Importance of Contextualized Communication for Better Disaster Preparedness and Disaster Risk Reduction: A Case Study from Bihar

ABSTRACT

India, the disaster preparedness has primarily been restricted to being response oriented that is mainlyconcentrated on the rescue operations. Insufficient community preparedness and lack of propercommunication leads to large scale causalities. The lack of proper communication is due to the fact thatthe relevant information among the community participants is not spread properly. One of the majorreasons for this is the difference in the language of communication among the people and the language inwhich the information is officially shared. Due to this language gap it becomes very difficult for thenative people to understand the guidelines related to the disaster risks and disaster preparedness, therebymaking them more vulnerable to disaster risks. Five districts from Bihar have been identified for datacollection. The districts feature prominently from North to South on the map showing Multi HazardZones in Bihar issued by Bihar State Disaster Management Authority. Quantitative data analysis clearlyreflects that firstly, the official languages (English and Hindi) used by the government agencies forknowledge transfer are totally inadequate and secondly, translating the information in regional languageslike Magahi, Bhojpuri and Maithili considerably enhance the quality and the quantity of responses thatare generated during data collection. Community involvement can be promoted and made efficient onlywhen the regional languages are used as the desired media of communication.