Lessons are never learnt in India, especially if there are elections in the offing. The Democratic Progressive Alliance in Tamil Nadu, the opposition coalition headed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, has reacted instantaneously to the stampede deaths at a Chennai school by demanding the resignation of the chief minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa. There is a fascinating argument about ?moral responsibility? in such cases, and an immediate impulse to change every tragedy into a tool for political wrangling. The relief Ms Jayalalithaa has arranged for flood victims through the distribution of coupons is also being considered an election ploy. Now there have been a total of 48 deaths, including the ones in November, in a stampede for relief coupons. The lessons of the first incident were lost when the last distribution was organized.

It might be asked whether Ms Jayalalithaa taking moral responsibility would change anything for the victims. In other words, whether that is the issue at all. The first question is about the vulnerability of the underprivileged, hit once by the floods and then by callous mismanagement. It is a year since the tsunami, and there had been numerous lessons to be learnt then too. The weather has been terrible, rendering the poor even more vulnerable. Why should there be such a desperate need for relief coupons that the number of people queuing up for them is always overwhelmingly greater than anticipated? Why are they so insecure that every rumour sets them rushing for the counter? In the last incident, the rain made things worse, but in any case, people had been waiting since 3.45 am. These are questions for all politicians and administrative officials. Poverty is not the doing of any one government, nor vulnerability the result of a tsunami or of floods alone. Ms Jayalalithaa can own moral responsibility as a form of tokenism, but that too would be changing tragedy into politics. Those who should be held to account are the organizing officials. They either had no idea of the demand in spite of what happened a few weeks ago, or did not care. No tragedy was envisaged, because such things as the distribution of relief coupons merit no attention. There were not even enough policemen to prevent disaster. Preventing avoidable deaths among the poor is evidently no one?s responsibility. And this is just a reflection of attitudes higher up.