Social entrepreneur Suchitra Sheth's Centre for Social Knowledge and Action in Gujarat, India, cut its teeth in disaster management by dealing with situations like local droughts. However, its first encounter with truly cataclysmic devastation occurred with the Gujarat earthquake in 2001.

The Centre for Social Knowledge and Action (known as "Setu," which means "bridge" in a number of Indian languages) works with a cross-section of the state's most marginalized groups, empowering them to challenge their historically disenfranchised status and engage actively with democratic processes. Changemakers featured Setu in its October 2001 issue about disasters. Link to 2001 article.

Setu's efforts at the time of the Gujarat earthquake—specifically its focus on ensuring that aid interventions did not neglect marginalized communities—received wide recognition. After the earthquake, the Gujarat government invited Setu to be part of the Gujarat Ecology Commission—a body responsible for drafting guidelines to mitigate and manage disasters. Setu's most significant contribution was identifying the issues connected with marginalized communities and providing strategies to successfully address these challenges.

Rebuilding Lives Out of Rubble

On January 26, 2001, Gujarat heaved under the impact of an earthquake spiking 7.9 on the Richter Scale. Entire areas were flattened in minutes, the death toll hovered near the 100,000 mark, and over 800,000 homes were destroyed. As aid poured in, and rescue and rehabilitation efforts swung into action, Setu noticed that these supplies and initiatives were simply bypassing the state's most vulnerable groups. The reason: even aid efforts follow paths defined by traditional demarcations of caste and communality.

The quality of response to disaster is determined by the legal-economic-social systems that have been put in place during "normal" times. Sheth says: "When disaster strikes you don't have time to think: you respond." It's when society does have time to "think" that disaster preparedness must happen. In "normal" times, there must be an on-going effort to put a range of systems and services in place designed to optimize on a society's capacity to respond to disaster swiftly, comprehensively, and effectively.

Setu concentrated on identifying and reaching out to these communities. Its approach consisted of rapid-action pinpointing and removal of barriers to swift and appropriate relief delivery.

When it moved into the rehabilitation phase, Setu's strategy was to make the community its principal partner. In villages, it set up local-level committees with whom to collaborate on relief distribution, drawing up rules of distribution that prioritized especially vulnerable groups like widows, pregnant women, and the elderly. Setu understood and capitalized on the power inherent in these committees in becoming the springboard for collective action, leadership, and self-determination; the institutions that can function as launch pads for long-term empowerment of the community.

Drafting Post-Disaster Dos and Don'ts

In 2002, Gujarat was once more in the throes of disaster: this time bloody communal rioting between Hindus and Muslims. The casualty list featured names from both sides of the communal divide. But as a Hindu majority region run by a right-wing Hindu government, Gujarat deployed its state machinery's assistance more on the basis of ideology than need.

Setu's response strategy was to actively engage with legal processes to help Muslim victims file police reports despite the resistance from a largely Hindu police force. Simultaneously, it set up centers for children and youth that brought Hindu and Muslim kids together to build interfaith dialogue and understanding.

Setu has culled important lessons from their extensive work with marginal groups. The result: a disaster-response framework that ensures vulnerable groups don't fall through the cracks. Their approach goes beyond relief and immediate rehabilitation to transform disaster management into an opportunity for long-term community empowerment.

Areas that Setu identifies as particularly crucial to work on in "normal" times are as follows: --Lobby for legal change --Secure citizenship rights for marginalized groups --Develop a broad knowledge of developmental issues

After the 2004 December tsunami struck in the Indian Ocean basin, Setu drafted an informal paper for civil sector groups working with shattered communities. It highlighted critical watch points and practical tips to ramp up efficiency levels in disaster response generally; and specifically, to prevent neglect of marginalized groups.

Ashoka Fellow Sheth and her colleagues continue a relentless campaign to bring about new laws, changes in Government policies and build public opinion that will protect the rights of the most disenfranchised both in times of disaster and otherwise. They know the battle is a long and tough one especially with a right-wing Hindu political party at the helm. Sheth says, "After the 2002 communal riots Setu enjoys zero support in government circles because we went public about the wide-scale state-endorsed violence against minority groups."

For Sheth, fundamental changes in how society thinks are essential to enable the marginalized to engage with the mainstream, and thereby improve their survival (and revival) chances after a disaster. In societies where prejudice and bias run deep and there is little public debate on key issues, the need for a profound shift in attitude is critical. With the goal of revealing socio-economic systems underpinning modern Gujarat and generating public debate on the implications, Sheth and colleague, human-rights activist and journalist, Achyut Yagnik, have recently written a book called The Shaping of Modern Gujarat (Penguin India, 2005).




Contributed by Arundhati Ray. Reprinted with permission from Ashoka.

To read another Global Envision article about disaster response and long term development practices, see The Black Saturday Quake: Let it Not Return.



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