That avian flu continues to rage nearly a fortnight after it was first detected in West Bengal is a matter of shame; it highlights the infirmities in governance that are sought to be papered over every now and again with dubious certificates obtained from the likes of L.N. Mittal, Ratan Tata and Sajjan Jindal.

Fingers are pointed at Bangladesh for having been the source of the virus, disregarding the fact that neither contiguous districts in that country nor in neighbouring states of India have reported an outbreak nearly as serious as the one in this state. Anyone looking at a map of West Bengal must find it amazing that the virus has travelled from Birbhum, where it was first reported, not in a straight line, as birds and viruses might be expected to travel, or as hubris may race towards disaster,but by treading carefully and only within areas administered by Writers' Building. This would suggest that the virus has moved along established trade routes within the state, in other words along routes under the control and supervision of the government led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

That the virus, once detected, was not tackled with the urgency that an emergency warrants has to do with two factors. One, the multi-layered administrative machinery of the state where district and block-level committees of the ruling party assume a role in governance, and two, the paralysis inflicted upon government by a series of administrative misadventures in recent times.

The involvement of the Left Front's constituent parties, but principally of the CPI-M, in day-to-day administrative matters may be an extension of the Marxist ethic; it is, however, antithetical to the needs of a crisis where officers empowered by law to act must do so without having to wait for approvals from every party functionary and his flunkey.

It is because of this multi-layered arrangement that Bengal copes poorly with unforeseen emergencies. The other significant factor must be that the government is today and more than ever before during Mr. Bhattacharjee's reign, conscious of the need to preserve its vote bank.

In the days since Nandigram and the Rizwanur Rehman protests, the Army has been called in twice to deal with situations that ought to have been within the province and competence of the civil administration, first to quell a mob of stone-throwing rioters in central Kolkata and next to help fight a fire.

Eastern Command of the army must wonder if it will soon be asked to help cull chicken! These are signs of an administration that is uncertain about what it must do; unsure if the larger good must prevail over narrow political considerations. More than anything else, these are signs of a government that no longer knows how the people it rules will react.

Our rulers must introspect. The way this virus has been tackled may well be the symptom of a more dangerous ailment.