BHOPAL:A SEQUEL/SABUSHANMUGHOM


This place of the dead.
Here the air is only rarely touched with life.
When it stirs,we shiver.
Cold sweat collects in a sticky pool at the base of the spine.

---Gavin Barrett


A journey to Bhopal a few years ago. The affected poor seems more alienated.Diminishing defenses. Irresponsibility of local governments. Withdrawal of writers and cultural leaders. Alzheimer's affected civil society.We are dead and gone.

In fact this is not only the problem of Bhopal,but also of Chattisgarh,Orissa ,Nandigram and Bihar.......where the same had occurred in a way or other. This is not book knowledge but the experiences of an illiterate man who wanders through the villages of India. I was flabbergasted at the sad plight of the villagers,increasing rate of HIV patients in the rural population of Orissa. And numerous N.G.Os thrive on harvesting them and the business grows globally. This going to be yet another sore wound. Till then,nobody 'll turn towards them including politicians,cultural workers,administrators and others.Poverty,caste descriminations,lack of drinking water,atrocities against women are some of the problems of Chattisgarh . Our democracy has nothing to say and they turn deaf ears to their cries.' When democracy fails, the public seek the help of insurgents',opines noted sociologist James W. Lethe in his book 'Death in Globalization' .

What about Kerala? The adivasis are manipulated cruelly,silently. Recently I've been to their settlements in Podiyam,Pattanippara to script a documentary and short film directed by Pramod Payyannur. The subject of the project was the exploitation of Adivasis. Their life harassed by middlemen are beyond mentioning . Their identities too were looted for political gain. This is also another source of future chaos. On the one side there's globalization,development spree, internet,info-tech, and on the other the cast out public, and the marginalized sectors. This is the' sociological dualism' of John O.Neikirk. The end result of this is not inventive but disturbing. We're going through such a situation now.

No doubt,all of the said problems need to be solved democratically. If we are to call those who work for broadening the concept of democracy, to get it to grass root level,are patriots, then sorry to say, that is an endangered species. We should have to receive its transgressions . And it is apparent that no one has the right to evade it.

sabushanmughom is a bilingual poet.

There are THREE things that All Indians worship :

1. Capitalists ( in fact Anyone who has the dough )
2. Anti-males. aka feminists ( the media sees to this one )
3. *The* supernatural ( the invisible guy in the sky who controls us all )

Anderson falls into the first category.

There are several of the Indian variety as well ( like Ratan Tata for eg. whose Tata Tea encraoches on thousands of acres of fertile government land in Kerala ), and who displaced thousands of families in W Bengal through conniving with the communists there. The political system, which is ready to sell the Country for money, will take 'care' of the rest.

Usually, the Indian guys escape because they *know* the owners in the media, unlike chaps like Anderson who did not ( and does nt, today ).

Nagaraj,
you are right. Even while airing the interview with Rasgotra, Karan Thapar and Rajdeep Sardesai criticised all the Sonia men and women for wrongly advising her to go into denial mode. Now the newest spin on the "great Anderson escape" these two gentlemen editors are putting up is that the government had to give the guarantees for keeping up the good relations with the US. They are also advising the Sonia brigade to accept the fact as an "iitiative" taken by Narasimha Rao as the home minister even before Rajiv Gandhi came to know of it!

Even with so much expoure ,the media in India is afraid to directly blame Rajiv Gandhi.All these Barkha Dutts,Rajdeep Sardesais,N.Rams are a shameless lot who will never talk against the Nehru-Gandhi family.The subject will now be deflected away from Rajiv Gandhi,and diverted towards getting higher compensation.Bhopal,...n.Bhopal,Bofors,Sikh massacre,IPKF tragedy and yet he is a 'Bharat Ratna'

Maharaj Kumar Rasgotra, the then Foreign Secretary, has hit his own nail in the coffin of congress lies. In a TV interview, he has stated that not only that Anderson was released with the full knowledge of the central government, he was given iron-clad guarantee of non-arrest and safe passage back to US, before he embarked on his "sympathy" tour to Bhopal.

Now, we can at least expect all the apologists for the first family to shut up and instead apologise to the nation for the callous deal making that Rajiv Gandhi indulged in without the least bit of sensitivity for the feelings of the 15,000 dead and 2,00,000 ill.