Demand Enquiries, Don’t Seek Ex-Gratia

Editorial:
Every time there is destruction to life or property caused by a natural disaster, a routine response plays out –the government releasing ex-gratia payment to the affected people. While it is generous, even necessary if the affected people are already under-privileged, of the government to do so, in most cases, ex-gratia hand-outs gain primacy over the more important aspect of fact-finding. In the absence of a detailed investigation, natural disasters, almost exclusively landslides in Sikkim, receive only piecemeal redressal like a retaining wall, with the real reasons which triggered a landslide remaining ignored. This band-aid approach to confronting the dynamics of a failing slope will have to end if Sikkim is serious about minimising the losses it suffers to slides.
One way to ensure this will be for the affected people to stop seeking ex-gratia payments and demanding detailed and scientific investigations into what factors brought landslides to their midst.
It is important to understand what ex-gratia means. It is not compensation as many believe it to be. When something is done ex gratia, it means it has been done voluntarily, out of kindness or grace. In law, an ex gratia payment is a payment made without the giver recognising any liability or legal obligation. And this makes sense at some levels because damage to private dwellings by an act of nature is not the government’s fault. But what if the mishap is not an act of nature, but a man-made catastrophe, as most landslides are? If a disaster is man-made, then it should not be ex gratia payments which reach the people but compensation for the culpable acts which visited harm on them. This compensation, as a matter or right, will come through only if the reasons behind each landslide, land-sink and soil failure are investigated thoroughly. This is not happening anywhere and funds remain tied to either apportioning ex gratia or commissioning protection against nature. The man-made aspect gets overlooked. Take the example of the structural instability recorded in a string of homes at Lower Arithang or the offensively unsafe and unhygienic habitations at College Valley, both in Gangtok. The houses at Lower Arithang are sitting on the edge of a landslide below, and a massive protective wall project is being envisaged for it. And yes, some ex-gratia payments are also being processed. The landslide, even to a lay person, is the result of irresponsible constructions and absent drainage in the mass of buildings further up. A scientific study of the load imposed on the slope by the constructions and investigation into the drainage systems, public and private, will pin-point the reasons why the slope slid in Lower Arithang imperilling houses there. If this gets established, the affected people will be entitled to compensation matching their loss, not ex gratia which is only a token assistance. At College Valley, houses have been constructed across the jhora, rooms with dangerous holes on the floors rented out and entire buildings constructed as catacombs designed to be neither hygienic nor safe. An investigation into how this was allowed, if followed up with fixing of accountability could possibly lead to new rules and laws which will not allow unbridled profiteering [from rents] to continue preying on desperation and tight pockets to herd people into potential death traps.
These possibilities, as mentioned, stand a chance of coming through only if the affected people demand enquiries into the reasons and not seek only ex gratia payments for results.