter, convert this electoral power into seats in Parliament.
Meanwhile, the Congress and the BJP are engaged in an unseemly tussle to run down each other and garner the support of regional parties for their alliances. While one lived with such unpleasant spats in relatively normal times, it is tragic to see the two parties carrying on a no-holds barred fight in the midst of the Himalayan tragedy in Uttarakhand. For example, the Union Minister for Home Affairs and other Congress leaders objected to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Uttarakhand and said politicians should stay away, forgetting that the Prime Minister and the Congress president had started it all via an aerial survey. They were also unable to proffer similar advice to Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.
Even more tragic was Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna’s refusal to accept help offered by Mr Modi and others. Mr Bahuguna said he did not want a parallel rescue operation by the Gujarat Government. That is understandable, but surely ways could have been devised to take the help of other States.
The impact of regional politics is even worse. The last 30 years have seen the emergence of dozens of regional and even local parties whose USP is their irrational and, at times, mindless commitment to what they see as ‘State interest’. For example, there are political leaders in the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and in some of the smaller parties in Tamil Nadu who challenge even judicial pronouncements on highly volatile issues like the sharing of Cauvery waters, in order to retain their hold over the electors in their States. Such partisanship has also been seen in Punjab and Haryana on the sharing of waters or resolving boundary disputes and in the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh on the demand for Statehood.
However, no one had ever seen such naked display of partisanship and shameless regionalism in the aftermath of a national calamity, as one did soon after the rampaging floods took their toll in Uttarakhand. Since the Badrinath-Kedarnath yatra is popular among Hindus in all regions of the country and a large number of Hindus undertake this pilgrimage every year, these centres were flooded with pilgrims from across the land. There were hundreds and even thousands of pilgrims from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Karnataka and many other States in this ill-fated state when disaster struck.
While in the past, the Centre and many States unilaterally offered help to the affected State and the latter graciously accepted the help offered, Uttarakhand 2013 saw a new, ugly regional dimension to disaster management and many politicians from other States began vying with one another to help the victims from their respective States. Also, sadly, the growth and popularity of extremely partisan regional political forces has corrupted the thinking of State-level leaders of so-called national parties like the Congress and the BJP. Such is the deleterious influence of regional politics that even well-entrenched leaders in these national parties think it prudent to don the regional cap in order to retain their hold on their States, and this was on display at Uttarakhand.
Many State Governments got down to the task immediately and this included Gujarat, Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Each State rushed its politicians, bureaucrats and even helicopters to rescue its pilgrims and bring them to safety. While all these States have claimed that they helped pilgrims from other regions also (Madhya Pradesh has released specific figures), this is the first time that the people are witnessing such a regional approach to rescue and relief operations in the face of a national calamity. Regional political parties also organised parallel relief operations.
The ugliest episode in this saga of regional politics in disaster relief was played out at the Dehradun airport. Anxious to win the hearts of the Telugu people for their philanthropic act, the Telugu Desam Party led by Mr Chandrababu Naidu took the lead by organising relief for Andhra pilgrims at the Andhra Pradesh Bhavan in New Delhi and in Uttarakhand. Mr Naidu also took a team of doctors to Dehradun and organised a special flight for Andhra victims from Dehradun to three destinations in Andhra Pradesh.
Finding itself completely outsmarted, the Congress dispatched senior leaders to Dehradun, requisitioned another aircraft and resorted to desperate measures to wean away passengers from the Telugu Desam flight. This lead to a virtual fist-fight between Congress and Telugu Desam Party MPs. Telugu TV channels were full of visuals of old and infirm disaster victims caught in the tug-of-war between the two political parties and flaunting boarding passes for both flights.
looking at this tragic turn of events, one wonders as to which of these is the bigger tragedy — the loss of thousands of human lives in the cloudburst and rampaging floods or the lack of national unity and absence of civilised conduct among our politiciansIJ