Children’s Deaths: Politicians And IAS Officers Are Responsible

Here is probably what happened. An illiterate / uncaring worked decided to use a pesticide can to fetch oil. The contaminated oil was used to cook food. The children got poisoned. Till now it seems like a case of criminal negligence. But once it was realized that the kids were poisoned, authorities who may be uncaring but are literate should have done the right thing. Clearly the amount of poison was not too much (otherwise the fatalities would have been a lot more). The DM and other officials should have mobilized healthcare resources and pumped the stomach of these children which is an extremely easy process (kids could have been made to drink salt water thereby inducing vomiting and mitigating the un-absorbed poison. I am not saying that all the kids could have been saved but the numbers could have been greatly reduced. But what actually happened was just like a typical Indian operation, one blunder after another was committed with everyone trying to save their own hide. No one is saying that Nitish Kumar is responsible for this but at the very least he could have taken it upon himself to organize the rescue operation. You do not have to be a Modi for this small an operation. What we see is a man still trying to assess the political fallout of the situation. How typical of a desi politico!

Can we avoid all and every accidental death in a country of our size? NO. But what we can do is to implement procedures which take care of such problems and then have trained personnel to follow those blindly. All this could have been avoided if there was a designated container for oil instead of someone using last minute jugaad which is what we are good at. We do not try to follow proper procedure. Instead we always use jugaad as an easy way out. We follow rules at the airport. We follow rules at privately owned establishments. We follow rules and rituals blindly and very properly at temples. We are capable of following procedures but only under fear of law, God or a stick. Ideally we should do so because it is important and has great value (for society and country as a whole).

We see it all around us. The least valuable thing in our country is human life. It maybe because there are too many of us. Caring for people becomes an onerous task. However, people like politicians and IAS babus have a view of the bigger picture. They have a responsibility that comes with the freedom to rape and pillage the country and that is to save a life once in a while. Do the right thing for once.

What stopped Nitish Kumar from dispatching a few helicopters full of medical supplies? What stopped the local DM who clearly is a more educated man than I from calling up all the local doctors and force them to do the right thing? What is stopping the local authorities from ensuring that the ambulance carrying the kids has enough petrol to go where they are supposed to go? What stopped the leaders and the babus to use the allocated funds instead of letting the money lapse? All this points to incompetence and cruel indifference.

Maybe not 15000, but Narendra Modi saved a whole lot of people sitting in what can be considered as an enemy territory by using established protocols. All the rest of our politicians for whom the term incompetent is not enough, sat around offering criticisms and coining terms like Rambo. Compared to Modi who swung into action and did all he could, Nitish Kumar cut a very sorry picture. If Modi is Rambo then Nitish Kumar is a combination of two characters from Sholay - Soorma Bhopali or the “Angrezon Kay Zamane ka Jailer” (roles made immortal by Jagdeep and Asrani respectively who are very competent actors). In fact since the tragedy, Nitish Kumar has been working on managing the political fallout. How do I know this? Isn’t it clear from the way he is engineering a defection in the Bihar BJP? A year ago I thought that Nitish Kumar was a competent CM. Now he looks like just another mistake by the voters.

(The picture used has got nothing to do with the recent tragedies. It is just a picture of a precious little girl who deserves the best in life)