Option for the Marginalised J. Ragu Antony

To talk today about the tsunami of 2004 is, it seems, like flogging the proverbial dead horse: what once shook the world is no longer news; the media after feasting on tsunami news has spat it out like an overchewed tobacoo stub and has turned to feed on other sensational matters; the state has reverted to its actual agenda of appeasing dominant vote banks; other people have resumed their routines; elections are held; budgets are tabled; life goes on. But unfortunately for the tsunami victims, especially for fisher folks of Kanyakumari district, life offers no hope. They are still left clueless.

So we need some to wake up our benumbed senses; someone who is sensitive and authentic; not a distracting siren who would mislead you with inert slogans and invalid statistics. Vareethiah Konstantine is one such voice, though a voice in the wilderness. And The catastrophe And After is the outcome of his observations, documentation and analyses of the numerous issues at stake along the kanyakumari coast.

The book is different from other books on tsunami as it not only highlights the inadequacies and failures of the state and voluntary organizations in providing relief but also brings to the fore the violations and camouflaged agendas that appropriated the catastrophe to further their interests.

In the first part, the book sets out to reveal how the approaches and methodologies of the agencies were condescending at times, even over bearing. Quite frequently pernicious proposals were well calibrated and paraded as panaceas. Yet although, barring a few, most of these agencies were insensitive immune to human needs of individuals, especially women. Parallel to these enactments, the media portrayed the victims as mobs that were congenitally anarchic and mischievous and were wallowing in free food and comforts at the expense of others. The book attacks these myths and ungrounded assumptions and reveal the play of various forces that create and sustain these falsehoods. The author also reveals the reason (usually dissipated on irrelevant projects) and a multitude of programmes and schemes, the coast should remain a gloomy, death-trap environment for its native inhabitants.

The part leads to its second part wherein the author’s long association with the coast and its people come to the fore. This part is also the result of along process of observation and reflection on these people and their lives and causes for their misery-issues that were foregrounded by the tsunami but sadly and cleverly swept out of focus when public attention turned to other glamorous issues. Though quite a few may argue over what constitutes the major reason for these problems, most would agree that the causes can not be compart-mentalized; they are problems that telescope into one another.

The coast has always meant several things to several people: a pliable vote bank to the political parties, a source of revenue for the state and the Church, an area for flippant research for academicians and a garbage yard for everyone. However, for the first time after tsunami, the coast was found to be inhabited by people who were in no way different from others elsewhere, though the issues and concerns that impinge upon their lives were unique and therefore defy categorisation and generalisation. So here there is no room for for platitude and sloganeering: amidst the ignorance and squalor of the coast, it is more possible to lose one’s sense of proportion. Only perseverance and a very liberal approach can make and impact. It calls for a mind and a will that can simultaneously remain detached and also be invoved. And this book has done this impossible tight rope walk.

There have been numerous studies by various groups over the years on these fishermen. Missionaries, state appointed commissions, independent study groups, academicians and corporates masquerading as voluntary agencies have tried to fit these people into their theoretical frame works. But these agencies have been failures as they tried to took at the fisher folk through their respective glasses and hence failed to see the dynamics involved; even when some did discern the truth, they dared not to be explicitas they lacked the will to upset the status quo. Consequently, all these studies offered psudo solutions. The solutions they offered were naive or even pernicious; the fisher folk were completely out of focus. In this context comes this book. The solutions they offered were naïve or even pernicious; the fisher folk were completely out of focus. In this context comes this book. The comprehensive analysis made by the author therefore debars him from ariving at simplistic conclusions and offering recycled suggestions. The suggestions he does offer are valid and appropriate to the coastal environment though it needs enormous will and long drawn commitments on the part of everyone involved. And as some of the suggestions warrant unpopular measures, vote bank poiticians and self serving groups (even within the fisher communities) are bound to disown them. Yet the points have been well argued and established beyond dispute. Inevitably, at places the text acquires and aggressive tone implying the urgency of the needs. Certainly, on such occasions, the researcher within the author is exiled and the spirit of zealous activist takes over. This significant characteristic, the crusader-researcher approach gives an edge to the work, i.e., a uncompromising commitment and an explicit option for the marginalised.

The last part of the book-Voices-is an edited compilation of the various commissions and their reccommendations for the improvement of the coast in the wake of the tsunami. Some of these recommendations on relief operations seem to be no longer relevant as the relief phase was over much earlier. But on careful reading, keeping the purpose of the book within focus, one finds most of the recommendations-which are repeated by all commissions (organisations/fact finding missions/tribunals)-could serve as templates for such contingencies in future; they are also valid for at several stations, the tsunami rehabilitation programme is still unable to look beyond the relief stage.

There is one area which the author has not adequately negotiated in the book: the role of the Catholic Church in the lives of the coastal inhabitants. While the author has in very precise and unambiguous terms exposed the ideological hypocrisy and the moral bankruptcy of politicians, he has been less elaborate and circumspect in his critique of the Church. The feudalistic attitude of the Church and its subsequent inability to stand up for its flock on issues vital to them have been well established on several occassions by various writers. But its absence from a critical book as this can hardly be justified. It is a hope that this could be a definite point for elaboration when subsequent eition is called for.

In today’s global scenario, where corporates become custodians and foster parents of education, independent and society oriented research will be consigned to the last seat of priorities. In all such cases, this book could serve as a reliable model for life oriented study. The book does not offer easy and flippant reading: it calls for a reflective reading-a reading that will change our prespectives and force us to abandon our complacencies and reconsider our priorities.

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