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The helicopter crash in the Nallamalla forests of Andhra Pradesh that killed
Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy, painfully reminds us of a sad reality: that despite all
our claims, all the progress that we have made is still confined to one part of
our society. There is an equally large, other India, that still does not have
the basic connectivity with the rest of us.
Come to think of it. The state was Andhra Pradesh, one of the most
technologically advanced states. And the victim in question was the most
important public figure of the state. But for almost a day, we did not have any
basic clue about his whereabouts. And whatever we got about something related to
the incident, was terribly wrong.
I am usually an optimist. And the idea is not to doubt Indias progress and
development. But incidents like theseI am not referring to the accident but
what happened after thatdo not paint a great picture of the inclusive growth
that we are talking about. Here was an India where no cellphone signals reached.
Here was an India where basic access was an issue for the search operations
team. People from a local community helped considerably in the operations. As
some observers have pointed out, few in the state itself know much about this
community, let alone development reaching out to them.
India is top of the mind when it comes to anything related to mobile. We are
never tired of counting how many million new subscribers we have added last
month. But where we need it the most, there is no reach.
It is difficult to explain that helplessness to anyone who is not familiar
with India. There was no connectivity, no access. Our satellite technology could
not help. The helicopters communication system did not help much either.
And we all know there are a few thousands of people who live there. And there
are a few millions like them who live in different parts of the country. We lie
awake worrying about them when something like this happens.
While this exposed one part of our progress, the confusion that prevailed
about the air-readiness of the helicopter exposed another. All the TV channels
started reporting that the helicopter that was carrying Dr Reddy had not been
tested for air-readiness and hence was not air-ready. This created a lot of
anger among the people for the lapse on the part of those responsible.
And where did they get that information? From the ministry website. It was
only after some ten hours that the civil aviation minister came out with a
statement that the website was not updated.
When there is so much of campaign by some ministries and some zealous
bureaucrats to deliver all the information to people through the website,
incidents like this hit the credibility of the entire community. I actually
wrote a small piece in our website on this, asking whether one could actually
believe the information on ministry websites. And I got a very agitated response
from someone associated with a department website asking me how could I question
all the websites, because of lapse on part of one ministry/one department. I
respect the passion, but I guess that is what most people would do.
Let the incident be a wake-up call for all of usnot just the government.
Shyamanuja Das
The author is Editor of Dataquest.
shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in
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