Pinarayi Vijayan, described by his comrades and fans as Kerala’s double-gut Marxist Chief Minister, and his CPI(M)-led LDF Government are now being accused by the State’s fishing community, Opposition parties and observers of virtually going into hiding when over 500 poor fishermen struggled to keep themselves afloat in Arabian Sea that had turned into a rumbling hell of water under Cyclone Ockhi.
Forget about the emergency measures the situation had warranted, not even the very standard operation norms were adhered to by the Chief Minister, his Government, the bureaucracy and the various official agencies to ensure the safety of those poor souls when they were being tossed around in the endless, turbulent waters.
“Where is the Chief Minister? Has he cared to meet us here?” asked fisherwoman Selvamma as she waited at the Vizhinjam harbor for news about her brothers who had gone to sea on November 29. “I am sure he is not worried about us, the poor fisherfolk. He would have come running if there was any function related to Adani’s Vizhinjam port,” she said.
Under mounting pressure, Pinarayi did visit Vizhinjam – late Sunday evening – only to get a taste of the people’s fierce protests. He was blocked by the protestors who slapped on his vehicle and the police had a tough time clearing his path. “This wouldn’t have happened if he had cared to visit the village on Friday or Saturday,” said a local Congress leader.
Official callousness or carelessness had started with the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (DMA) which allegedly failed to look at the weather warning about the impending catastrophe issued by the IMD as early as Wednesday afternoon. Pinarayi himself had stated that the Government had got warning – from DMA – only on Thursday.
If the DMA had taken the appropriate proper steps in time in accordance with the weather advisory it – and the State Chief Secretary – had received from the Central agencies, these many fishermen would not have gone to sea on Wednesday evening, it is said. Even if they had chosen to go, they would have stayed within safe limits from the coast.
But callousness – or inefficiency – did not stop there. The Chief Minister did call a meeting of his Cabinet following reports of the low-pressure system metamorphosing into Cyclone Ockhi but it did not have the required emergency nature, even people within the Government machinery are now complaining.
“What the CM should have done was to open an emergency Cabinet cell, constitute a panel of Ministers and officials of various departments and assign specific missions to each of them. The entire search, rescue and rehabilitation operations should have been carried out under this committee’s direction and under his direct supervision,” said a former Revenue official.
The criticism against Pinarayi is that he, instead of doing this, handed over the entire responsibility of the search and rescue operation – planning, coordination, execution, supervision and evaluation – to the Defence forces and other agencies and withdrew into the background instead of leading the operations.
Critics point out that Pinarayi Vijayan had not “shown his face outside his office” since Thursday morning except during his Press conferences and a visit to the hospitals in State capital where about the fishermen rescued from the choppy seas were admitted. “Why? Is he afraid of meeting us in our villages?” asked Silvesten, a fisherman in Poonthura.
The inefficiency of the system which was supposed to be in charge in the emergency activities was manifested in its full magnitude when Pinarayi, his Ministers or officials remained unable to provide even an approximate idea of how many men had gone to sea, to which region they might have gone or what their condition could be at sea.
And when bodies started coming ashore on Saturday, the various departments of the Government engaged themselves in an ungraceful squabble about the numbers. The Revenue Department said 126 men were still stranded at sea while Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said only 105 remained to be rescued. By Sunday morning, that number turned out to be 161.
The alleged lapses on the part of the Government also led to a direct confrontation between it and the anxious fishermen. As the agencies engaged in rescue operations were unable to complete their mission even after two full days, the fishermen themselves went to the still-turbulent sea in search of their kin and colleagues on Sunday.