Politics of Lightning

According to recent statistics available, more than 100 people die on an average in Kerala every year as a result of lightning. However, what surprises me is not only the enormity of the catastrophe but also the apparent ignorance or negligence about this annual catastrophe in Kerala. If so one can justifiably ask a naïve question as to why this repeatedly happens and at the same time it did not attract required attention not only from the govt but also from the general public. Before coming to the possible answer this question, I would like to reflect on a possible criticism to be leveled against me for dragging govt and general public into this kind of a natural phenomenon which is beyond the control of human being. Obviously I am not contending that govt or general public must control lightning from happening as it is impossible. Instead, my contention is that both govt and people have a joint responsibility for not getting this kind of perpetual catastrophe the required attention so that, even though, we are not able to control lightning, we can reduce the extent of the causality as much as possible by adopting measures such as spreading the awareness of the extent of the problem among the people and thereby encouraging them to undertake precautionary measures as well as helping the people even financially to make adequate precautionary measures not to get electrocuted by way of installing available technologies capable of dampening the impact of lightening in the households.  

Now let us foray into the possible answer to the question as to why it did not fetch deserving attention both at the level of govt and at the level of the general public so far even after Kerala has been witnessing this catastrophe annually. Two factors are responsible. First, being lightening from the so called God, opposition parties cannot effectively blame the ruling party for this unfortunate event and thereby make political dividends based on this as they will have to blame the god for being responsible for this unfair practices which, for sure, instead of encouraging the people to rally behind such a leader, will force them to take him/her to the nearby rehabilitation centre for mentally sick. Second, we being reared in a democratic setting has got somehow programmed or habituated to be only concerned about large numbers or majority rule and therefore, the sporadic incidents of the lightening claiming life of individuals in a sparse manner often fails to make impact in a system which is already programmed and accustomed to the simple majority-rule in which what matters is large numbers rather than the least numbers. In other words, in the absence of any strong political compulsions and leverages like the killing of T. P Chandrashekhar, our society including the rulers of that society will close their eyes towards this kind of sporadic less politically compelling and appealing deaths. To make my point clear, let me draw attention to one illustration as the political storm that Kerala had witnessed over either the killing of Rajan in 1970s or the death of the people by consuming illicit liquor in the past.  Obviously, I have a question here why Rajan’s issue or liquor tragedy certainly killing people less than 100 made political storm in Kerala whereas loss of life to more than 100 people annually failed to elicit required attention. Again, my legs will pulled here arguing that Rajan’s issue or liquor tragedy was a political issue or a political killing and that is why it created political storm. In my view it is the cruelest interpretation of what is politics. Politics is not about killing. It is about the choice of the rules to govern the people for their welfare (if it is in a true democracy). Thus, instead of killing people under the aegis of politics, the true politics is all about saving the people from either being killed or being died prematurely.

The failure of the govt and people to give required attention to the issue of lightening-death will be clear if and if only if we look at this issue through the eyes of true politics I have described above, instead of looking through the troubled-eyes of killer politics. If you look politics with such a view, you will realize why Rajan’s case or liquor tragedies attracted political attention. For, it provided ample opportunity for blame-game for both opposition and ruling parties and thereby it provided a scope for reaping political dividends. If not, even a single death, let alone 100 deaths, as a result of the lightening should have received at least the same socio-political attention as did in the case of Rajan or liquor tragedy because for a single person his/her life is the precious one irrespective of whether he/she is getting killed because of bad politics or bad weather indicating that to attract required attention to this issue, you need not wait to get entire malayalees killed on account of lightening.   

Thus, the point I am making is NOT that the issue of death or killing should be judged along the principles of time, space and numbers, instead my point is that in a true democracy govt has to protect individuals not only from the detrimental effects of the actions or inactions of other people, but also govt has to protect people from the vagaries of the nature like lightening, Tsunami, Katrina etc. Thus, our rulers who are so keen to declare judicial inquiries to look into the death of a single fellow or few fellows or our rulers who persuade people through media to purchase a ‘karunya’ lottery for the social cause or our rulers who subsidize the solar panel to encourage the habit of using renewable energy must also apply their mind to the sporadic incidents of lightening causalities by way of increasing the awareness of people about protective measures or by providing protective tools to the people to protect them from this kind of shocking incidents.  Govt is not just about collecting taxes and distributing it to various departments mostly to be distributed in the form of salaries to the boot-lickers of the same govt. Govt  has to rule the people least and live among the people the most. However, let me reiterate here one thing that my criticism of govt or politics should not be misconstrued as if targeted only against a group of people like our professional politicians or trade unions. Instead, in my conception, the state or govt is the collective responsibility of each and everyone manifested in the form of useful mechanisms, systems, institutions, rules etc. Therefore, the failure of rulers otherwise indicates the failure of people or the behavior of the rulers is the reflection of the behavior of the people whom they represent.