I still remember the days of my sojourn in the beautiful city of Bhopal. The centric city on the Indian map is one of the oldest cities of the country and has a glorious history accredited to it. It was founded by Parmar King Bhoj who ruled from 1000 to 1055 A.D. The city was firstly named as “Bhojpal” after the name of its founder king. Since then the city has been under several Kingships and has seen a great enhancement in its beauty. With time the city was renamed as “Bhopal”. The city was a leaping towards development until this “City of Lakes” was turned into “City of Death” on the night of December 2-3, 1984. The ordeal 25 years ago, unfortunately, has overcome all the bright history of the city on the World map. But as every event has its own significance, this bad experience of the city has taught us one thing….Be a paranoid. The question – is it good for us??
Union Carbide (UC), the company responsible for the gas leak incident, was one of the first companies entering in India with a hope to utilize (or rather exploit) the cheap labor. They went for a full-fledged cost cutting spree with low salaries, no promotions and even cutting the jobs of supervisors and maintenance engineers to take keep a check on the functioning of the equipments of the plant. Just a few days before the incident employees of the UC Bhopal plant were fined 70% of their salaries for refusing to compromise the standard safety norms, as demanded by the UC management. Altogether, the tragedy was waiting to happen due to ignorance of the safety norms by the company as well as by the government. But, nothing to blame this US company for this. When it has been now almost declassified that our own government had a hand in letting the culprits escape easily then there’s no point in blaming the US for it. UC is nothing more than a perfect example of the double standard policies being maintained by the US from ages.
What the UC thinks about this incident is clear from the statement of one of the company’s spokesperson, “A $500 is plenty good for an Indian”, made in 2002. There’s no point in bringing the then CEO Mr. Anderson to justice 25 years after the tragedy. This is only a media buzz to highlight the issue in a wrong manner. The real issue is to identify the people within who let this happen and they are the ones who should be brought to justice. I also believe that the sentence given by the court is fair. The way the facts were presented before the court 25 years ago made it look like a normal incident instead of a homicide and finally the decision came accordingly. When we can respect the decision of the court to divert funds from UC to Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Center (BMHRC) in 1998 to treat the victims then we should respect this sentence too. If the law minister today says that the then CJ screwed up all the case then why dint the government challenge his decision then and there itself??
The point is that even after 25 years we are not able to make our own people speak about what actually happened and who is responsible for this mess up. Mr. Arjun Singh is in hiding and we can’t bring him to justice because it would probably take another 25 years to do so and by that time there will be no Arjun Singh to answer. Another point is the relief that has been given to the victims. The government of Indian demanded a compensation of $3.3 billion from UC but settled for $470 Million. Still, the whole sum has not reached the victims and the relief is far from sight.
Moreover, the names of people who were so-called “Good” in politics have also come in this whole episode. I am pointing to the first family member, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. Now whom to trust?? Does this not make us feel suspicious about everything around us?? I fear that this incident would go down in the history as a beginning of paranoia amongst the Indian Civil Society which would be followed and taught from generation to generations. I may be wrong but when people are dodged by their own people they tend to lose trust in the world around them. History has shown characters as Hitler and Stalin as the victims of this kind of paranoia. I hope India doesn’t have such victims in future (pun intended).
Thanks!!
Comments
Post a Comment