India’s government turns down disaster relief

THIS week was supposed to be a time for celebration in the Indian state of Kerala, with feasts, dancing and boat races to mark the harvest festival of Onam. But as the waters recede from what may be the state’s worst floods in a century, few are feeling festive. More than a million people were displaced by the downpours. The state government would like to accept foreign aid to help speed reconstruction, but the central authorities are turning it away.

For more than a decade, successive national governments have declined foreign disaster relief as a matter of policy, choosing instead to advertise India’s self-sufficiency. But when the central government turned down a reported offer of $100m for Kerala from the United Arab Emirates (which hosts almost 1m expatriate workers from the state), many flood-victims were furious.

The anger stems in large part from a sense that Narendra Modi’s government in Delhi is not doing enough...