-- Niruj Mohan,  Arvind Narrain , Nitin.R,  Deepu and Clifton Rozario.

Introduction

Close to a month after the devastating tsunami struck the coastal districts of Andhra, Pondicherry, Kerala and particularly Tamil Nadu, there is an urgent need to evaluate the nature of relief and rehabilitation. Is relief and rehabilitation moving smoothly ensuring succour and restoring some degree of normalcy to all those who were so tragically affected?

Initial assessments particularly by the media seem to be gung ho about how well the relief and rehabilitation process is going.  Shashi Kumar in fact argues that, ‘if Tamil Nadu sustains the momentum of its relief and rehabilitation programme , the state can lay claim to the first success story in disaster management. [1] There is evidence to support this upbeat assessment, particularly the swift process by which the Tamil Nadu government has moved to ensure interim compensation, distribution of relief, reopening of schools and other measures to reintroduce a measure of normalcy for which the Tamil Nadu government deserves credit.

However the greatest blindspot of all agencies right from the Central Government to the State Government to the various NGO’s both national and international to academic scholars, is the unwillingness to take on board the fundamental reality of Indian society, caste discrimination and how it plays out in relief and rehabilitation to ensure that Dalits and Adivasis are completely marginalized in these processes.

The caste realities of the coastal districts

There is no doubt that the community most severely affected by the tsunami is the fishing community. However it would be irresponsible to assume that all those who form a part of the fishing operations belong to one caste. The fishing community  can broadly be understood as composing of three main caste categories – Meenavar Community (Most Backward Caste), Dalits (Scheduled Caste) and Pazhankudi Makkal (Scheduled Tribes), who live in a hierarchical relationship Though these communities might be living in the same village, there is complete segregation between the communities.

While the Meenavar community is the one which takes the boats out to sea the remaining jobs listed below are done by the Dalits and Pazhankudi communities. The other occupations which minimally form a part of the economy of the fishing village are occupations such as: Manual labourers lifting the catch from sea on to the boat itself, lifting the catch on to the shore and sorting it, truck drivers who transport the fish to different regions for export, places of sale, etc., people selling fish on the shore using big baskets /on cycles, those who repair/paint boats etc, those who do the inland fishing, prawn farm labourers, labourers part of the fish packing activities, those involved in construction, basket making etc.

Equally important to the very subsistence of the fishing village are the agricultural operations which are carried out in the immediate hinterland of the fishing area. These include groups such as: Those owning and cultivating land, share croppers on the land, tenants on the land, landless agricultural labourers, those who take lands on lease, etc.

Apart from both these categories of people affected are also those who provide the commercial backbone to the village economy including petty-shop owners and other service providers like barbers, tailors, cobblers etc. There are also the labourers on the other industries like salt pans in Vedaranyam. The extent of havoc the tsunami has wreaked has had its impact on this diverse range of people.

In terms of loss of life, houses and livelihood it is very clear that the fishing community has suffered the most, while the agricultural community has mainly suffered loss of livelihood. The losses suffered by these communities in terms of life and houses have been addressed to some extent in various state government orders extending compensation. However, the crucial issue of rehabilitation of livelihood of those who own nothing, but their labour power (be it labour with respect to fishing or agriculture) has been completely ignored.

Is relief caste blind?

The immediate aftermath of the tsunami witnessed a pouring in of relief on a massive scale. There were truly inspirational acts of solidarity by ordinary people who reached out to a people in enormous distress. However side by side, with these gestures of humanity continued the ritualistic practice of caste discrimination to exclude Dalits from relief. This reality has been documented with great care and sensitivity by Dalit and human rights groups. 

In a Report which came out as early as 1.1.05, Annie Namala on behalf of the Fact Finding team, noted: ‘As we watched, trucks of food and clothing came to the village and were getting distributed among the fisher community. The Dalits who ran after the lorries came back empty handed. They further complained that since morning three-four trucks had come to the village and the fisher community did not allow any of them to give any relief to the Dalits. The standard question was- how many deaths are there among you? Some people had brought idli and pongal in the morning, but though it was already past 11a.m., no one in the Dalit colony, not even the children, had anything to eat.’ [2] As the Report poignantly notes, ‘Can one erect a hierarchy of deaths where death in the fisher family is more costly to the family than a death in the Dalit family or can we grade the dead like we grade the living, along caste lines? [3]

A report from Cuddalore documents how this discrimination is as systematic as it is petty. ‘One social worker showed me a list of affected people and damages sustained by them from Samiarpettai- another large village with several communities.  This list was made on the letterhead of the fisher panchayat. The list mentions not one name of people from other communities. When asked about it, they said, when relief comes they will distribute to them what is due to them’ [4]

The Citizens Platform for Tsunami Affected, Tamil Nadu, noted, ‘However what is emerging as a pattern across many of the affected coastal regions is the fact that Dalit communities are not being provided relief material. Even when the material (dry rations, clothes, utensils, etc.) are supplied to the affected villages, they are not shared with the dalit families within the village. In some cases these families do not even have the tokens issued by the Panchayat to access relief material. In other cases, though there might be a token given they are not allowed to stand in the queue to collect relief material, which is their right. Not only does these cause hardships leading to starvation of the affected dalit families but also creates the basis for avoidable caste based hostilities to be generated.’ [5]

That the Dalit community and also the Pazhankudi Makkal community have been on the margins of receiving relief is an issue that has been accepted by most of the groups overseeing relief distribution in the Nagapattinam district. The media has also highlighted this issue to a great extent. [6] The Dalit groups working in the area have identified Dalit villages and hamlets that have not yet been enumerated as tsunami-affected. A handful of these villages have been subsequently included in existing processes to ensure that relief reaches the Dalit communities as soon as possible.

Thus while the Government has officially declared the stage of immediate relief as being over, even today, newer and newer hamlets/villages which have been left out of the relief process continue to be identified by Dalit groups such as HRFDL and efforts are on to reach relief to those excluded communities.

The caste and class question in rehabilitation

The government in its orders (GOs)  has till now adopted a property-owner centric policy  while addressing livelihood issues in its rehabilitation packages and till now has only recognized those who own boats and go out to sea as well as those who own and operate small shops in the villages. [7]  

In terms of the farming community that owns the agricultural lands that were inundated by seawaters, surveys were carried out by the revenue departments of various districts to assess the extent of inundation and the degree of salination. Post this a GO was issued to provide relief to farmers who have lost standing crops. [8]

Be that as it may, it is undeniable that in any formulation of rehabilitation packages for livelihoods the people of the fishing and farming communities that do not own boats, nets or lands generally remain ignored. Equally wherever there have been joint Government/NGO efforts at relief and rehabilitation, even in the various committees formed like livelihood committee, child committee, there is no inclusion of affected  Dalit/Adivasi  hamlets and hence Dalit/Adivasi children are totally left out of the very conceptualization of the rehabilitation process.

What the various GO’s  do not recognize is that the coastal districts like every other part of India are structured hierarchically in terms of caste and class. Those at the bottom of the caste and class hierarchy are the worst placed to cope with and survive a natural disaster.

The next series of questions which follows in the search for an inclusive relief and rehabilitation face is how does one take on board this diverse range of occupations all of which are structurally dependent upon the fishermen - who actually go out to the sea and land owners - who have cultivable land? 

Does rehabilitation mean that one restores to the previous level all those who have lost resources and leave those who were socially and economically disadvantaged where they were, i.e. at the bottom of the hierarchy? Or does the policy try and address questions of socio-economic marginalization? Should one resign to saying that this is not the time for ‘social change’? Or should the intention of the rehabilitation policy be to address the social and economic discrimination of Dalits and think of creating resources for those who never owned any property?

If one merely tried restoring the status quo, would there be a return to status quo or would the hierarchical relationship be more skewed with those who don’t own resources being even more economically marginalized?  How would this affect the relationship between those with resources and those without in a post-tsunami rehabilitation scenario?

These are all complex questions meriting a detailed analysis and a clear articulation of policy. What is of grave concern is that these questions of livelihoods of those who are also affected by the tsunami, and do also form a part of the fishing community, has not yet been mentioned in any governmental policy. Even in the NGO sector the focus has been on the property owning fishing communities. What is clear is that those who own no property and are merely dependent on those who do own property merit no attention in rehabilitation efforts.

Existing relief and rehabilitation policy frameworks

While Tamil Nadu by itself does not yet have a relief code, other states like Orissa, Rajasthan have a relief code in place and Maharashtra has a disaster management plan However, analysis of the working of these codes seems to reveal that apart from Maharashtra to some minimal extent [9] , the Governments thus far have not seriously taken on board the concerns of  Dalit/Adivasi communities. [10]

As Sana Das’s analysis of the Orissa Relief Code reveals, there are in essence two obstacles to the Dalit and Adivasi communities being an integral part of relief and rehabilitation

1)      They do not own property and hence are unable to make a legal claim

2)      The political economy context of caste based discrimination ensures that access remains limited.

The ownership over means of production determines one’s command over food and other essential commodities. Those social groups which don’t own any means of production consequently are at greater risk of food scarcity/ starvation. If the rehabilitation policy focuses on replacing the means of production which have been lost and does not take into account the needs of those who do not own property , the consequences for those without property can be deadly. As Sana Das notes , ‘ On the contrary, if labour is the only endowment that one possesses, in a disaster situation, if there is no provision for employment where the individual can exchange it for food, then such vulnerability may even lead to succumbing. It may lead to distress sale of labour or even the final exchange i.e., of self, which is the most exploitative exchange, violating Art 23 which is the fundamental right against exploitation and also laws on immoral trafficking.’ [11]

Similarly the study brings to the fore the problem of channeling relief/rehabilitation purely through the caste panchayats. There emerge a pattern of discrimination and exclusion of Dalit/Adivasi communities from even the most basic relief. Relief and rehabilitation ends up benefiting the more powerful social groups and the Dalit and Adivasi communities end up in a worse situation post disaster.

Thus it is clear that both caste and class factors have played a major role in ensuring that both relief and rehabilitation remain an inequitable process in past disasters and Government policy has till now been inadequate to take on board the learnings from the past to build a more equitable and inclusive policy.

Towards an inclusive policy on relief and rehabilitation

Any relief and rehabilitation policy framed by the State will have to be based on respecting the constitutional framework. This means that key to the policy will have to be solicitude to the weaker sections of Indian society including the SC and ST communities

(Dalit and Adivasi).

The framework of the Indian constitution obligates the Indian state to abide by the rights guaranteed in the Fundamental Rights Chapter to all citizens and to take seriously the Directive Principles of State Policy as being fundamental to the governance of the country.

With respect to Fundamental Rights the state is enjoined to respect among others the right to equality (Art 14), the right to non discrimination on grounds of caste as well as the right to affirmative action (Art 15 (1) and Art 15(4) respectively) and the right to life (Art 21). The Indian Constitution envisages a notion of substantive equality which includes a scheme for compensatory action in the form of affirmative action for all those who have historically been oppressed by the caste based hierarchy of Indian society. Thus equality in the Indian Constitutional scheme does not just mean treating those of a similar grouping similarly but actually means that a form of compensatory action is envisaged for those who have historically suffered discrimination, particularly the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The right to life has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include many basic rights including the right to a clean environment, right to health etc.  Needless to say these rights too must be implemented keeping in mind the injunction of Art 14 and Art 15.

The Directive Principles such as Art 41 clearly note that the responsibility of the state to secure public assistance in cases of undeserved want.  Under Art 39(a) the state has the responsibility to secure the right to livelihood to all its citizens. Under Art 47 of the Directive Principles, the state has the obligation as one of its primary duties, to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health.

In the context of a disaster, when a situation of ‘undeserved want’ arises the state’s obligation to provide public assistance to secure the basic rights guaranteed under the Constitution is undisputed.  However what is often not taken on board as a matter of state administrative practise/law is that the very provision of relief and the beginning of rehabilitation programes which are aimed at securing the right to livelihood, the right to work, the right to health, the right to education and the right to life, must take into account the Constitutional injunction embodied in Art 14 read with Art 15 and provide in particular for the SC/ST communities. If the Constitution is indeed the guiding post they cannot face a shortfall merely on grounds of belonging to certain communities.  In fact the Constitution in Art 17,  goes one step further and notes that untouchability is an offence and  the practise of which is to be punished in accordance with law. Thus the Constitutional imagination is not to silently acquiesce in existing caste hierarchies but instead to proactively challenge the existing inequitable social order.

Thus the  relief and rehabilitation policy will have to be inclusive as well as make special provisions for those at the very bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy. The policy as currently operational in the Tamil Nadu GO’s [12] and the Union Government Relief and Rehabilitation Package [13] ,  will have to move from  a shocking disregard for affected Dalit and Adivasi  communities to taking on board their concerns and articulating it through clear policy statements. If the Government does indeed move to implement its Constitutional mandate, the following points will have to be specifically considered. It has to be noted that these points are not inclusive but merely indicative of the directions the policy might take.

·        Implementation of a food for work programme for all affected communities as described above

·        Provision of gratuitous relief for all those unable to participate in the food for work scheme for various reasons like old age and disability.

·        Land – based rehabilitation of landless Dalit agricultural labourers.

·        Training and creation of employment opportunities for affected Dalit/Adivasi people

·        Creation of assets which can be used to generate livelihood options

·        Specification of a Minimum Wage for all the affected Dalit/Adivasi  communities to prevent their exploitation.

·        Formation of an inclusive village level committee which includes members from affected Dalit/Adivasi communities  to plan the rehabilitation efforts

·        SC/ST Commission to monitor that the policy is indeed inclusive by appointing Community members to regularly report on the implementation of relief and rehabilitation measures in an inclusive fashion.

·        Considering that Dalit/Adivasi children form a particularly vulnerable category special efforts are needed to ensure that they are not discriminated against at least for the present in such places which are meant for bringing them back to leading a normal life like the schools, for instance. [14] In the alternative, separate spaces should be created for them so that they can also work their way back to normalcy just as the higher caste children are in a position to do.

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