Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Who can forget Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1985 in which more than 40 thousand people reportedly died and more than 2 lakhs people were crippled on account of leakages of poisionous gas from Union Carbide factory located in Bhopal. The actual death toll could be much higher. Indian Court has finally given verdict after 25 years by which time people have already forgotten about this horrible tragedy. Those who are alive are still suffering from various diseases. The government has given compensation to the effected families which is good for nothing. The amount is not even adequate to meet medical expenses of those who are undergoing medical treatment in various hospitals. The wound which is inflicted upon thousands of families will perhaps never be healed. To add salt to the wound, the govt of India has given safe passage to Anderson the Chief of Union Carbide to flee from the country, who is the prime accused in this Tragedy. Whatever be the political compulson under which the govt allowed Anderson to go scot free, they had no right to let go the murderer of thousands of innocent lives. It was the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who should be held responsible for this Barbaric act without whose knowledge Anderson would not have escaped.

Now, coming to the point, when the news of Bhopal Tragedy was flashed in media and peoples memories were revived, the Govt gave lukewarm response saying it comes under the jurisdiction of state Govt and central govt does not have any role to play in Anderson's release. But when the chief minister of M.P. gave a statement saying that he received instructions from prime minister's office to Release Anderson, the central govt immediately responded by saying that Rajiv was not even aware of it as he was busy campaigning for elections in south. All senior ministers of congress party started defending Rajiv Gandhi. The common sense says how can a state minister take such a major decision without instructions from the prime minister.

Congress party is now talking of taking a fresh look at the compensation to be given to families of those killed or effected. Perhaps it is a ploy to buy some time for the public anger to subside. After some time, everything will be back to square one.

Had a tragedy of this magnitude occured in US, Anderson by now would have been given life sentence. But in India, if you are powerful, if you are influential, rich, you can get away with any crime. There will be no public protest whatsover. Perhaps, the lives lost in Bhopal belonged to lower middle class and labour class only who were employed by Union Carbide. There is no protest because public is insensitive to the lives of poor people. Just look at what happened in 26/11 Mumbai Terror strike. The terrorists this time targetted rich people including foreigners. This time, there was large scale protest by people including film stars, people belonging to business class and the govt had to bow down to the public pressure. Home minister Shivraj patil was asked to quit, Chief mainister of maharshtra Deshmukh had to give resignation and the central govt had to institute a high level committee to upgrade security of states. Rapid action force was developed and deployed in four states within four months. Intelligence agencies started working in tandem with each other. Surveillance in coastel areas were improved. These measures were taken on war footing.

Justice to the victims of Bhopal tragedy can be done only if the common man comes out on the street and protest against the lackadaisical manner in which the govt has acted so far and provided meager compensation to the victims of the tragedy.
I am writing this post for the common man because I associate myself with them.

I dont know whether people will even bother to read my blog because I am a non entity in the eyes of the common man. If I were a Sachin Tendulkar or Amitabh Bachhan, thousands of people would have flocked to read my blog and give comments. What really matters now a days is who has written the blog rather than what is written in it.

Nevertheless, I am not writing to scale myself up in popularity chart. If that were the motive, I would have stopped writing long back because I hardly get any comments in my blog. I am writing basically to express my emotions and thoughts just as someone maintains personal diary. I will continue to write because writing according to me is a beautiful medium of expression of thought.