dna edit: Exploiting tragedy

Like any other disaster, the catastrophe in Uttarakhand too has brought out the best and worst in men. On one hand, there are tales of heroism of the armed forces who continue to risk their lives to evacuate pilgrims trapped in the danger zones. In one such rescue operation a chopper crashed, killing nine National Disaster Response Force personnel and six Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force jawans.

On the other hand, there are cynical games of brinkmanship played by politicians of all hues. For them such a large-scale calamity has come in the form of an ideal opportunity to hog the limelight. On Wednesday, the unseemly squabble between the TDP and Congress legislators of Andhra Pradesh over which party would take the stranded victims back home was a case of politics trumping rescue efforts. The nation watched stunned as two groups of MLAs almost came to blows at Dehradun’s Jolly Grant airport, oblivious to the presence of TV cameras recording their actions. Neither group would cede ground. The physical scuffle had little to do with victims’ welfare. All that mattered was scoring brownie points over political rivals.

The Congress and the TDP aren’t the only ones guilty of exploiting a disaster.
The cynical efforts to burnish Narendra Modi’s image at the cost of the Uttarakhand disaster were on display recently when a gullible media tom-tommed Gujarat CM’s ‘superheroic’ efforts apparently rescuing 15,000 people, without once bothering to verify the authenticity of these absurd claims.

After Modi, it was Rahul Gandhi’s turn to make the most of the monumental tragedy when he flew to the Guptakashi relief camp in the Kedarnath valley on a chopper. He interacted with the victims and assured them of help from the central and state governments. It didn’t occur to him that his presence could hamper relief operations.

With barely a year to go before the 2014 elections, the political class is cynically manipulating the Uttarakhand tragedy in the hope of extracting electoral mileage.
Amid the devastation a massive public relations exercise seems to be underway.

What politicians deliberately refuse to realise is that their very presence is impeding rescue operations. There should be blanket ban on politicians visiting the ravaged sites. The Centre and the state governments should allow the armed forces to do their jobs without any political hindrance.

Though 97,000 people have been rescued so far, some 5,000-odd people are still waiting to be evacuated. The weather is hostile often thwarting rescue missions. What is of utmost priority is to save as many lives as possible. The armed personnel are hoping to complete rescue operations by Friday. Then comes the mammoth job of rehabilitating the people who have lost their homes, relatives and livelihood.

If our netas continue to play politics at every step that would be indeed unfortunate.