Report on the Tsunami: Cuddalore

In the report covering Kanchipuram District, I had mentioned that “We continued on to Sadras where stands a Dutch fort from colonial times. The fort was undamaged by the tsunami. Our next stop was Parangi (Firingee) Pettai, called Porto Novo by early Portuguese settlers, which also did not show much damage. It was interesting to see for the first time towns one had only read about in history books and where so much of the early history of the colonial occupation of India and the rivalry between European powers was written.” I deliberately skipped the part between Sadras and Porto Novo because I wanted to write a separate report on Cuddalore and its vicinity.

The coastal road from Sadras to Pondicherry has few fishing villages until you reach the environs of Pondicherry. Now the road veers considerably inland so one cannot see the fishing villages from the highway. However, there are villages which have grown up from being small trading posts along the highway and one could see banners thanking donors for their relief efforts. We presently entered the Union Territory of Pondicherry.

Pondicherry was one of the few French colonial possessions in South India, the others being Mahe, Kerala and Yenam, Andhra Pradesh. From being a major colonial power exercising considerable influence over the affairs of the Carnatic in the 18th century, France made peace with Britain and withdrew to these enclaves, never to be a major player in Indian affairs again. Pondicherry and other French possessions were returned to independent India in 1955. Though Pondicherry speaks Tamil, the same language as Tamil Nadu, it was decided to keep all French possessions as a separate Union Territory in order to preserve French culture in India. This has resulted in streets remaining named for Dumas, Goubert, etc., and the neatly whitewashed buildings along the seaside promenade. The police wear a hat distinctly French in appearance. While France had made an effort to retain its cultural influence in its former Indian possessions, there is greater acceptance of English as seen from the store signs and even signs on public buildings.

Pondicherry and its coast were hit very hard by the tsunami yet there were few visible signs of that two weeks later. The government had swung into action immediately and distributed relief supplies. There were reports in the press that the Lieutenant Governor of the Territory, being an ex-Army general, had called in his former colleagues and gotten assistance in clearing the debris from the beaches and in repairing coastal roads and bridges. For a small area, the territory of Pondicherry did suffer a huge calamity as some five hundred persons or more had died in the tidal wave along its coast but most of the deaths were in Karaikkal which is some distance south from the city of Pondicherry. The interesting thing was the lack of banners advertising the organizers of the relief efforts or posters offering “tearful salute” (a standard phrase in Tamil Nadu) to the victims. For all except the affected families, life hadn’t changed at all.

Cuddalore is about 22 kilometers south of Pondicherry. Cuddalore comes from the two Tamil words Kadal, meaning sea and oor, meaning town. There are other towns named Kadalur along the coast but this town retains its early British spelling. We knew from press reports and television coverage that coastal Cuddalore was devastated by the tsunami. We stopped at the Collectorate to ask how to go about finding the officials responsible for tsunami relief. We were directed to the Taluq office which was practically directly across from the Collectorate, separated by a vast empty ground. However, we were given directions that took us through suburban development (meaning, unnamed and narrow streets) and some eighteen turns before we found the place. What is it with Indians that they cannot give clear and simple directions? We could have been told to double back to the main road a couple of hundred feet away, go south and take the first left. Or, we could have been told to find our way across the empty ground that any vehicle could have easily handled. Instead, we were given directions that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

On arriving at the Taluq office, we found that one of the older buildings had been converted temporarily into a warehouse. A truck had pulled up to the front and was being loaded with the standard relief supplies: bags of rice, large plastic water storage containers, plastic buckets, clothes, mats, stoves, etc. At the next entrance, there were signs announcing it to be the Tsunami Relief Center. My brother walked in and was ushered into the office of the Assistant Collector.

I stopped at the tent outside. The half a dozen women there in khaki uniform all stood up as I greeted them and would not sit down for the duration of my conversation with them; such is the power of a reasonably well-dressed man, I suppose. They told me what was happening in terms of relief for the affected persons. After about 10 minutes of conversation with them, I decided to join my brother inside the building.

Anu George, the Assistant Collector, is a freshly-minted IAS officer, a smart young woman in her mid-twenties with energy and enthusiasm for her job. She was dealing with at least two groups of people in her office with great aplomb. As I watched her converse with my brother, it occurred to me that she would make a fantastic manager for any multinational corporation. From her accent, it seemed that she grew up in the North; but she is of Malayalee origin and spoke very good Tamil. From the way she was dealing with the issues in front of her, it was clear that she is an idealistic young woman determined to give her very best in her job. When we explained that we were scouting the place for the arrival of a medical team, she pointed out that most of the emergency work has already been done and that what was needed was long-term rehabilitation of the affected families. Permanent housing was a major issue and returning lost jobs to the fishermen was an important priority. She explained that the higher ground where permanent housing could be erected was in private hands and that the land acquisition process could prove to be a difficult one. One possibility was for private charities to directly negotiate with the owners to buy the land and then transfer ownership to other charities who were interested in building the housing. She also suggested providing boats and kattumarams (primitive rafts of logs tied together, from the Tamil words kattu meaning tie and maram meaning tree; this gave rise to the English word catamaran) to the fishermen along with nets to enable them to return to the sea and start earning a living.

We asked about the devastation in Cuddalore. Ms. George replied firmly that we wouldn’t see any scenes of devastation in Devanampattinam (from Devan meaning God, naam meaning name and pattinam meaning coastal town) as the area had been thoroughly cleaned up. She said that her boss, Gagandeep Singh Bedi, the Collector of Cuddalore, had done a great job in leading the clean-up efforts. She asked Mr. Mehboob Basha, the Planning Manager, to provide us with photographs that we could use in our consciousness-raising efforts among NRIs. Within five minutes, we had in our hands a CD containing some 50+ pictures of Devanampattinam as it looked hours after the tsunami hit it. When we asked to pay for the cost of the CD, Mr. Basha graciously declined saying that since we had come to help in the process of rehabilitation, he couldn’t in good conscience ask for money. This was a surprise to me since, during my father’s time, service stamps used for inter-government mail had to be accounted for to the last anna.

I thought all India needed was ten Anu Georges in each district to modernize it. Right now, altruism, however politically motivated, has met the idealistic civil servant and that had made the relief efforts possible. But how long before arbitrary orders, midnight transfers, orders to proceed on leave, unwarranted investigations, etc., sapped their energy and they decide to go with the flow and just obey orders of politicians?

From Cuddalore, we proceeded south to Porto Novo. When we asked for directions to the beach, we were given directions which took us to Pudukkuppam, which is about six kilometers north. Pudukkuppam was seemingly a prosperous fishing village which was devastated by a wall of water. We saw tumbled down walls, casually strewn about fishing nets and destroyed boats. A local relief worker accompanied us to explain what had happened. The first house we saw standing was easily half a kilometer from the sea yet its compound walls were felled by the waves. Water had gone further inshore and we saw several houses showing damage. In some houses, there were people sitting with sad expressions on their faces, indicating they had lost family members to the tsunami.

As we were walking along the beach, one fisherman came to us to complain that relief money was being hijacked by politically connected persons. He must have assumed that we were government officials since we were accompanied by the previous village headman who was accompanying us. In particular, he complained that one current headman has submitted a list of 400 boats lost whereas there were only 83 registered boats in the village. He further alleged that the headman had allocated three boats each to several of his relatives. When we heard from others that the man in question also happened to be the local marine engine dealer, a bigger picture of the scam emerged: not only did he stand to gain from the additional boats but he was going to be able to sell more outboard motors!

We met relief workers from Oxfam and the Socialist Unity Center of India (SUCI). It is interesting how only the extreme political right-wing and left-wing were represented in relief work. The SUCI represented the Socialists and Communists and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) represented the right-wingers. The Congress and of course the self-styled guardians of Tamil Nadu, namely the DMK and the ADMK, were conspicuously absent from any fieldwork. SUCI was running a medical camp, providing required medical assistance to local people. They promised to stay in touch with us regarding the proposed visit of NRI doctors to help in medical relief.

About a week later, I returned to Cuddalore with Brian H., a historian from US. He was visiting India for personal reasons but wanted to help the tsunami victims in any way. I met with Anu George again and this time she had excellent news. Several NGOs had committed to building temporary and permanent shelters for the fishermen. So what was needed was the provision of boats and nets to fishermen so that they could resume their livelihoods. She gave us a copy of the Government Order that detailed the procedures to be followed if a village is to be adopted by an NGO for rehabilitation purposes. The simpler and less expensive task, she reminded us, was the purchase of boats for the fishermen. An excellent suggestion was to register the new boat not in one person’s name but jointly for five fishermen. This way, nobody could sell the boat to pay off a crushing loan and five families would be guaranteed an equal share in the catch. When I mentioned the allegations of the fisherman at Pudukkuppam, she smiled and said that government registration records would be checked and made available to donors of boats so that profiteering could be minimized. She also pointed out that quite a few fishermen did not register their boats because they didn’t want to pay the continuing registration fees. But to make the whole transaction transparent, she handed over the names and addresses of several boatyards where one could negotiate prices and asked the donors check with the government to see which fishermen had yet to receive a boat.

This time, I decided to visit Devanampattinam. The beach was clean with damaged boats arranged neatly. We could see the tracks left behind by mechanical shovels and bulldozers. A police station on the beach had been destroyed by the tsunami and a water tank was tilted on its side. There were a couple of pushcart vendors who said that the carts left behind on the eve of the tsunami had all been washed away and they had to invest money again in new carts. An elderly man to whom our driver was talking walked up to me and started talking.

“This beach called the Silver Sands is the next best beach after the Marina Beach in Chennai. Look at the devastation, there is nothing left. The pavements are broken, buildings have been damaged as far as eye can see. Look at the compound wall of that college (about 500 meters away). It has fallen down.

My home town is Cuddalore. This part is actually new Cuddalore. Old Cuddalore is about 5 kilometers to the south. The real name of this place is Thiru Padhiri Puliyur. The padhiri tree is the temple tree.

I am nearly 80 years old. My house is not too far from here. In the good old days, I could just take two steps from my house and be in French territory and the British police couldn’t touch me. Yes, I needed that protection sometimes. In 1945 we tore down the British flag and Annamalai University (at Chidambaram) and I was expelled from the University for that. I then enrolled at Pachaiappa’s College in Chennai to complete my studies. I put on a khadi dhoti and shirt in 1945 and have worn nothing else since then.

Things have changed. They have changed a whole lot. There is no respect for law and order. Look at these fishermen. Before the tsunami, one would hesitate to come to this area after 6 pm. They would all be drunk No respectable person would want to come to this area when they were out raising hell. The tsunami is almost God’s punishment for their behavior, though I hesitate to say that.

Ask me my caste. I am a Reddiar. Respectable folks. But it is the rowdy folks who have political power now, those who don’t hesitate to use violence. Sometimes I wonder where this whole country is going.

You would have seen the festival with all those idols from various temples on the riverbank. That is the South Pennai River festival, held on the fourth day after Pongal…..”

I tore myself away from the old man and drove up to the area behind a coconut grove to the north. That coconut grove housed fishermen and we could see that most of the huts had been washed away. There was a government relief center functioning at a nearby temple and the new huts provided by the actor Vivek Oberoi were in neat rows across from the temple. As we went closer to the see, we could see more damaged houses and boats.

Cuddalore has a rich history. The British decided to bracket Pondicherry with Madras to the North and Cuddalore to the south. They built Fort St. David in Cuddalore. However, the British plans were foiled by the French who captured both Fort St. George and Fort St. David which they promptly razed. The French were forced to return captured territories in India to the British as part of the peace process in Europe but Cuddalore never regained its strategic importance.

There is house in Cuddalore built for and owned by Robert Clive. It is now the Camp Office of the Collector. The building is in considerable disrepair and has been repaired by the addition of a large number of ceramic tiles, an act that can only be considered vandalism and not restoration.

There is a Clive Street in an obscure part of Cuddalore, meaning that that area was once prominent. It has not yet been renamed something like Kalaivanar Street for a Tamil film comedian though I do not put that past the city fathers.

On the way back, I stopped at a boatyard to check out the prices and delivery of new boats made of fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP). We were quoted Rs. 75,000 for a boat and delivery within 15 days. The lowest discounted price negotiated by the government was Rs. 70,000, not a bad deal. By the time you added the cost of engines, nets and all the associated gear, a FRP boat would cost about Rs. 150,000 to Rs. 175,000.

From these trips, I had some idea of what needed to be done to help the unfortunate people. The simplest thing to do is to buy them boats and get them to the sea. But that is not the same thing as having your name on a hundred temporary shelters, which is what the NRIs want but which they are unprepared to pay for.