Something worth sharing in the light of the recent Kedarnath tragedy

Perils of plain-speak in U.P. by Prashant Kumar

The suspension on June 28 of U.P.’s Special Secretary Revenue, Gurrala Srinivasulu, who plainly briefed the media about the casualties in the Uttarakhand disaster, has caused much annoyance among the I.A.S. officers in the state. The action, however, did not surprise those who have been watching with concern the antics of successive governments here for the past two decades. Repeatedly pestered by the media for several days to reveal the exact number of deaths of the pilgrims, tourists and rescuers from the state, the officer innocently spoke the truth: “How could one tell about the number of those who died when the number of people returning alive cannot be counted properly.” A section of the media, hungry for scandals, described the “comment” as “insensitive” and the government rushed to control “damage” to its “reputation” by ordering immediate suspension of the officer. 

Curiously, U.P. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had a few days back told the media at Lucknow that his government had paid a compensation of twenty lakh rupees to the families of each of the two rescuers from U.P. who had died in the chopper crash. A couple of days later, the media were officially informed that the crash victims from the state were as many as five and not just two. Given the large number of unidentified bodies recently found in and around Ramabada in Rudraprayag district and more feared buried under the silt, which “sensitive” government officer could cite an exact number of deaths of the pilgrims or the tourists from U.P. or, for that matter, any other state?

Whereas Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has put the flash flood death toll at one thousand, the hill state’s Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal claimed on June 30 that the figure could very well cross ten thousand. How does one expect any officer of any state to give a correct figure in such a confused scenario?

A state government that takes pride in honouring tainted officers (including convicts) with prized posts, and frequently keeps dozens others on wait list just because they do or do not belong to a particular caste or lobby, has no moral right to define sensitivity or its antonym. Victimisation of innocent officers (this time a Dalit), who are not cunning enough to hide embarrassing truths, does no good to the image of a government facing a severe deficit not only of officers and budget, but public trust as well.