Cyclone to Covid: SEEDS co-founders explain how India can fight disasters

Gupta and Sharma talk to Geetanjali Krishna about why India is always in the midst of some disaster or the other and how people could build resilience

There was a time when Lunch with BS would be held at a nice restaurant, with assiduous servers ensuring that plates were never empty and glasses were always full. Today, I log on to Zoom, ask my husband to bring me a plate of food and wait for my guests, Manu Gupta and Anshu Sharma, to come online. Co-founders of SEEDS (Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society), the duo is recognised as one of the foremost authorities on disaster management and mitigation in the country. As the screen flickers to life, I muse that it is fitting that in the midst of a disaster, I should be talking to two people who have followed every disaster in India (and some in Nepal too) since the early nineties. Gupta immediately puts this in perspective when I say so. “We’re always in the midst of some disaster or the other,” he says. “Right now, it’s the twin disasters of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. India’s east coast has been battered by a super cyclone; next month UP, Maharashtra and Telangana will face crippling drought; this will be followed by monsoon floods in Assam and Bihar and so on!”

And on that merry note, our lunch commences.

We start with the obvious. SEEDS has also been involved in massive relief work during the ongoing pandemic and has raised over Rs 7 crore to provide relief to migrant workers. What have their experiences and takeaways been during this time? From a disaster response perspective, for a sizeable chunk of the population in the country to have such weak economic and community roots is a disaster in itself, they believe. “Migrants’ lack of savings, insurance and most of all, connectedness with the city they have been forced to live in because climate change and economic stressors have made it impossible for them to live at home, is dangerous,” says Gupta. Any stressor, and not just the present situation, can cause them to slip over the brink.

“It has also brought home a point we’ve often made in the past,” says Sharma. “Disasters are always multilayered. There could also be more than one disaster occurring at the same time. Yet, our response to them is as if they are one-off, once-in-a-lifetime events.” For example, Odisha’s cyclone relief shelters were being used as medical camps to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Cyclone Amphan has forced authorities to relocate the camps amid confusion. This, when they should have been able to anticipate this eventuality given that summer cyclones have become an annual occurrence there.

Meanwhile, we compare our plates — all filled with variants of dal, vegetables and rice. Sharma, who is in office for the first time since the lockdown, says he also has a celebratory brownie for dessert which makes me rather envious. But as our conversation moves to the levels of deprivation they’ve observed recently, our simple food seems like a feast. “Our relief work has shown us how vulnerable even people we’d imagine are well-off, really are,” says Gupta. “We’d not anticipated the levels of pain, hunger and uncertainty that vulnerable communities are undergoing right now.” This brings me to my next question. Last week, the Prime Minister spoke of Atmanirbhar Bharat or self-reliant India, and I’ve been struggling to comprehend how the migrants, currently forced to walk thousands of kilometres in the summer heat, can become more resilient, self-sufficient even. “The question to ask is at what level should this be inculcated,” says Gupta. “Should atmanirbharta be at the level of the individual, household or the village?” SEEDs has always focused on empowering communities rather than individuals, I understand. “To us, disaster resilience means to be able to anticipate, absorb and adapt to disasters,” says Gupta.

On a side note, the torai I’ve cooked for lunch looks, excuse the pun, seedy. I taste a spoonful. It’s a disaster. I try to unobtrusively signal my kids to fetch me some water. They ignore me. Oh for the good old days of white linen, silver cutlery, good food and gloved servers in good restaurants! Gupta and Sharma’s stories about building resilient communities perk me up.

“In a crowded east Delhi slum where we’d originally gone for flood relief, we discovered that fire was a bigger threat,” says Gupta. SEEDS helped the community to set up inexpensive fire posts consisting of a simple pump and fire hose. Community volunteers were able to douse any fire before it spread instead of waiting for a fire engine to arrive. Similarly, in north Bihar’s flood-prone Kosi belt, SEEDS set up low-tech community-based early warning systems that proved even more useful than satellite imaging. “These consisted of simple communication networks for people who’d lived all their lives by the river and could intuitively tell when it was time to move to higher ground,” says Sharma. In fact, over the years, the two disaster chasers have found that traditional knowledge invariably trumps modern techniques when it comes to disaster resilience.

After over 30-odd years of dealing with quakes, floods, cyclones and more, SEEDS has created an impressive repository of tools and technologies for disaster management. To think it all began in the canteen of School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi! “Manu and I were at together at SPA in the early nineties,” says Sharma. “We’d backpack to disaster sites and engage in relief work.” The earthquakes in Latur and Uttarkashi literally left them shaken. The 1998 Chamoli temblor was a turning point of sorts. “I remember meeting a lady outside the ruins of the house she’d just finished constructing,” says Gupta. “Built with so-called modern materials — cement and brick, instead of the traditional stone, wood and mud, it had collapsed in the quake with the paint still fresh on its walls.” This experience and their architectural training ensured that initially, the duo worked to modify homes in earthquake-prone areas so they didn’t collapse during an earthquake. From there, they went on to modify traditional local architectural practices to make houses earthquake and flood-resilient.

My husband thoughtfully brings me chocolate. Sharma’s brownie has been reduced to crumbs. As our conversation winds down, I ask about the tasks ahead after the Covid-19 pandemic. “First, we must bolster our public health infrastructure,” says Gupta, “and improve our hygiene and sanitation standards.” Creating economically resilient communities should be priority number two. Encouraging savings and insurance could help, as could sustainable business enterprises which local communities can adopt in difficult times. “We also need to review relief camp standards,” says Sharma. “UN recommends 3.5-5.5 square metres per person; with social distancing, we’ll have to cater for much more.” Most of all, the duo believes, we, as a nation, must develop the ability to anticipate disasters and create infrastructure to deal with them — before they occur.

Where do they anticipate the next big disaster will happen, I ask. “A monster Himalayan quake has been due for a while now,” says Sharma immediately. “It could potentially wipe out a million people and untold material wealth in one fell swoop.”

Our lunch ends on that note and I muse that the monster quake — as well as the torai — are going to give me nightmares for days to come.