JUNE 25- Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi flew down to the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand and visited various crisis spots in the state where people were either dead or dying. Mr Modi is touted as the BJP’s next prime ministerial candidate. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President and BJP president Rajnath Singh had their rounds of aerial surveys. They didn’t touch down. That Modi did that made news, but just what exactly he did, did not until a report in a newspaper said Modi flew out with 15,000 Gujaratis.
Now that was newsmaking number. One, 15,000 was a large and unbelievable number. Army had managed to rescue half that number in seven days. Two, it sounded utterly stupid that the Gujarat CM would rescue only Gujaratis. In a situation like that IDing people would be inhuman and improbable. Modi, however, did not deny the figure.
But then the Congress jumped in and called him Rambo and then added that even Rambo couldn’t rescue so many. Before Modi’s visit, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde advised ‘chief ministers’ to avoid visiting Uttarakhand. He, however, was accompanied by two Congress chief ministers. Then the Rambo comment got the BJP’s goat, which said that the Congress administration had failed to rescue people and jealous of Modi’s success in doing so. Congress found it despicable that a BJP chief minister was earning brownie points in the time of such crisis.
The very next day, the nation came to know about Rahul Gandhi’s condition. He looked happy as his mother, Sonia Gandhi, flagged off relief material for the state. The trucks had photos of Rahul Gandhi beaming. Rahul Gandhi himself flew to Uttarakhand and media called this as his Rambo moment. The weather didn’t permit him to fly to areas where people need help, immediate help.
Thousands are still stranded. Hundreds are lost in jungles scared of the angry river, hoping to find a way out of the forests where leopards lurk in the shadows. Leopards that have tasted human flesh, now abound as dead bodies lie strewn in a large part of the state. People without drinking water or food, hoping for a miracle.
There’s no miracle in sight. The only real hope are the armed forces of India. They have been working relentlessly, risking their own lives to save those of the stranded pilgrims/tourists. They are the saviours. The politicians of all hues have only added to the misery by politicising it. So much so that the Uttarakhand government refused a genuine offer from Gujarat government because it knows this may again score brownie points for Narendra Modi.
The disaster in Uttarakhand was a result of nature’s fury. The initial delay in response was followed by a cluelessness of Himalayan proportions, further compounded by naked politicisation of the disaster. The disaster after the disaster was entirely man-made.
That we have real disaster at hand and we are discussing a fictional character of a film series. Rambo. We have Rambo 2 playing now. And that’s the real tragedy in this tragedy.
