The court verdict shows that India is still in a Victorian imperial-feudal era, distances away from the socialist dream.
The mass slaughter that occurred in Bhopal on December 2, 1984 was the consequence of an American multinational corporation dealing with Indian lives in a cavalier manner. Some 20,000 people were “gasassinated.” Yet, after 26 years of trial, the culprits get two years of rigorous imprisonment as punishment. Such a thing can happen only in bedlam Bharat.
The President of the United States and the white world, and the Prime Minister of brown India, shout themselves hoarse against terrorism by the Taliban and the Maoist-naxalites. However, when it came to carnage caused by an American company in a backward region of India, it took all of 26 years to get a court judgment.
India is but a dollar colony, and so the “gasassination” has been treated as a minor crime. This is Macaulay's justice of Victorian vintage still ruling India. Our Parliament and the Executive are less concerned with the lives of ‘We, the People of India'; their deprivation is of little consequence. The judiciary is another paradigm of insouciance and it is often indifferent to its fundamental duty of issuing a swift verdict. Parliament is too busy making noises to be able to make laws to defend citizens' lives. The investigative-judicial delay that has occurred is unpardonable for a crime of this kind.
Indian courts will do justice — if proper judges are appointed and fair procedures are made, if sensitive and sensible laws are enacted and the Executive has the needed independence, alacrity and integrity.
Trust violated
Meanwhile, this socialist democracy continues to be a cause for despair for the common people. This contradiction must end. We have enough human resources to redeem the pledge of the Father of the Nation whose ambition was to wipe every tear from every eye. This trust of Indian sovereignty was ludicrously violated in Bhopal.
Every poor man in hungry despair resisting the British Empire was once called a Congressman. When the Congressman came to power after freedom, every hungry militant was called a Communist. When the Communists came to power in some States and still kept many people starving, these poor men were called naxalites.
Does India have a future? Yes, provided the glorious Constitution and the marvellous cultural tradition, sharing the vision of both Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi, are realised. Have we such a sensitive perception? Have the instrumentalities under the Constitution a noble mission and a passion? Have the judges such an ambition? The Bhopal decision shows that India is still in a Victorian imperial-feudal era, distances away from the socialist dream.
One extraordinary feature of the outcome is that the highest officer who was involved in Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, is nowhere in the picture. This is but mockery of justice. If the chief criminal is beyond the party array, the millions who are the victims are being mocked by the trial of lesser offenders. In exempting the powerful from criminal jurisdiction, the law has become lame. Is an American criminal immune to investigation by an Indian court order? Such discrimination makes justice risible.
Over the 26 years it took, what was the Supreme Court, with so many judges who have original jurisdiction to try cases when fundamental rights are violated, doing? The Government of India did not move the court for an early trial? Now the Law Minister says he is not happy with this two years' rigorous imprisonment that has been granted. During these 26 years, no amendment to Sections 300 to 304 of the Indian Penal Code was moved or enacted, or severe punishment written into the Penal Code. This by itself constitutes dereliction of duty on the part of Parliament and the Executive. The political parties that were in power during these years are also guilty of culpable neglect: they slept over the noxious infliction on Indian humanity.
Fair compensation has not been paid to the victims. A huge hospital financed by Union Carbide was built in Bhopal. But it is not for the poor but the rich. It is over the bodies of the poor that the hospital building was built, and still the have-nots have no access to it. The Supreme Court, seemingly lost in issues relating to its own allowances and perks, did not call up the case from the trial court and decide it at once.
Warren Anderson is a closed chapter for the U.S. The most powerful nuclear nation has its bizarre sense of justice which should give courage for the Indian plural masses to resist dollar colonialism. Americans are above our rule of law. Brown India must be satisfied by White Justice where MNC bosses are indicted.
Washington swears by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But it uses a nuclear treaty to leverage things to its own advantage. India has no guts to call this bluff. We have MNCs with cosmic jurisdiction. Anderson is an American, so is Union Carbide. Its ukase is just on Asian fuel in earth. Indian justice is for municipalities and panchayats, not beyond.
Keywords: V.R. Krishna Iyer, Bhopal gas tragedy, outcome, lessons, industrial disaster
Comments:
When the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (known also by aliases such as British Petroleum and BP) spills oil in the Gulf of Mexico, uncle Sam cries foul and demands exemplary penalties and full compensation; to ensure that payments are made, he jawbones the company to hold the dividend payments in escrow. In retaliation, the British and their government hit the ceiling and take cudgels against the US government.
However, when Union Carbide, a US company lets thousands of Indians to die, our spineless politicians and government let the perpetrators of the crime to go unscathed; and, the Americans argue that India cannot exercise extra-territorial jurisdiction over US citizens!
The lesson of Bhopal is that we should have built up the necessary legal framework and health and safety infrastructure to deal with any such potential calamity in the future.
Instead, not only does uncle Sam's Indian poodle sign away our independence and sovereignty in the nuclear accord with the USA; but, also waters down the nuclear liability provisions under pressure from the US multinationals. So, in some future date, a catastrope on the scale of a three mile island or Chernobyle were to happen on Indian soil, we would have no recourse to those responsible!
What a democratic, responsive government we have in New Delhi!!!
Kudos to Shri V.R. Krishna Iyer.
In the public discourses many a times people were overheard saying that immediately after our independence most of the Congressmen had preferred Sardar Patel for the Primeministership of our fetal democracy over Jawaharlal Nehru, but that Gandhi ji insisted and supported Jawaharlal Nehru and as a result Nehru won with just two persons’ in his support (his and Gandhi ji's) and Sardar lost with majority support. One does not know if this is true or not, and as such this is not a charge or allegation. One expects persons like Shri V.R. Krishna Iyer to throw some light into the happenings (foreground and background) immediately after our independence that resulted into the formation of our Constituent Assembly and first Govt.
By the by, if this hearsay is true, it would seem that the very same Congress, which fought for our freedom from British and who treated every hungry soul as a Congressman then, befooled Gandhi ji and caused him to inadvertently and unintentionally committing murder of our democracy, which was just fetal / newborn at that time. Given the fact that of Govts in free India (majority of them being Congress) after freedom never bothered about strengthening democracy or democratic institutions, such as inner party democracy, limiting parliamentary terms and ambitions of individuals, ensuring independence of law enforcing and investigating agencies (police reforms bill is still attracting dust), etc. etc. it would seem that the then Congress leadership indeed had this in mind. They have ensured a Socialist Democracy on paper and Feudalocracy in practice......see most of our political formations have become family run entities perpetually and even khap panchayats and fatwa-wadis are challenging the writ of law. Even educated and young leaders (among them the wealthier too) are afraid of opposing these medieval forces. This shows our present day leaders’ commitment to the idea and vision of Mahatma Gandhi.
As for the US, their standards are always double. One for themselves and the another for the other world; one for whites and another for brown, precisely. See the duplicity of Washington, even as it swears by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and denies Visa to Narendra Modi because of his role/action/inaction or wrong action in the aftermath of Godhra incident, they have been protecting a white skinned person whose action or inaction caused gasassination of 20000 brown lives. Our feudal-capitalists too have imbibed these double standards. Not for nothing that our rulers have never bothered to make current our laws in keeping with the times and that we are seeing different sets of laws in practice for the haves and have-nots.
By the by, was it by deliberate omission or oversight that Shri Krishna Iyer has lost sight of the fact Justice (Retd) Ahmadi was the Trustee of the hospital that was built over the bodies of the poor?
As for Bhopal injustice, one is of the view that the Whites justice have prevailed and have ensured that all pillars of our national institutions failed in their respective duties and have contributed to this gross injustice to our own people. God save the idea INDIA and our nation.
Very nice article. It really pains to know what's going on in India. I have no hope that India would realize the vision of both Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi. We lost our pride somewhere. The problem is not just with politician, it's with our own people of India. Those who love India, it's a pain.