Considering the diligence of the armed forces and the enthusiasm and generosity of ordinary citizens, how is the attitude of the island's civilian administration to be accounted for? The answer is simple: a lack of democracy and popular empowerment. As a Union Territory, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have no legislature and thus no elected representatives with any clout, apart from a single member of Parliament. Elsewhere in India, in any crisis, officials have to answer to legislators at every level, and a failure to act would result in their being hounded by legislators and harried by trade unions, student groups, and the like. As Amartya Sen has shown in his work on famines, these mechanisms are essential to the proper distribution of resources in any situation of extreme scarcity. In effect, the political system serves as a means by which demands are articulated. The media similarly serve to create flows of information. These are precisely the mechanisms that are absent in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There are no elected representatives to speak for the people, and the media have been excluded from large swaths of territory. It is not for no reason that on the mainland, where these mechanisms do exist, the attitude of administrators in the affected districts has been more sensitive to the needs of the victims and substantially more open to the oversight of the press and to offers of help from other parts of the country.
It is common for civil servants to complain of the perils of political interference. The situation on the islands is proof that in the absence of vigorous oversight, many (although certainly not all) officials will revert to the indifference and inertia that are the natural condition of any bureaucracy.
Clearly the central government is aware that there is a problem, for the relief operation was restructured on January 2, reportedly at the personal intervention of Sonia Gandhi. What is more, several senior members of the ruling party have been dispatched to the outlying islands, not just for token visits but to make sure that supplies are properly distributed. These are welcome first steps, but it is essential for the central government to move quickly to create a more responsive and efficient disaster relief operation in this region, not just for the management of this disaster but for the long term. If anything can be said with any certainty, it is that the tsunami will not be the last seismic upheaval to shake the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
In 1991, after lying dormant for two hundred years, the volcano of Barren Island became active again, and there are reports that it erupted around the time of the earthquake of December 26. On September 14, 2002, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurred near Diglipur in North Andaman Island; now there are unconfirmed reports of a minor eruption in the same area. The signs are clear: no one can say the earth has not provided warnings of its intent.
In Port Blair I found that the tsunami's effects on the outlying islands could only be guessed at. The refugees in the camps spoke of apocalyptic devastation and tens of thousands dead; the authorities' estimates were much more modest. There were few, if any, reliable independent assessments, for the civil authorities had decided that no journalists or other "outsiders" were to be allowed to travel to the outlying islands. The reason given was that of the battlefield: too many resources would be spent on their protection. But no battle was under way in the islands, and the dangers of the tsunami were long past. Public ferry and steamer services linking Port Blair to the outer islands were in operation and had plenty of room for paying passengers. And yet journalists, Indian and foreign, who attempted to board these ships were forcibly dragged off.
On January 1 there was an unexpected parting in this curtain of exclusion. A couple of senior members of the ruling party came to Port Blair with the intent of traveling farther afield. It was quickly made known that an air force plane would be provided to take the ministers, and a retinue of journalists, to Car Nicobar the next day. This island, which is positioned halfway between the Andaman and Nicobar chains, is home to some 30,000 people, and it houses an air base that makes it something of a hub in relation to the more southerly islands.
Hoping to get on this plane, I duly presented myself at the airport, only to find that a great many others had arrived with the same expectation. As always in such situations, there was considerable confusion about who would get on. After the ministers had boarded, a minor melee ensued at the foot of the ramp that led to the plane's capacious belly. Knowing that I stood little chance of prevailing in this contest, I had almost resigned myself to being left behind when a young man in a blue uniform tapped my elbow and pointed across the airfield. "You want to go to Car Nicobar? That plane over there is carrying relief supplies. Just go and sit down. No one will say anything."
I sought no explanation for this unsolicited act of consideration; it seemed typical of the general goodwill of the military personnel I had encountered on the islands. As if on tiptoe, I walked across the tarmac and up the ramp. The plane was a twin-engine Soviet-era AN-26, rusty but dependable, and its capacious fuselage was lined with folding benches. The round portholes that pierced its sides were like eyes that had grown rheumy with age; time had sandpapered the panes of glass so that they were almost opaque. The cargo area was packed with mattresses, folding beds, cases of mineral water, and sacks of food, all covered with a net of webbing. Some half-dozen men were inside, sitting on the benches with their feet planted askew beside the mass of supplies. I seated myself in the only available space, beside a short, portly man with thick glasses and well-oiled, curly hair. He was dressed in a stiffly ironed brown safari suit, and he had an air of irascibility that spoke of a surfeit of time spent in filing papers and running offices. He was muttering angrily when I came aboard: "What do those people care? What have they ever done to help anyone…?" Ofall the people on that plane, he was perhaps the last I would have chosen to sit beside. I was keen to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, while he seemed determined to draw attention to himself. It could be only a matter of minutes, I thought, before the airmen evicted him. Inexplicably, they did not.
When the engines started up, my neighbor turned his attention to me. "These big people think they are so great, but what help have they given?" I assumed this to be a general expression of disgust, of the kind that is to be heard on every train and bus in the country. But then he added suddenly, "Let them go through what I have gone through. Let them suffer — then they would see…"
This hit me with the force of a shock. His well-laundered safari suit, his air of almost comical self-importance, his irascibility— there was nothing about him that bespoke the victim. But I understood now why the airmen had ignored his rants; they knew something about him that I did not, and this was their way of showing compassion.
In the meanwhile the tirade continued: "If those politicians had suffered as I have, what would they do? This is the question I want to ask."
I winced to think of my first response to his mutterings. "What exactly has happened?" I asked. "Tell me."
He did not want his name published, so I shall call him "the Director." This indeed was his official title: he had been posted to Car Nicobar in 1991, as the director of the island's Malaria Research Centre and had lived there ever since. He was originally from Puri, in Orissa, and had been trained at the University of Berhampore. During his tenure in Car Nicobar, he had married and had two children, a son, who was now thirteen, and a daughter, who was ten. His home was in Malacca — the seafront township I'd heard about in the camps — and his office was just a few minutes' walk from where he lived. In this office he had accumulated a great wealth of epidemiological knowledge. Car Nicobar had once been rife with malaria, he told me. In an island with a population of just 30,000, the annual incidence had been as high as 3810, even as recently as 1989. But during his time there he had succeeded in bringing the rate down to a fraction of this number. It was clear, from the readiness with which he quoted the figures, that he was immensely — and justly — proud of what he had achieved during his stay on the island.