Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Together in crisis

WHERE MONEY TALKS

Why India and Pakistan should consider a subcontinental disaster management agency

One could not help but notice the cool tone of Indo-Pakistani exchanges (as reported) over last Saturday's earthquake. Yet the devastation was another reminder that nature's fury, like its benevolence, is immune to politics.

From that follows the obvious thought that if Kunwar Natwar Singh and Pakistan's Khursheed Mahmud Kasuri are serious about confidence-building measures, they should consider a subcontinental disaster management agency.

Of course, Pakistan has many friends abroad. But India lies closest, the earthquake's epicentre being only 25 km from the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir. Just as India and Pakistan can hurt each other most, they can also give the most help.

Any South Asian agency must be part of a global system to solve Malthus's "perpetual struggle for room and food." Because of shoestring budgets and other problems, the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator and Office (UNDRO) for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have not fulfilled their potential. Cyclone Katrina demonstrated that even the US, which alone has the resources for a global effort, falters in its backyard.

I am not one of those who believe that Indians and Pakistanis are the same people, bound by blood and culture to eternal brotherhood. Too many memories separate us. We have evolved differently in these last 58 years. All this hugging at the border strikes me as contrived emotionalism except, perhaps, for those Indian Muslims (especially Kashmiris) who feel greater kinship for foreign co-religionists than Hindu co-nationals.

But there is no denying that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh constitute a single geographic and ecological entity, sharing the same rivers, watered by the same snows and washed by the same seas. Landlocked Nepal belongs to this unit.

Floods in one part of this indivisible landmass affect the rest. So does drought. One of the world's most explosive seismic zones sprawls across the artificial boundary between India and Pakistan. This is not the time or place to discuss the Kashmir dispute.

But an earthquake that takes toll of 40,000 Pakistani and 1,000 Indian lives recalls that the Asia-Pacific region accounts for 85 per cent of disaster deaths, 95 per cent caused by earthquakes, typhoons and floods.

About 83,000 Asians die annually in 20 major natural disasters which destroy property and crops worth $4 billion. Nine of the world's 10 most disaster-prone countries are in Asia. The Philippines, China and India head the list.

A tragedy of this magnitude gives an impetus to peace initiatives and international cooperation. Last December's tsunami brought Sumatra's Aceh rebels and Indonesian government representatives to the negotiating table where they agreed to a ceasefire and a peace accord. Initially, the tsunami had a similar soothing effect in war-torn Sri Lanka, but then politics reasserted itself.

Self-reliance might be the ideal solution but 131,000 deaths in Bangladesh's 1991 cyclone confirmed that there is no alternative to cooperation. It is obvious, for instance, that South Asia should store excess rainwater in strategically located giant reservoirs for ready distribution in the sizzling summer months when crops wither. Eventually, a common water grid should involve Nepal and China.

But Asians can be intensely xenophobic. General Pervez Musharraf admits to "some sensitivities" about accepting Indian help even in dire emergency. Indians used to suspect all volunteers as CIA spies. Iran rejected foreign help during the 1990 earthquake when 36,000 people perished.

Flood-ravaged Bangladesh once sent back Indian relief helicopters. Chinese air force jets shot down swarms of Taiwanese balloons "" each containing a 180-kg load of relief material "" during the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, while Mao Zedong refused UN emergency aid and urged people to "dauntlessly plunge into the struggle to fight the effects of the earthquake and carry out relief work."

Economic reform and political relaxation made Asians less suspicious and touchy. China welcomed international help after the 1988 earthquake, even accepting $100,000 from Taiwan. Bangladesh no longer spurns Indian support, and India sought global assistance in the 1993 and 2001 earthquakes. During its last earthquake, Iran invited help from every nation under the sun, even the "Great Satan".

But openness also has its perils. As UNDRO warned, "the impulsive generosity of governments, organisations and individuals alike can cause as much chaos and confusion as the disaster itself."

That was evident during Armenia's last earthquake when foreign relief planes crashed into mountains, mounds of unsolicited material from abroad clogged pipelines, and stranded foreign helpers who spoke no local language had themselves to be rescued.

The world needs a resourceful organisation with a detailed database to coordinate relief, send a rapid deployment force to crisis spots and supervise emergency evacuation. It should operate storm tracking systems and monitoring and early warning devices for floods and earthquakes.

This is something for India and Pakistan to consider, albeit on a subcontinental scale. While ruling out joint relief operations, Pakistan, which sent help during the Gujarat earthquake five years ago, has accepted Indian assistance for, apparently, the first time.

Tasleen Aslam, Pakistan's spokesperson, suggests that goodwill remains. "If need be," she is quoted as saying, "we're ready to help them like they have offered to help us."

Her response could be a straw of hope.