Since the beginning of August, Kerala has been ravaged by the severest floods due to unprecedented rainfall, the worst in the century, with loss of hundreds of lives and destruction of property worth thousands of crores. The calamity has receded now and the rescue operations are in full swing to put the State back on track. Kerala has sought an assistance of Rs 2600 crore from the Centre, which will be met in phases.
The sea of humanity has been outpouring with people showing solidarity with the marooned and assuring financial aid. Many of the States and UTs have assured monetary and other help as well. Though some foreign countries have expressed willingness to extend aid, the government bound by its own imperatives is unwilling to accept it since even in the past during the Uttarakhand disaster the UPA dispensation had thankfully rejected such offers. Government has clarified that it has resources to handle the calamity on its own.
What troubles the mind is the misuse of social media spreading false messages and creating panic in the already embattled masses. Worse still, some people have commented that the catastrophe is a retribution for killing cows and eating beef on the roads, apparently because cow slaughter is not criminalised in Kerala. Not surprisingly other religionists would argue that Kerala is paying for being a communist State. So once again divinism, which is often proved to be the bane, is taking its toll only trying to rub salt on the wounds.
Woefully, we fail to realise that this is not the first such calamity to strike the country. In the recent past we had the Uttarakhand floods in 2013 and tsunami had wreaked havoc in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and AP in 2004. Likewise the worst cyclones had hit AP and Odisha a few decades ago. All these are natural calamities due to some severe disturbances in the atmosphere which can be traced through scientific interventions instead of bungling with issues of faith and creed.
The root cause of our disillusion is not giving prime slot to humanism despite Constitution making it a fundamental duty to develop humanism, an outlook that attaches prime importance to human matters and stresses on the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasising common human needs and seeking solely rational ways of solving human problems without seeking divine intervention. Unless we change our approach we will be enslaved by divinism, taking solace only in abstract supernatural matters.
