The Union government has turned down the United Arab Emirates’ offer of aid for the devastating floods that hit Kerala leaving 373 dead, approximately a million displaced and estimated damanges of Rs 21,000 crore. The UAE, a destination for millions of Malayali migrant workers, has pledged Rs 700 crore, more than 15% higher than the amount sanctioned by the Union government. Apart from the UAE, Qatar, the Maldives and Malasia have also offered aid and the decision will also apply to them. This decision continues a policy instituted by the Manmohan Singh government in 2004 in the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar islands to decline aid in the event of a calamity if “we feel that we can cope with the situation on our own”.
Since then, India has rejected foreign aid for the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2013 Uttarakhand floods and the 2014 Kashmir floods.
Foreign aid from richer to poorer countries is a complex issue and of late the latter have tended to reject it. In some cases, as developing countries get richer, the aid is too small to make a real diference. In others, the aid comes with conditions that benefit the donors disproportionately.
However, there might be a good case to make an exception for the Kerala floods. For one, the scale of the calamity and the size of the UAE’s assistance means that the aid could do significant good. Moreover, the aid comes with no strings attached. Indeed, the only reason to reject the offer seems to be a misplaced sense of national pride given that India now considers itself an economic power that offers aid instead of accepting it.
On the ground in Kerala itself, however, more practical considerations have led to outrage that the aid is being rejected. Kerala finance minister Thomas Issac pointed out that the National Disaster Management Plan itself suggests that “if the national government of another country voluntarily offers assistance as a goodwill gesture in solidarity with the disaster victims, the central government may accept the offer”. He went on to argue that the Union government should compensate Kerala for the rejected aid.
Indeed, if the reason to reject the aid is that the Union government thinks it has the resources to handle the devastation caused by the floods, this seems a fair proposal. The state of Kerala has already suffered grievously due to a natural calamity. It should not have to suffer further because of a decision taken by the Union government.