Now this country demands some extra care of the government, NGOs, politicians, and other people to recover the losses. The flood affected people expect that other people including the government will be standing beside them to encourage them and to advise them so that they can get back their previous position. But the political situation indicates that the flood affected people will not get the needed attention this year as the government and other political parties are now busy with another disaster -- a political disaster which has been created by a group of terrorists on August 21 attacking the leaders of the main opposition party, that killed 20 including Ivy Rahman, the women affairs secretary of AL, and injured at least 200 including many central leaders of that party.

The disaster has started to be spread out all over the country. The people from every corner have risen up to protest the assassination bid on Sheikh Hasina and the other leaders of the AL. Meanwhile, three days of general strikes have been called by the opposition parties. The government has already been blamed and its resignation has been demanded by all parties in opposition. Pressure on the government is also coming from the diplomatic missions including UK, US, EU, and UN. Consequently, the government and its machinery has paid its full attention to stabilise the political situation rather than focusing on the flood.

NGOs, civil society, and the press and media are no longer in a position to concentrate on the flood issues. Before August 21, the flood related news dominated the media. Now it is the reverse. The political issue has occupied the press and media. The situation indicates that the present political situation is worse and more complex than the flood situation and will not pass away as quickly as the flood did. I am afraid that these political impasses will come as a curse like the natural disaster because they will affect the service delivery mechanisms which are needed to remain prompt and effective during and after the national crisis like flood to provide the required services to the affected people.

As a part of relief work, recently we have paid an extensive visit to some of the remote villages in the Gaibandha district. As our focus was on water and sanitation issues, we selected oral dehydrating saline, water purification tablets, sanitary latrine, tube-well rehabilitation, soap, etc as our relief items. We found that the interest of the affected people for those items is very low. Rather, they are desperate for food. They want to put aside some food in their house to check the monga (famine-like situation that usually affect the people of the northern region of the country during the months of October and November each year). We have learnt that flood water stayed in these areas for about 15-20 days. In those days, the villagers had no earnings to feed their family members. They have either borrowed money from the local money lender at high interest rates, or indented their labour at very cheap rates. Many of them have already sold their trees, poultries, and goats to purchase seedlings for Aman cultivation. Now they are almost empty and fearing that they will not be able to check the monga this year.

Raising the monga issue with the Upazila level officials of the government we understood that they are sure that monga will not affect those areas. The basis of their confidence is the availability of foodstuff in the shops and the surplus stock remaining with the government. The Prime Minister repeatedly assures the people not to be afraid of food scarcity because, as she is saying, there is adequate food in stock to feed the vulnerable flood affected people.

I do not distrust the government, but I want to tell the government that food deficiency was not the only cause of the Great Bengal famine in 1943-45 and the famine of 1974. The famous economist and Nobel prize winner Amarty Sen has proved that the lack of entitlement and imbalanced distribution of food were the causes of the famines that claimed millions of lives in this area. People lost the entitlement due to the loss of purchasing power because of crops failing for a few consecutive years immediately before the Great Bengal famine. The food distribution was hampered because of the bad governance of the then British regime.

For the famines in African countries like Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the bad governance of those countries is equally blamed as the natural disasters. Last year, despite having no disaster, many people in the northern districts of Kurigram, Nilphamari, Gaibanda, and Rangpur faced severe food scarcity. Some incidents of death due to the starvation have also been reported in the newspapers.

I do not know, without taking any extra measures, how the government's officials and the political leaders in power are confident that they will be able to check the food scarcity. The government will have to feed about 20 million people for the next few months. It is a mammoth task. There are many countries in the world that have a population less than 20 million. I wonder, in the absence of a good political environment, and without involvement of all political parties, NGOs, and civil society, whether it will be an impossible task for the government.

Visiting some of the badly affected villages, I could understand that there are gaps in the service delivery system of the governments. Many villagers informed me that they have got nothing from the government. The people of Gaibanda were lucky enough that they have got Begum Khaleda Zia, Beguma Rawshan Ershad, and Traeq Zia beside them. Despite that, many people have missed the assistance. If that is the picture of the service during political stability, who knows what is going to happen now?

I am afraid as to whether government knows the actual situation. At the onset of the flood, the field administration and leaders of the four party alliance tried to underestimate the magnitude of flood. Later, a controversial estimation of the flood damages was prepared by the government based on the report collected through the field administration. So there are a lot of reasons to suspect that either government is staying far from the actual situation or it is being manipulated knowingly. Neither one of the two is acceptable. There is a belief still in the people's mind that manipulation of information by the bureaucrats was one of the causes of the famine in 1974.

I can still remember that during the flood of 1998, the BBC feared the starvation of 20 million people. But, the government tackled that situation very efficiently and not a single death was reported due to the starvation. The government could do it because it had paid full attention to the issue. This year seems a bit different to me. A few hundred people have already died, suffering from mainly the water and excreta related diseases. The newspapers are reporting that the farmers are not getting agriculture inputs as has been promised by the government and fear that this may cause crop failure.

Amid this situation, a group of terrorists have added fuel to the political fire. It needs to be extinguished immediately. Otherwise, the woes of millions of flood victims will only increase.

Md. Firoj Alam is a development activist.