You have to give it to them: Chinese heads of State haven’t forgotten the basic premise of dictatorship — the buck stops with the dictator. Thrice during the ongoing natural calamity engulfing China — unprecedented snowfall and blizzards all over the country — the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has apologized. First, to the families of three electricity workers who died while trying to restore power, to whom he said: “Standing before you, I cannot offer any words of comfort. All I can do is bow in apology.” Then, to the lakhs of migrant workers stranded at two of the main railway stations as trains broke down across the country. Over a mike, he told them, “I am sorry you are stuck here. We are fighting against time to restore the power grids.” Newspapers here are full of images of the premier in the worst affected areas, comforting passengers inside trains, shaking hands with them, seeing them off, inspecting ticket counters, all without any apparent security.

Indeed, phrases more common during Mao’s days are being used now: courage, discipline, unity, cooperation, selfless sacrifice for the country and so on. Were these phrases all hollow? Maybe the electricity workers sent from the unaffected north to help out in the south, instead of going home for the New Year, had no choice. So too the PLA soldiers who are everywhere, removing layers of snow from expressways with shovels, keeping order in railway stations, delivering relief. Maybe the power workers who died had no choice either.

At least the country honoured them. They were given a State funeral, which was telecast live. Miners, truly the wretched of the earth in this country, were visited by the president, Hu Jintao, and asked to produce more as many areas went without power in freezing temperatures.

Tardy response

The scale of the calamity cannot be imagined by expats. Expat websites obscenely continue to feature brilliantly-lit bar streets and Chinese New Year shopping as their main features. The new year, which begins today, is the one occasion when all migrant workers head home, however far that may be from where they work, saving for the trip the entire year, standing in queue for days for tickets, travelling like sardines. Guangdong province in the south, with its special economic zones, is where migrants throng to work. This time, the south has been specially affected by blizzards.

The migrants are desperate to go home, despite appeals from authorities to treat Guangdong as their home and celebrate the New Year there. But those who left for home were even unluckier. Stranded for days on bridges, expressways, between mountains, with water and food running out, unable to open windows due to the blizzard outside, unable to get even a cup of hot water to cook the instant noodles they were carrying for the long journey, their situation was unenviable.

This time, the media went all out to report the disaster. Xinhua, the official news agency, reported 80 deaths due to the weather. Indeed,the papers even carried some amount of criticism on the handling of the disaster. While taking care to praise the Centre’s response, columnists have criticized the “bureaucratic mindset” which prevented provincial governments from acting until Central directives reached them, and the lack of citizens’ organizations that could have started to help on their own.

Amid all this were the human stories — of men who walked in the snow to rescue stranded girlfriends; of one man’s expression of admiration for the way his girlfriend worked days and nights at her electricity station. He erected a red rubber arch in the snow outside her office to welcome her as she finally emerged. In the absence of flowers, passers-by threw snow at the couple.