Nagapattinam/Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu), January 8
Natural calamities are nothing new in a large country like India where in one part there might be a drought while in another part there might be floods.

But over the last decade a new phenomenon is coming to light – some who thrive on death and devastation. Unfortunately other than unscrupulous traders and government officials, innumerable touts and money lenders, there are many NGOs and television journalists.

The scene is no different in tsunami-struck Nagapattinam and Cuddalore districts of Tamil Nadu, where more than 10,000 persons have died leaving many orphans and lakhs displaced with their homes razed to the ground.

Hordes of NGOs not only from New Delhi and Kolkata but also from abroad have descended in the two districts with a professional video cinematographer and photographers. One might be surprised what role a cameraman or a photographer play in a non-media organisation.

Asked one of the team leaders replied, “See, we have to document everything. From distribution of relief to taking interviews of government officials about the extent of damage and how much money needed for rehabilitation, everything need to be submitted to our foreign donors for funds.”

So, are many of these NGOs who seem have no clue about the region, its people and culture just here to obtain foreign funding?

Replies Arup Das of CINNI: “Instead of opposing, I strongly support your observation. There are many who are out here to fish in the troubled sea.”

In a country of millions of unemployed there are many young men and women who have come here as part of NGO teams without any qualification in social welfare and could be seen moving around with smiling faces while the women wail about the death of their children.

Sporting colourful T-shirts with their names written on them speed around from one government office to another in Toyota Qualises.

The scene at Nagapattinam Collectorate, a massive complex recently built, says it all. A representative from some NGO or other is patiently waiting from morning.

Whenever a top official’s car comes in it is action time for the videographer and the photographers. The representatives smile, shake hands while it is recorded for the sake of sponsors and foreign funders. Mission accomplished he or she then enquires about the Central Assessment Team touring the tsunami affected areas to assess the damage.

“Do you know which batch of IAS is Rastogi or Srivavstava belong to? I can ask one of my contacts in Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata to put in a word,” one of them could be heard asking another about the CAT members.

One NGO even deputed a man with a mobile to immediately inform when a bureaucrat is visiting the ravaged villages or to the relief camps so that its “media team” reaches there on time.

Television channels both national and foreign compete with each other to film the dead, the women beating their chests and wailing incoherently and of course the orphaned children.

A 28-year-old woman who lost her husband and two children but could survive with just a three-month-old son, was asked to carry the infant in her arms and “walk a few steps” because a TV journalist thought it would “set the mood” for the story on child survivors.

A woman television correspondent from the Netherlands visited a relief camp with a bagfull of stuffed toys. She hands out toys to few children and asks them to smile while the others look sadly. She goes on air, “For the children of Nagapattinam, smiles like these are few and far between... these innocent smiles may not last forever (she signals the cameraman to pan to the children without toys), only despair seems to be their lot.”

Take this from a national news channel at the government-run orphanage in Nagapattinam. The correspondent flashes a smile to the camera and goes on air saying: “Lots of beautiful babies are available here for adoption...” as if tsunami made these children beautiful instead of killing their parents and making them homeless.

When a body of a child is recovered and wrapped with white cloth on the Velankenni beach, a French television channel through its interpreter directs the conservancy workers to lift it to the truck from a particular angle to get the right shot.

When a child died at a relief camp the family wanted the baby cremated but journalists thought otherwise. The body was placed on a towel and parents and other siblings were asked to sit around it while the cameras rolled. Some even asked the mother to start crying! For majority of the American and European media there is no dignity for either the dead or the survivors of the Asian tsunami. Well, we are a different colour and race from the 9/11 victims when no television channel showed a single charred dead body to respect the victims’ families.

At Nagapattinam a foreign correspondent was willing to share his news gathering allowance with a policeman: “I hear there are many mass graves here. I need a picture. Can you show me where they are?”