For over twenty-five years the energies of the Congress had been concentrated on helping the guilty - the accused who committed the crime of killing thousands of the people with their criminal negligence in the Bhopal gas tragedy case. Instead of declaring that the culprits would be brought to justice, the then Congress chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Arjun Singh who has throughout been a great confidant and a staunch follower-supporter of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and later of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, had declared that the government has no intention to harass anybody and to punish anybody.
At that time, Congress party was enjoying unbridled power both at the Centre and the State. It could do anything to punish the criminals guilty of ushering in the world's greatest and worst industrial tragedy in history. No power on earth could hold their hand from extending as giving help and relief as they wished. But both the State and the Central government displayed a criminal neglect of their constitutional duty to protect the life and property of its law-abiding citizens from the hands of those who had defied the law and their duty to ensure that such a tragedy did not take place.
The governments of the day are guilty of being criminally negligent of their duty towards the people. Even when an expert group had two years earlier in 1982 forewarned of such an imminent tragedy, both the Union Carbide and the governments neglected their duty to take preventive measures. When the company failed to do so, governments failed to take action against it. Therefore, if the Union Carbide is guilty of killing thousands of people, the governments of the day were guilty of being a conspirator and facilitator to the tragedy.
They did stage-manage the bringing to India and arrest of the Union Carbide CEO Anderson with great courtesy reserved only for VIPs. Government aircrafts were pressed in his service. He was sent back without ensuring his presence in the country for investigation and trial. This could not have been done without the criminal consent of Mr. Arjun Singh and without the nod of late Rajiv Gandhi without whose permission nothing could move under the former's regime.
To save Mr. Rajiv Gandhi's skin, the Congress Party has come out with a strange logic: If Anderson had not been sent back, the sentiment was such that he would have been killed in India. One is reminded of the good old story of Andher nagri, chaupat raja, take ser bhaji, take ser khaja who spared the guilty murderer because the noose didn't fit in his neck and in his place executed some other innocent who was healthy enough to get the noose fixed in his neck. That ruler, like today's ruling Congress, took the logic: someone has to be punished for the crime.
After the conclusion of a mockery trial for the killing of about 15,000 people and injury to many more, the hands of the court were tied up by law not to pronounce a punishment for more than two years and there was a countrywide cry against this chaupatraj punishment, the Congress was quick to constitute a GOM which is now trying to assuage the hurt feelings with the generosity of financial help to the sufferers - a generosity which it failed to display for quarter of a century. It is also a fact that it was the Congress government which had opposed in the Supreme Court the demand for greater financial help and relief filed by an NGO. It is as frivolous and funny as can be the generosity of a tyrant killer who wishes to buy pardon by offering to extend as much financial help as the bereaved family wants.
An intriguing coincidence is the equally intriguing, but deafening silence both of Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and her protégé Mr. Arjun Singh at this hour when the wounds of the people have further been refreshed at this mock justice. Is the grand lady waiting for the day to grab the credit when some generous relief is announced by the government for which it is now feeling forced to grant?
Salute to this great logic, great government and great justice!
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Dr. Shiv Shakti
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