The tsunami relief

Criticizing Amma always brings about the same reply. Her devotees begin to psalm the endless list of her charitable actions. The message is clear. Even if her organization has bad aspects, the show must go on, for the sake of the poor. The most impressive action was the rehabilitation effort after the tsunami of December 2004. But this relief wasn't as nice and smooth as Amma's official websites claim.

When a natural disaster occurs, the NGOs rush to help the victims. Some are moved by compassion, others are motivated by greed. This kind of event provides a precious occasion to embezzle money, publicly pretending to spend a lot to save humanity, but actually directing it to secret destinations. All the following articles explain the great role played by the M.A. Math in this political and religious race.

Tsunami: In Kerala, it's religion over relief
Too many donors! Yes, an excess number of NGOs competed to help the tsunami victims. They absolutely wanting to spend as more as possible, not even taking care of the real needs of the victims.

Sangh embraces the Hugging Saint
The Sangh Parivar, a federation of nationalist parties, battled for the M.A. Math to win the race.

Everybody Loves A Good Tsunami
"And none more than the cash-flush NGOs, whose unsupervised enthusiasm is driving too much to some, nothing to others". The M.A. Math even built too many houses in some places.

Tsunami of communal passion
"Tsunami-hit area turning into a communal play ground; where different religions fight it out to “serve” the people. A dirty game of oneupmanship..."

Tsunami-Hit People Hindu Organisations
The christian church was the main challenger of the M.A. Math. The Sangh Parivar gave a hand to help her.

Final design of houses for tsunami victims ready
April 7th 2005, the roles are finally cast. The house building can start. Does it means that the negotiations lasted for more than 4 months?

Anyway, one can say that in spite of the political and religious storm, Amma has helped many poor homeless people. But her former joint secretary disagrees with that point of view. According to him, the M.A. Math has only built half of the claimed number of houses, each of them cost half of the claimed value. Did she funneled away a part of the 46 millions of dollars spent in the tsunami relief?

The tsunami relief was not really about compassion.  It was more a question of money, religion and politics. At least, one thing is sure. If one fine day the M.A. Math crumbles to the ground, the poor won't be left alone. Hundreds of organizations are queuing, waiting impatiently to take its place.