Gujarat . . . living in hope

More than eight months after the earthquake devastated Gujarat, rehabilitation of the poor has not gathered momentum. Deprived of their rightful compensation and faced with a number of hurdles, villagers continue to wait for a better tomorrow. GOUTAM GHOSH gives an account of the pain that lingers long after the tragedy.

THE poor in Gujarat are no better off now than they were after the quake last January 26. The resuscitating aid injected into the heart of Gujarat by the rest of the world had dodged the marginalised, battle-weary section who have been hardened by a challenging existence that blacks out any light of hope.

As the convoy of the team - comprising a former Supreme Court judge, health and other professionals and a group of social workers whose strength varied from village to village - crawled along the arterial road of Bhuj before heading for Anjar, piles of rubble pleaded to be moved. Houses, split down the middle as if with a blunt axe, stood mummified after the fury eight months ago which had liquidated families and liquefied people's resistance to despair. But life seems to go on in Bhuj where cracks have been filled with cement and new walls have replaced old. People crowd the streets as if life is normal.

On the way to Anjar lies Ratnal village where the rubble forms hillocks of waste even today. A few shelters have come up amid it and people try to live as normally as they can.

At Anjar, a stunned lot once stood on piles in January as earthmovers rumbled on, biting into roofs that caved in on dreams, refusing to yield the remains of the old, women, men and children. They stood hoping against hope that a hand of their dear one would wave the earthmover to stop. But swollen hands or legs barely wrapped in tattered saris, kameez or shorts were all they saw. The dear ones waited only for their last rites.

The old Anjar town in the west was damaged more than the east and what remains now is a plain with hardly any rubble. A few scattered houses defend their dignity with corrugated tin sheets, hoping for the impossible cool relief from a glaring sun. Gujarat, where the mercury touches extremes, is now dotted with such temporary shelters.

The move by the Mumbai-based Indian People's Tribunal (IPT) to hear the people's grievances directly met with subtle resistance all the way. For instance, in Anjar, the Rotary Club agreed to give its hall but withdrew its offer at the last minute. The IPT organised the tribunal through local NGOs, but in Bhuj the Kutch Navnirman Abhiyan, which is handling hundreds of crores of aid money and is involved in a reconstruction programme, refused to cooperate. Mr. Wilfred D'Souza, an organiser said he had a tough time getting a place and could not inform all the villages around the venue. As a result there was only a thin crowd.

In Modsar village, Anjar taluk, some hours' drive from Anjar town, villagers waited patiently to share their woes with the IPT. Many narrated how they had been deprived of their rightful compensation. They had either not received money or relief, or worse, they had been deprived of their rights by agencies which insisted on the technical fine print of rules. Many could not claim compensation because the Government agencies or the NGOs entrusted with the funds insisted on ration cards or death certificates, even when the whole village rallied behind the affected. But people's voices obviously did not matter.

In Samakhyali, a number of teenage widows carrying infants narrated how they did not get any aid from the Government which insisted on post-mortem certificates. Sumaben did not get any compensation because the Rs.10,000 went to her sister-in-law. Banks refused to give loans to many. They insisted on ration cards even though the cards had not been issued for three years. Mr. Sukumaran, retired judge, could not hide the anger which overcame his poise and he said, "On the issue of post-mortem certificates, when the parent says that his child died, and when the neighbour vouches for it, and still the Government insists on a post-mortem certificate, the Government should be pulled up."

Those who could get access to the aid-disbursing agents received ample aid. Whether the aid reflected the extent of the damage is another question. Most of those who had lost everything got just a fraction of their real loss. This included relocation, damage to houses and person. In a section of Adhoi village where the marginalised lot once stayed, the rubble still stands. Two officials from the irrigation department surveyed the damage. Houses which had been ripped apart were classified as "partially damaged".

The fiasco that exists today in Gujarat, that has ruined the peace of life and the stability of livelihood of the poor villagers, is not beyond the purview of integrated management. What is needed is a system that can look beyond the ephemeral veil of caste, creed, religion and pecuniary status and focus on the plight - of human beings hurt by the quake.

* * *

Health system limps

THE number of healthy individuals-turned-paraplegics by the earthquake who had been brought by their family to the People's Tribunal hearing was impressive. Though the microphones were cornered by the able-bodied, quake-hit villagers helped the paraplegics to air their concern. The plight of amputees, especially children, was pathetic. In some cases, surgical intervention too had not helped. In some cases the bones would not join, in others, wounds had not healed even after these eight months.

After visiting villages on the way from Bhuj to Ahmedabad by road, the tribunal's members spoke with two senior physicians - Dr. M. M. Prabhakar, chairman, Gujarat State Rehabilitation Programme (Earthquake) and Dr. Dilip Patel, Government Physiotherapist - in Ahmedabad on August 20. Excerpts from the conversation:

Dr. Unnikrishnan P. V. (UPV), Oxfam India: There was a press report of 12 vacant posts.

AP: There were just eight physiotherapists on a particular date.

M. M. Prabhakar (MMP): That is not true.

AP: My association visited after the quake. Seeing the number of vacancies, the National Association (of physiotherapists) offered to help but was told that the existing physios could take care of all the patients. What are the ways you train paraplegics?

MMP: Has the tribunal team come here for criticism or...?

Justice Sukumaran (JS): No, no, no. We want the basic information so that we will be satisfied that these have been done and these were the failures - if there have been any failures. We will not rush to any conclusion, but if there has been some deficiency, we can say so which in future can be taken care of.

MMP: We have four medical colleges and four medical college hospitals, many trust hospitals, and many middle-level hospitals. We gave the best possible care. We have two physiotherapy colleges. Our students also helped.

Dilip Patel (DP): In February we had 31 interns. We were taking care with their help in the hospital. That was our stand then.

JS: What is the percentage of people who came from the rural areas of Kutch for treatment?

MMP: Concerning paraplegics, they were nearly 50 per cent.

Nimita Bhatt, who heads an NGO in Rapar: Has there been any strategy for these patients? There have been differences over the kind of disability certificate people are getting because it is related to the compensation issue. We have seen their misery.

MMP: Some 1,100 certificates have been issued in Kutch. The criterion is more than 40 per cent disability for compensation. They have not given the exact disability percentage.

JS: Suppose a person has 38 per cent disability, your criteria will disable him from obtaining a certificate. What is the basis for the cut-off mark of 40 per cent?

MMP: If it is more than 40 per cent, the compensation is more. If it is less, they are not eligible for some benefits.

MMP: If there is more than 40 per cent disability, you get immediate compensation. If it is less, you do not get the compensation. (Evades the question.)

JS: In one case, a woman lost her hand after she was hit by a train in Kerala and lay unconscious with her leg across the rail. Another train ran over her leg. The Kerala High Court awarded her a compensation of Rs. 4 lakhs. The matter was taken to the Supreme Court which enhanced the compensation to Rs. 8 lakhs. So the existence of a disability, of an agony, of a tragedy is one thing while the computation is a later thing. I am trying to understand the basis of 40 per cent disability cut-off point and not issuing a certificate at all. (This question was not answered.)

MMP: In September we plan to do a follow-up of patients in the whole of Kutch area.

DP: The NGOs will bring the patients and we will go and see how they are.

AP: Do you know where the paraplegics discharged from your hospital are? You place the onus on the patients to come to your camp. You are not reaching out to them.

DP: We have a list of people discharged. Ms. Katharine of Handicap International (HI) is doing the local work and is in touch with the patients. Physiotherapists are working in Bhuj, Anjar, Rapar and Bhachau.

UPV: Any disaster puts an additional load on the people working. Has the Government issued any order to the physiotherapy colleges to send the students to work in the villages? People need simple information on the dos and do nots for paraplegics. Did it take initiative to publicise this information through radio or TV? Has there been any documentary on what the people should do in case of bedsores? It is not a question of whether the Health Ministry or the Information and Broadcasting Ministry should have done it.

MMP: We are deputing our orthopaedic teams in major cities. We teach our patients what to do and what not to do. With the help of HI, a booklet is being published.

Amar, ActionAid: Our partner organisations work in 128 villages in Anjar and Bhachau. We have seen the HI visiting the villages but so far there has been no information dissemination. What is the use of the HI coming in after eight months to print a booklet? In one case, in Luana village, both mother and daughter were paraplegics with severe bed sores. We took the HI to these people but HI has only physiotherapsists. Who is going to treat the bedsores? Where is the referral care? One NGO, Unnati, took the mother and daughter to a private hospital in Ahmedabad where they are now recovering.

MMP: We mention all the dos and do nots in Gujarati on the discharge card.

UPV: With a medical college coming up at Bhuj, I think the State can introduce disaster management medicine in the curriculum.

MMP: The Government's disaster management unit is working towards this.

G. G.

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