The protests against the Government’s apathetic response to the tragedy continue unabated. The latest to join the chorus of condemnation is the Latin Catholic Council, which has decided to intensify the agitation with a march to the Raj Bhavan.

Unhappy over the pace of the rescue and relief operations, angry fishermen blocked the National Highway on Saturday. Their demand: the government agencies must take additional steps to find the fishermen still missing in the sea.

Understandably, the Latin Catholic Church’s aggressive stance on the sensitive issue is causing concern to the Left Democratic Front(LDF) Government. The LDF has reasons to feel worried as the Latin Catholic Church has always been supporters of the Left parties.

In an effort to allay their fears and assuage anger, the Government deputed Tourism Minister Kadakampaly Surendran to meet Latin Archbishop Soosai Pakiam, It was only after the Minister gave assured of immediate action, the fishermen withdrew their blockade.

But that there has been no let-up in the Latin Catholic community’s belligerent stand is clear from the decision to organize a protest march to the Raj Bhavan. The protest is also against the ‘inadequate’ compensation package announced by the Pinarayi Vijayan Government.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has urged the Latin Catholic community to avoid whipping up emotions. The CM’s appeal came while he was addressing a function organized by the Christian Service Community in Kochi. Highly emotive responses, Vijayan stressed, would make finding a solution to the problem extremely difficult.

The Government is itself to blame if the fishermen continue to feel aggrieved and resentful. The fishermen have not forgiven the government for its apathetic response to the cyclone in the initial days. They are particularly angry over the failure of the ruling party leaders to visit the affected areas and lead the rescue and relief operations from the front. It is a fact that the LDF leaders did not deem it necessary to reach out to the affected fishermen for three days.

It was only after Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited the coastal districts that LDF leaders, including the CM, swung into action. The Chief Minister, in fact, had to bear the full brunt of fishermen’s anger when he visited one of the affected areas. Because of the extremely hostile attitude of the fishermen the Chief Minister had to cancel his visit.

The LDF and UDF leaders would do well to take leaf out of Nirmala Sitharaman’s book. The Defence Minister, who conducted herself with dignity, refused to blame anyone including the State Government. She said this was not the time to indulge in a blame game. The need of the hour, she averred, was to speed up rescue and relief operations. And she succeeded in gaining the confidence of the agitated people with assurances of early action.

Appropriate lessons need to be learnt from the Ockhi cyclone tragedy. First and foremost is the need to avoid politicizing natural disasters. Unfortunately, the Opposition, which has a crucial role to play in calming frayed nerves, could not rise above the temptation to score political points and extract political mileage from the tragedy. The Congress-led United Democratic Front’s unabashed attempts to play politics with the Ockhi tragedy have not gone down well with the people at large either even as the people continue to vent their fury over the Government’s poor handling of the post-Ockhi cyclone tragedy. It is time both the government and the opposition sank their differences and joined hands to ensure speedy rescue and relief operations. (IPA Service)