Tragic unpreparedness

APRIL 19, 2022

Governments must prepare people to deal with extreme

weather events
The state of the ongoing global climate crisis is such that India
is going to have hotter hot days and more of them every year.
While some of the blame for the effects — heat-related
morbidity and mortality — may lie at the feet of
meteorological caprice, the bulk of it will lie at the door of the
government, whose responsibility it is to deal with and
manage foreseeable inevitabilities. On April 16, nearly a
million people gathered on an uncovered ground in Navi
Mumbai for an event in which social activist Dattatreya
Narayan received a State award, with Union Ministers Amit
Shah and Kapil Patil, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath
Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis joining
him on a covered podium. More than 120 people suffered
considerable heat stress; 13 died and 18 others were
hospitalised. Mr. Shinde called the deaths “very unfortunate”,
but fortune had nothing to do with it. News reports said that
individuals, especially police personnel, were scrambling to
bring drinking water to those in distress (because water at the
site had become too hot to drink), and to carry them on
motorcycles to avail medical assistance. This speaks less to
their resourcefulness and more to the absence of a systematic
plan for the event that accounted for predictable second-order
problems.
After the event, experts also said that the area lacked a local
India Meteorological Department station to issue heat alerts.
This misses the point. Many places in India are likely to have a
large political event before an official weather station. This,
together with the rapid onset of India’s heat crisis, puts the
spotlight on the fundamental yet elusive cause of climate-
related injustice: the persistence of conditions in which some
people are at the mercy of their employers or their leaders, in
order to survive a hot day, or, as at the April 16 event, even a
few hot hours. As long as this imbalance in relationship is
allowed to exist, heat action plans and heat alerts can only be
of limited benefit. Instead, India must work towards becoming
a country in which every individual is equipped with climate-
literacy sufficient to know why higher temperature plus
higher relative humidity and/or dehydration equals high risk
of injury and death, and the ability to access cool and clean
drinking water, ventilated shelter and lodging, and affordable
emergency medical care wherever, whenever. Notice how
these requirements are similar to those required to respond
to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in fact most national crises.
This is not a coincidence. Governments must destroy
conditions in which people are denied the means to prepare
themselves for a crisis. But on April 16, a government created
them.
 Mission Rajasthan
APRIL 19, 2022

The Congress needs to put its house in order to beat back

the Bharatiya Janata Party
Months ahead of the Assembly elections, the ruling Congress
is facing an internal rebellion in Rajasthan. Party leader Sachin
Pilot has revived his campaign to become Chief Minister,
replacing Ashok Gehlot. Mr. Gehlot is in no mood to yield, and
party MLAs are largely with him. Mr. Pilot was the State party
chief during the 2018 election and hoped to be the Chief
Minister, when the Congress won. That is not how it turned
out, and Mr. Pilot settled for the post of Deputy Chief Minister
while remaining party chief. In July 2020 he rebelled openly,
demanding the top post for himself. That ended up very badly
for him — he lost both posts, while Mr. Gehlot tightened his
grip over the party and the government in the process. Last
year, Mr. Gehlot emerged as the consensus candidate for the
post of Congress president, rekindling Mr. Pilot’s hopes of
succeeding him in Rajasthan. But Congress MLAs in Rajasthan
revolted, this time against the move to install Mr. Pilot as the
Chief Minister. In the end, Mr. Gehlot stayed on as Chief
Minister and Mallikarjun Kharge became president of the
party. Mr. Pilot is trying his luck again by ratcheting up
pressure on the party and Mr. Gehlot.
Mr. Gehlot is a seasoned and astute politician with his ear to
the ground. He has built a political narrative around fresh
modes of welfare and social justice, in the process trying to
make himself seemingly irreplaceable. Mr. Gehlot worked
towards enhancing his popularity through compassionate
management of the pandemic, measures to mitigate the
impact of price rise, and, most recently, with a new law that
expands access to health care. Whether all this will yield the
Congress votes is to be seen. However, changes at the top at
the eleventh hour are more likely to damage the prospects of
the party at the hustings. The Congress does not need to look
further than its most recent disaster in Punjab, in 2021, where
it effected a change at the top on the eve of the Assembly
election. With the Bharatiya Janata Party not exactly battle
ready, the Congress can hope to win a second consecutive
term in Rajasthan, if only it could put its own house in order.
At 45, Mr. Pilot has age on his side, and he could be persuaded
to reorient his ambitions accordingly. Mr. Gehlot should show
sagacity, Mr. Pilot patience, and the high command leadership,
for the Congress to advance in Rajasthan. As the election
approaches, the situation might get worse before it gets better.
The high stakes might prompt one or the other to overplay
their hand.