CYCLONE warning is one of the oldest meteorological services in India dating back to 1865. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has over time developed into a specialized regional centre with a mandate to provide weather warnings to neighbouring countries as well. During cyclonic disturbances in the north Indian Ocean, IMD issues advisories and warnings to a range of audiences – from aviation and port authorities to the local administrations and the general public. However, such services are beyond public evaluation, in part due to the probabilistic nature of weather forecasts. While such an argument is effective in shielding the uncertainty surrounding cyclone forecasts, an underlying legitimation is that the general public are served in any case.

IMD as a scientific establishment is unique both for its near monopoly over the science of meteorology and its mandate to provide meteorological services to society. This paper intends to explore IMD’s cyclone warning services and argues that its evolution has followed a trajectory wherein the notion of the ‘public’ has varied with the articulated concerns of contemporary vocal constituencies and interests. The broad policy has hardly changed over the years and the kind of warning services provided are largely determined by state agencies without an engagement with the key user group, i.e. the general public. The absence of such a direct interface may appear to be historically accidental, but could as well be seen as a choice aimed at protecting the legitimacy of the underlying science. In any case, we have here a state agency serving the public without their participation or engagement. Consequently, this paper explores the ways in which a science such as meteorology co-evolves with state and the kind of expectations that arise from such science given its peculiar relation both to science and the public.

The installation of the modern institutional regimes of science in colonial India in the 19th century created avenues for state patronage and funding of scientific research. Individuals and professional associations studying weather in the emerging framework of a mechanical science, successfully argued for recognition of their work on account of its social utility and hence justified the need for state support. By the 1870s, national meteorological agencies were formed in Britain, France, USA and Italy among others, and efforts were underway to forge coordination, leading to the organization of the first International Meteorological Congress in 1873 in Vienna.

 

Soon enough the idea of establishing a national meteorological agency was exported to colonial India and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) was formally inaugurated in 1875. However, even before such a centralized scientific agency took shape, warning services for cyclones were launched in 1865 – initially only for the port of Calcutta and subsequently extended to other ports. The particular initiative was an outcome of a massive cyclone in 1864 (4-5 October) that made landfall in Bengal, killing more than 50,000 people and causing extensive damage to the port and shipping industry. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce, on behalf of mercantile companies, wrote a letter to the government calling for overhaul of an inefficient meteorological observation system.¹ In less than a month, another cyclone struck the Machillipatnam region killing 35,000 people, thereby forcing wider attention to the problem of cyclones.² 

These two cyclonic events generated a demand for the establishment of a forewarning system, an idea that drew upon the newly established storm warning system in Britain and which subsequently was witness to a number of controversies for its unscientific forecasts.³ Incidentally, the British system too came into existence in 1861 after a deadly storm in 1859 in which a large number of ships were damaged, including the Royal Charter – a ship that had come to symbolize the achievements of modern science and marine technology. Following extensive media coverage, Robert Fitzroy, the first head of the British Meteorological Department and a mariner himself, led an initiative to establish a storm warning system, broadly a system in which telegraphic communication played an important role and telegraphic clerks doubled up as weather observers.⁴ 

 

The early development of a cyclone warning system in India revolved around the interests of mariners. The port warning services introduced in Calcutta were extended by 1886 to other ports and by 1929-30 as many as 65 Indian ports were receiving cyclone warning announcements. Since smaller boats plying the river deltas were often impacted during a storm, many river stations were also added to the cyclone warning network. In due course, warning signals for ports were standardized and upon receipt of information from a centralized location such as Calcutta and Poona, these signals were posted with a marker of the danger level posed. For ships at deep sea, wireless messages were transmitted to them for their safe navigation.⁵  The emphasis on port warning and the marine establishment in general was considerable in the light of the importance of mercantile trade during this period and colonial interests which were to be protected. Most importantly, it was sailors who provided weather observations from sea, transmitting information through wireless communication and their log book records were invaluable from the point of view of theoretical exploration.

 

For people living on the coast, who generally bore the brunt of a storm’s impact, accounting for most of the reported deaths, cyclone warning was provided through newspaper and radio bulletins.⁶ The latter in particular was the chief means of issuing warnings during cyclonic conditions when a number of bulletins were issued periodically. In the absence of known studies, the extent to which such warnings were useful to coastal populations is unclear. Considering that no major effort was made by the colonial government to construct public buildings at vulnerable locations that could serve as safe shelters during a cyclone, it can be assumed that the primary focus of radio bulletins was towards ships and fishermen.

However, by the beginning of the 20th century, improvements in cyclone warning services were actively sought, given the realization that unless the movement of the storm was predicted more accurately, major advancement was unlikely. Prediction of an evolving storm’s path in turn was correlated with the movement of air in the upper atmosphere. Studying a cyclone in 1903 over the Bay of Bengal, C. Little thus argued that ‘the only remedy is investigation of the upper strata of the atmosphere, because ground level observation fails to display the causes and, therefore, fails to indicate the occurrence beforehand.’⁷ 

 

In a way this was perhaps an appropriate time when cyclone warning in India was set to move beyond the era of ground observation to improvement in forecasting methods through a more detailed observational network, including for the upper atmosphere. But ironically, upper air observatories were established in India only in the 1920s, and largely for their utility to aviation services rather than for cyclone warning. The modernization plan of IMD of this period categorically emphasized that the aviation services required the establishment of a network of upper-air observatory stations, i.e., one for every 450 km across the country, and recommended further training of Indian meteorologists so that they were competent to provide the necessary support for British air ships arriving in India.⁸ 

As it turned out, the growth of the aviation sector in the following decades led to the consolidation of a new branch of meteorological services called aviation meteorology and the maintenance of such services ensured substantive improvement of observation capability and associated telecommunication support. While such developments no doubt made their own contribution to the overall improvement in cyclone warning systems, the question nevertheless remains as to why similar initiatives were not conceptualized for providing better cyclone warning to coastal populations? Why was provision of such warning not seen as important from society’s point of view?

 

In the post-independence period, as recognition grew of the insufficient emphasis given to cyclone warning, a major organizational change was effected and the IMD was bifurcated into aviation and marine meteorological services^.9 Accordingly, separate storm warning centres were established at Mumbai in 1956 and Madras in 1969. This was also the period when cyclone warning benefited immensely from technological up-gradation, more specifically from radar and satellite applications. These technologies developed primarily for application outside meteorology soon found widespread use as observational tools including for cyclonic phenomena. Interestingly, when IMD acquired its first meteorological radar from the US in 1957, it was deployed at New Delhi airport to provide aviation support, though subsequently it was also used for cyclone detection and monitoring. Further expansion took place when Cyclone Distress Mitigation Committees were constituted in 1969 for Orissa and Andhra Pradesh which recommended the establishment of new cyclone warning centres at Bhubaneswar and Vishakapatnam.

It took another massive disaster in 1977, popularly referred to as the Diviseema cyclone, Andhra Pradesh, for the central government to order a comprehensive review of all aspects of cyclone prediction and warning in the country. The initiative led by M.G.K. Menon, then Secretary, Department of Science and Technology to which IMD reported and Atmaram, Chairman National Committee of Science and Technology, constituted a Cyclone Review Committee (CRC) in 1979 under the chairmanship of A.K. Saha to review the possibility of establishing a storm warning system in the country.¹⁰ The terms of reference for this committee included a review of various warning facilities, telecommunication support, community preparedness and development of operating procedures vis-a-vis other countries. However, assessing the effectiveness of warning services from a user’s point of view was not within its ambit, a missed opportunity considering that the committee had been handed a broad mandate to look into all aspects of cyclone warning services.

 

Broadly speaking, the Cyclone Review Committee felt that the existing system of cyclone warning services needed to be improved through a range of measures: from strengthening and upgradation to the introduction of new observational technologies such as aircraft probes; thrust on modelling exercises to improve the accuracy of forecasts; robust communication mediums for issuing warning to remote locations, especially during adverse weather conditions; centralized coordination from the IMD head office in Delhi; dedicated institutional mechanism at various levels, preparation of emergency plans, and action plans for community preparedness. This committee’s recommendations were far reaching in terms of the direction and organization of cyclone warning services in the country. For example, on its suggestion, a cyclone warning directorate was established at the head office of IMD, New Delhi, to coordinate and supervise the formation of the cyclone warning network in the country, an arrangement that continues up to the present times. A new cyclone warning centre was established in Ahmedabad involving a dedicated warning dissemination system through satellite links. As far as improving the services from the general public’s point of view is concerned, one specific recommendation was that the term ‘cyclone’ should be replaced by ‘toofan’, i.e., its Hindi translation to which people could relate for giving them a better sense of its magnitude.

 

Beyond these recommendations, a much larger achievement of the Cyclone Review Committee was to provide a direction for future development wherein disaster management was incorporated into the larger systemic activities. This idea of linking cyclone warning services with disaster prevention and its management was however not new, since this approach had been actively pursued at an international level since the early 1970s. In the aftermath of one of the most deadly disasters in history, caused by cyclone ‘Bhola’ in Bangladesh in 1970, there was widespread global concern over the efficacy of meteorological warning services and their utility in preventing such disasters. Regional bodies of the World Meteorological Organization such as the Panel on Tropical Cyclones (PTC) came into existence by 1973 which were engaged in finding new ways to mitigate cyclone related disasters.

In the new approach, the interface between meteorological warning systems and its users was seen as crucial to improve the performance of such services. Overall, it emphasized the management challenges of a scenario wherein a large number of people’s lives are at stake before the cyclone has crossed the coast, and also involves rescue, relief and restoration of public services in the post-landfall phase. In this new schema, it is disaster which has to be averted and if it cannot be, then it should be better managed. In terms of overall strategy as envisaged by the committee, IMD’s warning service is to play the anchoring role by guiding various other agencies of the state administration such as irrigation, fisheries, public health, animal husbandry, ports and shipping, agriculture, civil defence, and panchayat raj. Their coordinated effort is necessary to prevent cyclones from becoming a deadly disaster to ensure that the public is protected through state’s intervention.

 

This kind of approach appealed to meteorologists for it viewed the accomplishment of the overall warning system’s goal as a shared responsibility in which they were the lead agency.¹¹ New initiatives during the 1990s, declared by the UN as the international decade for natural disaster reduction, demonstrated the linkages of cyclone warning with disaster mitigation and management and in a sense further consolidated the approach. The changing focus, however, brought its own set of tools, primarily seeking to aid management objectives. Maps of vulnerable areas based on the cyclone’s probable path; issuing precautionary advisories such as alerts and post landfall outlook; development of standard operating procedures for emergency control rooms, among others, became new avenues to improve cyclone warning services. An unintended consequence of this approach was the transforming of cyclone warning services, which no longer viewed the public in terms of individuals seeking guidance from IMD’s service, but as vulnerable groups needing timely evacuation as part of the state’s welfare obligations.

 

In this framework, the public’s interests are represented through agencies of the state. If at all the meteorological organization’s service is to be evaluated, it should be from the perspective of these agencies, for they are responsible to minimize the chances of a cyclonic threat becoming a disaster. In short, it transformed the overall system to one in which IMD is a key government agency alongside many others to perform a public service – that of ensuring the reduced loss of life and minimum damage to properties. Paradoxically, in doing so the meteorological agency finds itself catering largely to requirements of other agencies, resulting at the same time in its growing distance from the public.

This gap between the kind of cyclone warning services the public requires and IMD’s conception of it explode during a warning phase. It is almost routine now to find that a large majority of alerted populations have not acted as per IMD’s cyclone warning advisory. For example, during cyclone ‘Thane’ (December 2011) which impacted Puducherry and Cuddalore districts of Tamil Nadu, it was found that despite the alert and warning messages issued over many days preceding the cyclone’s strike, minimal public evacuation was reported even though many houses became non-habitable under the storm’s impact.¹² Had this storm remained strong during its last leg, the dimensions of the disaster could have been immense. Far from being an isolated case, similar responses were also reported during other cyclones in the recent past, for example ‘Aila’, ‘Sidr’ and most recently cyclone ‘Phailin’ that has been widely described otherwise as a success story in terms of mass evacuation.

 

Such non-compliance is often brushed off as a consequence of people’s lack of awareness of associated hazards or their unwillingness to evacuate to a poorly maintained public shelter. It is not difficult though to comprehend the motive behind such ascriptions, for they can otherwise raise the more uncomfortable question, i.e., what is the point in having a warning if it fails to activate a threatened population to take protective action?

Thus, instead of scrutinizing what is problematic within cyclone warning services, the standard approach dismisses the responding population as unaware, unwise and incapable of evaluating the cyclonic threat and simultaneously legitimizing the state’s role in their evacuation to safety. This effectively implies that irrespective of the communities who are declared vulnerable – shelter seeking or not – it is the government agencies of disaster management, revenue, police etc. which assume central responsibility to ensure that people are in safe shelter.

As a result, what we see is, on the one hand the public being goaded by agencies of the state to evacuate through a range of incentives such as the provision of transport, food and so on, including, in the final instance, the use of force. On the other hand, there are also instances when evacuees have tried to escape from safe shelters to which they have been transported as a preventive measure. These contradictions throw up a number of questions concerning the existing approaches.

The matter of contention here, however, is not on questioning the emphasis on the disaster management approach. On the contrary, the stress is on the need to improve the performance of state agencies and the way they manage an emergency situation arising due to a cyclonic threat. The questions raised here are more to do with the policies which shape such public services: should the IMD’s cyclone warning system be oriented more towards public agencies rather than the public? How does one know if the requirements are different? Most significantly, can there be effective management of such situations through the empowerment of government agencies without active participation of the public?

 

These questions arise because the IMD’s approach to cyclone warning services makes certain assumptions about the kind of information the public requires to act when warnings or alerts are issued but such assumptions are made without engaging with them. This in turn is anchored on the premise concerning the perceived utility of cyclone warning for society, that without such advanced information it is impossible to deal with cyclones. Given the impact potential of such storms, any new kind of information generated is thought to be more useful from the point of view of vulnerable populations. These ideas have led the meteorological agency to distance itself from public engagement since it is felt that it is not required.

As and when public non-compliance is reported, and especially if it results in a massive disaster, improvements are then sought through the review of all aspects of the warning system: among others, from observational technologies to forecasting methods, and communication means to community preparedness plans, but the fundamental assumptions related to information requirements of the concerned public are never in question.

Are these developments concerning the IMD’s cyclone warning system incidental or a result of policy? In other words, what explains the agency’s lack of interface with its most significant and largest user group? To note that such services have not evolved any differently in other countries rules out the possibility that it is accidental. As a matter of fact, the development of meteorology round the twin themes of ‘standardization of observation’ and ‘international collaboration’ has ensured the conceptualization of services with little variation across national contexts. Instead, this evolution should be seen as a strategy that has emerged taking into account the limitations underlying science while at the same time recognizing its utility for the public. The limitation prevents it from engaging with the public for that might otherwise expose the fault lines which are at the local level and could erode the public authority of science.

 

As a science, meteorology developed within the cradle of the state, and this relation has been sustained, primarily because of its relevance in providing public services. This has certainly played a role in IMD’s positioning vis-a-vis cyclone warning. In the early phase of its development, if it was useful to mariners, subsequently IMD repositioned itself to become a leading state agency alongside several others to minimize loss of life and property. In the present situation, the ‘public’ is made out to be the beneficiary of its warning services, though without any mechanism to engage with them at any level. Given that coastal India is thickly populated and infrastructural development is poor, the mark of effectiveness of cyclone warning should lie in its ability to service such a public for that is what will ultimately make a difference in their response. In the final instance, unless the IMD takes its biggest user group more seriously, it will basically continue to serve the state rather than society.

 

Footnotes:

1. D.R. Sikka, ‘The Role of India Meteorological Department, 1875-1947’, in U.D. Gupta, (eds.), History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization. Vol. XV, Part 4. Sanat Printers, New Delhi, 2011, p. 387.

2. M.L. Narasaiah, Irrigation Management and Globalization. Discovery Publishing House, New Delhi, 2006, p. 153.

3. K. Anderson, Predicting the Weather. University of Chicago Press, 2000.

4. Ibid., Chapter 3.

5. India Meteorological Department (IMD), Report on the Administration of Meteorological Department of Government of India in 1929-30. Government of India Central Publication Branch, Calcutta, 1930.

6. IMD, Report on the Administration of Meteorological Department of the Government of India in 1918-19. Simla, 1919.

7. C. Little Esq, ‘The Cyclone in the Bay of Bengal Between 13 and 15 November 1903’, Journal of Asiatic Society, Bengal LXXIII(II), 1905, p. 37.

8. D.R. Sikka, op cit., 2011.

9. IMD report available at http://www. imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dynamic/cwo.pdf (accessed on 5 August 2013).

10. S.P. Agarwal (eds.), Committees and Commissions in India. Vol. 17 Part A. Concept Publishing, New Delhi, 1994, Chapter 9.

11. S.R. Kalsi, ‘Monitoring and Forecasting of Tropical Cyclones and their Associated Effects’, in H.K.Gupta (eds.), Disaster Management. Universities Press, Hyderabad, 2003, Chapter 3, pp. 70-75.

12. The author visited the affected areas after the cyclone as part of the National Institute of Disaster Management team. IMD report of the cyclone is available at http://www. imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dynamic/THANE. pdf (date of access 1 August 2013).