Just My Thoughts
Trapped inside a bore well, a two-year-old boy battled for air and energy to gather his strength in the hinterlands of Tamil Nadu last week. It is hard to express the pain and suffering that the little child underwent inside that dark underworld. Though we made all possible efforts to rescue, which lasted for 72 hours, we were not able to save the life and dream of the young boy at an 'appropriate time’.
This was not the first such accident in the country. There were incidents in the past as well; some were widely reported; some not; And in few cases, rescue operations ended successfully; but they were only a few.
A similar accident but of a different sort happened last December. Twenty miners were trapped in a flooded coal mine in Meghalaya. Rescue operation happened under the supervision of the Supreme Court. Five miners escaped during the operation. Despite all our efforts for three months, sadly, we ceased the operation as we were not able to make any progress. In the end, we had discovered the bodies of two miners while we declared the remaining 13 as 'missing’.
So, what do we miss? Invariably, these were acts of negligence that could have been avoided if proper protocols and regulations were followed. But to err is human. And any government or organization should be well equipped/prepared to sort out any such crises if props up. It is here I observe that we were not able to mobilize the resources quickly. I am not only talking about the slow mobilization happening across different states within the country but also about extending a request to gather resources from different nations.
Six months before the mining accident in Meghalaya, in June 2018, twelve-member junior soccer team along with their coach were trapped inside a flooded cave in Thailand. As soon as rescue operations started, a connection was established with the survivors inside the cave. After two weeks of efforts by a multinational team, we were able to rescue all the twelve members of the team along with their coach safely. That operation received worldwide admiration and appreciation because there were divers from Britain, France, China, navy from Thailand, doctors from Australia, air personnel from the US, experts from India, Russia and many other countries, working together to save those lives. Personally, it was one of the happiest moments in recent days and on that day everyone should have felt proud of the world we live in. It is an important lesson for the world to learn. When we mobilize proper talents by putting aside the differences, we win.
It is utopian or rather impractical to expect that all technology and expertise should be available in all places all the time. In the event of such humanitarian crises, foreign policies, bilateral issues, geopolitics should fall flat and any government should extend request across the world seeking help to solve the crisis and save lives. We aren’t extending any such request to other nations but what wonders me is the fact there was no such proposal and people are not talking about it either. Is it because that we consider extending a request for help as inferior or national failure? I don’t know the answer.
If it is so, we should remember that nation-states are man-made constructs. To my thoughts, the primary aim of any government of the nation-state is to protect its people and give them freedom. It is not the other way - people should protect the nation-state. Surely, people will nurture it if the state protects them. If there is a problem for its people, solutions should be searched not just within the man-made constructs, but across the world. Only by receiving help, we can learn. Only if we learn, we can help others. Only through helping, humanity lives and smiles.
In the landmark privacy judgment of the Supreme Court, one of the judges writes ' the universe is expanding... human activities expand...and so are the rights’. If everything around us is expanding except humane qualities and values, we are surely creating a narrow dark underworld, where every such death is a collective act of murder.
