A devastating cyclone in India recently killed more than 10,000 and affected millions more in the state of Orissa. Beyond the toll in life and property, however, the response to the storm provides a clear -- and upsetting -- view of life in that country. PNS correspondent Andrew Robinson speaks several Indian languages and has been writing about South Asian affairs for over a decade.

HYDERABAD, INDIA -- Visiting a coastal village in eastern India to see the effects of the recent cyclone, a television correspondent discovered something more disquieting than the devastation he had come to report.

Hundreds of bloated bodies were decaying in the afternoon heat, but what struck the correspondent most was that villagers were reluctant to help civil defense workers dispose of corpses, although the water was becoming contaminated. It turned out the village was populated almost entirely by Brahmins, India's highest caste group. And even though cleaning up the corpses was important for their own survival, they considered such work beneath them.

"The tragedy has not brought out the best in our country," says C. Rammanohar Reddy, columnist for "The Hindu" newspaper. Two weeks after the cyclone affected 10 to 15 million people in Orissa, one of India's poorest states, Reddy noted, there were few signs of a large-scale national mobilization to provide relief.

Indeed, while international news agencies were covering the effects of a storm that killed more than 10,000, Indian media have for the most part paid scant attention to what is becoming one of the worst public health catastrophes India has ever seen.

Among the 30-odd television channels available here in Hyderabad, one can find cyclone-related reports only from the BBC and CNN. Even the Indian government has appeared indifferent -- Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not set up a task force to coordinate relief and rehabilitation until nearly two weeks after the disaster.

After the cyclone struck, the BJP-led central government and Orissa's Congress(I)-led state government began bickering violently over the distribution of relief money. The government finally released funds -- but only as an advance against the state's regular allotment of national taxes.

Part of the reason for this apparent apathy is that journalists and public health officials are unable to travel to the most badly afflicted areas and report the extent of the damage. But it seems unlikely that even widespread coverage of the disaster would change the average Indian's attitude.

"Orissa is a like a foreign country," says T. V. Manohar, an attorney and self-professed political analyst here. "If the cyclone hit Bangladesh or any other country, we'd react in the same way. We only care what happens in our own specific region, to our own people."

India has 23 states, loosely defined in terms of cultural similarities and language. Since its independence, India has tried to follow a philosophy of "unity through diversity." But as in Orissa, Indian divisions of caste, religion, language and culture run deep enough to destroy even the most general sense of nationhood.

Here in south India, two neighboring states -- Karnataka and Tamil Nadu -- are practically at war over access to the Cauvery River, now controlled by Karnataka through a series of dams. It is common to read of raids in which residents of one state cross the border armed with machetes and hatchets to slaughter the residents of the other. If one state suffered a devastating flood, the other would probably rejoice.

All this appears especially ironic as India has recently passed through one of its most patriotic and seemingly unified periods since Independence. The inauguration of its nuclear weapons program and its success in the eight-week conflict against Pakistan in Kargil made many Indians suddenly proud of their nation.

The BJP's majority victory in September suggested the country had come to some kind of consensus. Flags continue to adorn homes and a string of recent Hindi films extol India's military greatness. Celebrities have organized high-profile fundraising events to support the families of the soldiers killed in Kargil.

C. Rammanohar Reddy remarks on the contrast. "While earlier this year the entire nation seemed to be swept up by a current of nationalism in defense of the borders of India, there is now only a lukewarm mobilization of the people's will to deal with the destruction within. It seems that an external aggressor can stir a nation's soul, while nature's fury only stirs apathy."

But the destructive effects of that cyclone may have had nothing to do with nature. Orissa has only 23 cyclone shelters, each capable of housing only some 2,000 people. Most people learned of the cyclone, with its 180 mile an hour winds -- one of the biggest cyclones this century -- less than a day before it struck. Less powerful storms approaching the U.S. coast were tracked and reported many days in advance.

For a country still reveling in its military achievements, such neglect seems especially shameful. And as with the village Brahmins who refuse to clear corpses, the apathy it suggests doesn't bode well for India's future.