Posted on 02/15/2005 9:15:11 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Globalist Perspective > Global Politics
Tsunami Relief — The Great Indian Absence
By Ashutosh Sheshabalaya | Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Why did the U.S. and European media virtually ignore the post-tsunami relief efforts mounted by the Indian military? Ashutosh Sheshabalaya argues that this failure is just another sign of the West’s inability to get over its stereotypes of India as a backward country. It’s time for the global community to give due recognition to this fast-emerging giant — or risk itself becoming out-of-date.
n January 5, 2005, several thousand tons of wreckage and debris were cleared from Sri Lanka’s tsunami-crippled harbor of Galle, following round-the-clock operations by the Indian navy. This effort paved the way for a sea-borne lifeline, to enable both relief and delivery of heavy reconstruction materials.
India to the rescue
Even as it coped with the tsunami’s impact at home, India moved decisively to help its neighbors. In spite of the subtle allusions to a helpless and savaged region, India’s capabilities should never have been an issue. On December 27, 2004 — within hours of the tsunami — an Indian naval hospital arrived at Sri Lanka’s Trincomalee harbor, followed by helicopter-equipped corvettes and other ships for search and rescue. The Indian air force added muscle to the effort, using heavy-lift transporters to deliver fully-staffed field hospitals and clinics, as well as its own Mi-17 helicopters to airdrop relief supplies.
Late, but good PR
The Indian relief mission outstripped those of all other powers in the region, involved over 20,000 military personnel and almost 35 warships — operating in an arc from the Maldives to Indonesia. For a variety of reasons, this colossal deployment went largely unnoticed in the rest of the world. Observed by bemused Indian sailors, the world media made a beeline on January 10, 2005, to welcome the USS Duluth to Sri Lanka — two weeks after the arrival of India’s navy to assist with relief operations. The irony escaped the Associated Press, whose January 17, 2005, report did nothing to explain comments by U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in Sri Lanka: “Help from U.S. military engineers,” he said, “won't be needed much longer.”
Questioning the relief and disaster management capacities of a country like India reveals an outdated mindset — and only serves to keep stereotypes alive well beyond their expiration date. Largely unnoticed, the Indian military had already finished doing much of the work for which the Americans had, belatedly, arrived in that country. Such a mindset — of overlooking an obviously huge contribution from outside the Western world — is central to what I call the Great Indian Absence.
It is part and parcel of the matrix of ‘us and them,’ which regretfully defines the worldview of many Americans and Europeans. They are handicapped by a continuing inability to accept India’s often quiet, but potentially dramatic, rise.
Europe behind the curve
Sure, there is plenty of awareness in the United States and Europe about the rise of India as an outsourcing power. But this development tends to accentuate — rather than diminish — the feeling that India is not an equal.Thus, the observations by some European commentators about how the tsunami spared none — neither rich Western tourists, nor those (presumably serving them) from the poor Third World — are at least five years out of date.
Too little expertise in the media
In Sri Lanka, much of Southeast Asia and — in the near future — New Zealand and Australia, Indians are the highest-spending tourist group. European experts on television were using Indian IRS remote-sensing satellite imagery — while complaining about a lack of technology in the region. Part of such oversight is clearly due to the media’s poor military-technical expertise. In their reports about the challenge of delivering aid on the scale required after the tsunami, BBC correspondents repeatedly failed to underline that America’s proposed relief coalition with India, Japan and Australia depended heavily on India. As it happens, the Indian air force has three times the transporter fleet of Japan and six times that of Australia. In addition, its IL-76 Gajraj carries twice the payload of the C-130 Hercules military transporters used by Australia and Japan.
In Washington, too
The Great Indian Absence, however, also extended to the Washington Post. On its website, the paper presented a striking sequence of pictures about the tsunami’s aftermath. One showed a woman in India with outstretched hands, drawing attention to the “lack of helicopters” in the region.
Uncle Sam to the rescue
Another depicted an American SH-60 helicopter, stuffed with food. In spite of the Internet, ‘Post’ reporters had not consulted sources such as the website of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. An analysis of India’s response to the Asian tsunami underlines that the world urgently needs to adjust its thinking — as well as its institutions — to new realities.
They would then have learned that India’s military operates more helicopters than Japan, Indonesia and Thailand combined. This includes the Indian Dhruv helicopter, now being considered by several countries for search and rescue. Notwithstanding its scale, the Indian relief operation involved only about one-tenth of its 225 military transport aircraft and 400 helicopters. In spite of the subtle allusions to a helpless but savaged region, India’s capabilities should never have been an issue.
Quite ironic
One of the most surreal examples of the Great Indian Absence, however, occurred when European experts on television were using Indian IRS remote-sensing satellite imagery on the tsunami damage — while complaining about a lack of technology in the region. As it happens, IRS images about a potential Tibetan dam burst in the summer of 2004 led to a mass evacuation in northern India. This riverine equivalent of a tsunami might otherwise have resulted in several thousand casualties.
Indian high-tech
India’s high-technology early warning and disaster management systems go further than remote-sensing. They also include sophisticated weather satellites directed at the routine — but still-devastating — hazard of cyclones. The United Nations could only benefit from the presence of a mature and capable India as a permanent member of the Security Council. Across the entire Indian Ocean, seaborne search and rescue is enabled wholly via the Indian-designed INSAT 3-A satellite.
And more recently, India’s post-tsunami relief efforts were buttressed by sophisticated satellite hook-ups at its Integrated National Command Post, which provides real-time links to all military units across the country — and to every naval vessel out at sea.
Just the facts
Knowing such facts may help put relief and disaster management issues into perspective in the future, both in Asia and elsewhere, long after the media has gone home. One salutary case would be the widely reported gush of Western sympathy for victims of the earthquake at Bam, Iran, in December 2003.
Following up on Bam
Until the tsunami, few journalists — or NGOs — cared to follow-up this story, and report that just $17 million of the $1 billion pledged by the international community had been received by Iran.
The Indian relief mission outstripped those of all other powers in the region — involving over 20,000 military personnel and almost 35 warships. Four months after the Bam quake, a paragraph buried within a report by the British Guardian newspaper referred to what was clearly one of most significant contributions to that relief operation. An “elaborate Indian military hospital that treated 48,000 patients and performed 2,500 operations since the earthquake”, said the Guardian, “packed up this week, leaving a serious gap in medical services.”Indeed, questioning the relief and disaster management capacities of a country like India reveals an outdated mindset.
Respect where it is due
India has 25 million tons of food stocks, produces one-sixth of the world’s generic medicines, exports doctors and nurses to fill shortfalls in the West — and, in April 2003, vaccinated 100 million children in just one day. Clinging to the idea that India is entirely backward is clearly a waste of time — and only serves to keep stereotypes alive well beyond their expiration date.
Adjusting institutions
As hysterical outbursts about the threat of epidemics finally wane, India’s own relief efforts however seem to have also disappeared off the world media‘s radar. BBC correspondents repeatedly failed to underline that America’s proposed relief coalition with India, Japan and Australia depended heavily on India. In a rare exception on January 19, 2005, a social worker told Charles Haviland of BBC News that newly-orphaned children in India were, relief-wise, “very satisfied with what they are getting.” True, much more remains to be done. But an analysis of India’s response to the Asian tsunami only underlines the point that the world urgently needs to adjust its thinking — as well as its institutions — to such new realities.
India on the Security Council
This also concerns the G-7, whose exclusion of countries like India and China risks making it an anachronism. And last but not least, the United Nations could only benefit from the presence of a mature and capable India as a permanent member of the Security Council.
It's also somewhat ironic, as a lot of criticism has been made about how little the US's effort was reported.
In truth it seems the MSM, have yet again missed the story while waiting to kiss Kofi's but.
Yep it is-most folks expect Uncle Sam to be around when they need it!!So I don't think America can expect praise from the media as long as it remains the world's sole hyperpower.
I think the author's primary grouse is with the European media-the American media may not have given a lot of prominence for India's relief efforts,but they were (relatively) objective.There were reports in French & German papers of how under-equipped India was to refuse aid,blah blah blah.
Simple reason: The Indians were not asking for US assistance. Infact they had the temerity to dare say that they did not even need any sort of assistance, and dared to even go further by offering to assist the other nations hit by the tsunami. The media couldn't stand a nation not begging for aid, and thus they thought it prudent to just conveniently ignore it. I'm certain if India was pleading for assistance that they would be gracing the front pages and squatting on the evening news.
Very well said.
Hungry people dont see the crap going out, they see the food and supplies coming in.
India needs some better internal PR instead of pissing and moaning!
If Im not mistaken, the article doesn't talk about India being great or deserving greatness-it's about how it's relief operations weren't noticed by the Western Press.
Sending over 2 dozen naval & coastguard vessels to 3 nations,along with the same number of transport planes ^ & personnel,while organising relief in your own battered regions is no mean feat.
For the BBC, the world is still Pax Britannia and India is still the land of savages and lesser beings.
"......talk about patting yourself on the back."
Yup only the Europeans and the UN is supposed to do that right? How dare the Indians pat themselves on the back!
Nobody is pissing and moaning. Its just an article to call the Eurocentric media bluff.
Indians did what they had to and didnt care about who is or isnt on the camera.
" This article is a bit over the top though. "
--About what?
The media ignored Indian efforts because they could. They did their level best to ignore U.S. and Australian efforts too, and made several laughable attempts to give credit to the UN for all of it, although those folks were busy in conferences in five-star hotels for the first three weeks. Ugh...don't start me...
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