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Crisis Management in Crisis - By- Suman Chopra Suman Chopra, is well known to Sawf readers for her no nonsense moderate view. Wife of a senior Air Force Officer. Suman periodically steals time from her family and social responsibilities to enrich the Sawf columns with her views. In fact her whole family is a contributor-cum-fan of the Sawf."

the concern about the earthquake in Gujarat seems to have lasted only slightly longer than the quake itself. Have we already forgotten about the people of Bhuj?"

On one hand television channels splashed the glamour struck Femina Miss India contest with sponsors galore and gizmos and gadgets aplenty. On the other hand, the country was struck with the Armageddon of nature versus man, and we in India flipped channels in between breaks our eyes groping for key words like death, toll and thousands. Haggard politicians kept flashing our screens with aid numbers- A, 5 crore, B, 1 crore, C, 45000 dollars etc etc but even after the third day, the cries of the common man were replete with basic needs and curses for the government. Ministers visited and went, figures were thrown from every corner of the world, municipal organisations peeked and inspected, the cranes gave in to nature's destruction and the common man still wept. They did not know what to do. If they slept in the open, they'd freeze to death, if they took refugee under concrete, their own homes would gobble them up. The catastrophe had come so suddenly that in a moment, their lives took steep turns alike roller coasters.

CMG- the once founded Crisis Management Group was dormant until the parlay happened. School children to teachers, pregnant mothers to senior citizens, houses to ships, they all shook. Shook, like a hair on a vibrator and now, they stand in a cesspool of death, misery and debris. They now waited alert; for another tragedy to follow the first; and it just did. The second earthquake in Ahmedabad caused a fearful stampede and trapped fear in vacuumed hearts of the public.

The Bhuj earthquake is a reminder of many a human disasters, not only at home but abroad as well. Overseas (outside of India) when 113 people died in the Air France Concorde crash,. an international body was set up to undertake an investigation into the crash about which we are still getting reports. In yet another human disaster where a single human life was trapped in one of the jungles in USA, American forces were engaged day and night until they saved that one human life.

Contrast this with what happened when 10,000 people died in the Orissa cyclone. There was misery, need and helplessness. Non Government Organisations helping with aid process (NGOs) collected clothes and funds but when it was time to upload in the aircraft, there was a conflict between the NGOs as to which NGO gets a priority. The sufferer? The common man!

In the events of natural disasters abroad, respective governments lift their victim citizens out of their misery-struck situations, building faith in the public they govern. Did India demonstrate even half as much capability in managing the crisis with the Kandhahar incident or Orissa cyclone or the Chamoli or the Bhopal gas tragedy? Aren't there too many question marks?

We are a crisis prone country but not one ministry entirely undertakes a disaster cum crisis management portfolio! Why is this country not prepared at the very instance? Bangalore has felt some tremors, but not once has the government or concerned bodies initiated measure, suggestions and information to make public aware and educate them about warning signs and signals and how to act in the even the tremors re-occur. Why do we take time to 'activate'? Despite globalisation, liberalisation and the now favourite 'convergence' we have not managed to devise a systematic way of managing any crisis or calamity that hits the country. In times of disasters and calamities, the basic fabric of the society gets marked with holes and hapless expressions, a large proportion of which can be minimized only if the government took crisis management seriously and decided to do something about it. Our defence is being propped up to include the state-of-the-art but in response to nature's rage, we have very few standing measures to save our lives. The recent earthquake calamity in Gujrat will prove to be an eye opener and bring about some seriously needed action in the area of crisis management. Afterall "It is never too late to improve".

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