Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

Hurricane Katrina- Was U.S Awaiting an Outsourcing?

Posted : September 6, 2005 at 10:34 pm [IST]

It is almost a month or more perhaps that we returned from US. I had to take care of the mesh of the last six months. I had not looked at some of my favorite sites of US newspapers and weeklies. I used to go through the weeklies such as ‘Business Week’, ‘Newsweek’, ‘US News’, and ‘Time’ religiously in borders on every Monday and Tuesday. And then I saw some shocking headlines about Katrina in newspapers of India: “Complete systemic and leadership failure”, “Is this because the stricken are blacks?” “Riot, rapes hamper rescue“, “No more space in Astrodome, many stranded”, and “Gunfire amid chaos: Police kill 4 looters”. I tried to get into the details and visited the sites of ‘The New York Times’, ‘Washington Post‘, ‘Business Week‘,’Time’ and ‘Newsweek’ too.

I am amazed. Were we (when in US) overestimating the capability of the superpower and citing wrongly US as benchmark for Indians to learn crisis management? Perhaps it was because of their super performance after 9/11 mishap in New York. The mayor managed the crisis superbly. The nation backed him. He became the hero.

And more than the devastation, the news about poor and half-heated rescue work and the law and order situation there, will shock any one on this earth and one can’t think of that sort of situations even in African countries, what to say of a developed country. It was in poor taste to read about robbers moving around the cities and towns openly, starving people, and even cases of rapes. It was disgraceful to see President Bush bringing in two past Presidents to help in getting donations from the people and corporate houses. I am sure the Indian Americans will also come out in big way to help those who suffered. Unfortunately, it appears most of them are under-privileged blacks who constitute a major portion of the population of the states affected by Katrina.

India had a worse situation when Tsunami hit South India. It faced it boldly. The bureaucrats did a marvelous job. The country didn’t ask for any aid too from other countries. There were absolutely no cases of law and order problems. Even the natural calamity because of unprecedented rain in Mumbai was well handled. It is a shame that US with all its technological might and infra-structural strength with strong Red Cross and other human rights institutions based there couldn’t avoid the situations created by a hurricane that is part of life in American coastal regions. And it gives me a great pleasure when I read India offering aid to US. It is certainly a role reversal. As a leading producer of bulk drugs, India is sending across a large consignment of medicines.

India with its proven expertise in combating large-scale disasters recently, can certainly be of great help to US. As one of my old friends jokingly said, “Let US outsource the disaster managements like Katrina to Indians. They will do better.” So why couldn’t the rescue work and the required help be made promptly available? Were those in administration awaiting an outsourcing of their work?
And now this has become another failure of Bush administration for the people in other countries to talk about. American brand is losing its brightness. With machines and equipment, they perform better, but perhaps they are going poorer in coordinating people of different areas of expertise to face a critical situation such as Katrina hurricane. Let the famous management schools in US come out with some new courses.

- Indra

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