Nepal Earthquake and hate speech

27 april 2015

No place for hate-quakes

JOHN DAYAL

Back  in 2001, a minister of a south Indian state said that the  earthquake in Bhuj, Gujarat, on Republic Day which killed 12,300 men, women and children, was divine punishment for the sins of those ruling the state.  He was sacked. It is not known if he blamed god for losing a lucrative position. One refrains from naming the honourable former minister for perhaps he may have repented.

But thoughtlessness and lunacy of that scale follow natural disasters as inevitable aftershocks, specially when high faith and instant politics find a common home. We should be used to it by now, perhaps.

The venerable Shakshi Maharaj feels, and says so before large and doting crowds and news cameras, that the Himalayan tragedy is because Mr. Rahul Gandhi, the Congress vice president, visited  the Kedarnath Dham temple in the mountains. Mr Gandhi, the son of the Italy-born Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, eats beef and participated in the opening of the doors of the holy temple after its winter closure, without undergoing ritual purification for his sin.

Far away across the globe in Los Angeles, California ,where beef is not illegal, former policemen turned preacher Tony Miano says God is angry. The precautions against future quakes, he suggests, is for the people not to rebuild all the pagan structures that have fallen, but convert to  Mr Miano’s faith.  The gentleman was so far known for what his critics call his”homophobia”.

And by way of an inter-faith consonance, an Iranian cleric,  Moulvi Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi goes on record to say that "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," to which Iran is particularly prone.

Faith is strong in the Asia south of the young Himalayan ranges, but it remains personal, and even theocracies routinely wage war, or at least try to crack down,  on religious fundamentalism when it morphs into unacceptable extremism.  Faith also retains a cosy relationship with science, and no one mocks senior scientists when they visit a temple and crack a coconut before firing a rocket to launch a mission to Mars.

The mountains quaked in Nepal because of a slip in the Indian plate’s grinding under the Eurasian Plate in its inexorable tectonic northward movement,  which birthed the Himalayas, and thereby the nighty rivers of the subcontinent and their civilisation. Scientists apprehend a far more severe quake in the future than the one that has wrought such tragedy for so many.

This tragedy does not need political meddling, or one-up-manship. There are no brownie points for governments and heads of governments, and no photo opportunities for politico-cultural organisations in uniform. What Nepal needs today are more personnel, including dogs, trained in rescue, medical and para-medical staff and hospital equipment, temporary safe shelters, ambulances, food, specially baby food, warm clothing, torches and batteries, ambulances and fuel, and as someone reminded, sanitary towels.

And, of course, prayers to a loving God for his compassion for the victims of a disaster.