They Thrive on Tsunami deaths

[Guest guest]

 

They thrive on tsunami death and devastation

Arup Chanda

Tribune News Service

 

 

Young tsunami survivors, who lost their parents in the disaster, play with toy

mobile phones at a newly opened orphanage on the outskirts of Nagapattinam, 350

km south of Chennai, on Saturday. — Reuters photo

Nagapattinam/Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu), January 8

Natural calamities are nothing new in a large country like India where in one

part there might be a drought while in another part there might be floods.

But over the last decade a new phenomenon is coming to light – some who thrive

on death and devastation. Unfortunately other than unscrupulous traders and

government officials, innumerable touts and money lenders, there are many NGOs

and television journalists.

The scene is no different in tsunami-struck Nagapattinam and Cuddalore districts

of Tamil Nadu, where more than 10,000 persons have died leaving many orphans and

lakhs displaced with their homes razed to the ground.

Hordes of NGOs not only from New Delhi and Kolkata but also from abroad have

descended in the two districts with a professional video cinematographer and

photographers. One might be surprised what role a cameraman or a photographer

play in a non-media organisation.

Asked one of the team leaders replied, “See, we have to document everything.

From distribution of relief to taking interviews of government officials about

the extent of damage and how much money needed for rehabilitation, everything

need to be submitted to our foreign donors for funds.”

So, are many of these NGOs who seem have no clue about the region, its people

and culture just here to obtain foreign funding?

Replies Arup Das of CINNI: “Instead of opposing, I strongly support your

observation. There are many who are out here to fish in the troubled sea.”

In a country of millions of unemployed there are many young men and women who

have come here as part of NGO teams without any qualification in social welfare

and could be seen moving around with smiling faces while the women wail about

the death of their children.

Sporting colourful T-shirts with their names written on them speed around from

one government office to another in Toyota Qualises.

The scene at Nagapattinam Collectorate, a massive complex recently built, says

it all. A representative from some NGO or other is patiently waiting from

morning.

Whenever a top official’s car comes in it is action time for the videographer

and the photographers. The representatives smile, shake hands while it is

recorded for the sake of sponsors and foreign funders. Mission accomplished he

or she then enquires about the Central Assessment Team touring the tsunami

affected areas to assess the damage.

“Do you know which batch of IAS is Rastogi or Srivavstava belong to? I can ask

one of my contacts in Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata to put in a word,” one of

them could be heard asking another about the CAT members.

One NGO even deputed a man with a mobile to immediately inform when a bureaucrat

is visiting the ravaged villages or to the relief camps so that its “media team”

reaches there on time.

Television channels both national and foreign compete with each other to film

the dead, the women beating their chests and wailing incoherently and of course

the orphaned children.

A 28-year-old woman who lost her husband and two children but could survive with

just a three-month-old son, was asked to carry the infant in her arms and “walk

a few steps” because a TV journalist thought it would “set the mood” for the

story on child survivors.

A woman television correspondent from the Netherlands visited a relief camp with

a bagfull of stuffed toys. She hands out toys to few children and asks them to

smile while the others look sadly. She goes on air, “For the children of

Nagapattinam, smiles like these are few and far between... these innocent smiles

may not last forever (she signals the cameraman to pan to the children without

toys), only despair seems to be their lot.”

Take this from a national news channel at the government-run orphanage in

Nagapattinam. The correspondent flashes a smile to the camera and goes on air

saying: “Lots of beautiful babies are available here for adoption...” as if

tsunami made these children beautiful instead of killing their parents and

making them homeless.

When a body of a child is recovered and wrapped with white cloth on the

Velankenni beach, a French television channel through its interpreter directs

the conservancy workers to lift it to the truck from a particular angle to get

the right shot.

When a child died at a relief camp the family wanted the baby cremated but

journalists thought otherwise. The body was placed on a towel and parents and

other siblings were asked to sit around it while the cameras rolled. Some even

asked the mother to start crying! For majority of the American and European

media there is no dignity for either the dead or the survivors of the Asian

tsunami. Well, we are a different colour and race from the 9/11 victims when no

television channel showed a single charred dead body to respect the victims’

families.

At Nagapattinam a foreign correspondent was willing to share his news gathering

allowance with a policeman: “I hear there are many mass graves here. I need a

picture. Can you show me where they are?”

As the death toll went up their motto seem to be: We want more!

 

(Tribuneindia.com)