Wisdom of 26 Years

Its 26 years and we are not much surprised. 2-3 December 1984, poisonous gas entered the air of Bhopal, surrounded those who were sleeping, or preparing to sleep, killed, remained in the air, entered the water sources and importantly generated a law-suite which ran for marathon 26 years. Gas must have died in its intensity since accused have been given punishment of 2 years and fine of rupees one lakh. Are those who were guilty have really been punished? Is that funny thing called ‘Justice’ has been delivered? And have we learnt anything from that night, which killed many people instantly and polluted healthy life for years coming. Let’s go one by one.
Who was guilty? There is list of 9 officials of Union Carbide which were summoned and eventually punished. But they didn’t really own the company. The plant which operated at Bhopal had about 49% stakes from Indian. It is understood and fair from strict profit driven framework under which corporate operate, that Union Carbide denied many of the charges. Union Carbide has provided medical help after the incident, invested in the hospital which started functioning from 2001 and started few other initiatives. I am not advocating the company, but I do not want to be blind in putting all the blame on Union Carbide. It is failure of those who should have stood for the victims. They didn’t stand, but played safe and to the extent, didn’t allow the lesson to be taught. Who are they? List must start from Government of India, a usual culprit in many of the crimes against people who don’t really bring foreign investments or add considerable percentages to growth engine. But one must go deeper, who constitutes the state? Who allows the state to take actions? Who has power to show and revert defects of the states? I do not want to blame the state too, as I do not see it as some absolute entity operating on its own. I blame to our lost consciousness of justice, which is happily sleeping in our mind and does some impotent yawning when we read loud articles citing deaths, exploitation and corruption. We allowed it to sleep somewhere near 1947, and since then some pseudo system, which delivers justice is operating.
Am I sounding like a woman who few days back declared to be on that side and made some provocative statements to give a temporary boil to urban blood and generate some lukewarm discussion on democracy? May be. I want to sound like one mad youth who did something to ‘make the deaf here’. How can be ‘Freedom’ or ‘Justice’ are given to somebody? One is free or not free, but never a one is made free. And freedom is never a collective function. It is strictly individual. When we say a group of people is free, it means they can come together, are free to decide where they can curtail individual freedoms and accept something which if violated, can enforce punishment. Such simple concept becomes extremely difficult when group is not homogeneously formed from inside and that what case of India is. How freedom and Justice are linked? Who determines something is Just and something is not. It is collective decision of free minds, which keeping in mind spectrum of action an human being can take, determines widest range to operate individual freedoms and curtail which will harm group, even if benefit individual.
We all want to live as we want. Individually, the end one wants to pursue is of being free to do whatever one wants. Collectively, we all want to be in situation where we all are free to do what we want, without cutting others wish to be free. There is difference between these two ends. Some act can be termed as error when viewed from personal point of view, on collective front it becomes crime. Humanist cries for terrorists, maoists or police brutalities because they see terrorist as an individual who is walking erroneous path. A nationalist accepts these killings since he perceives these acts as threatening for collective existence and termed them crime. What one should be?
I do not know. But I know what to do if I get into such a dilemma. One must call for consciousness we all have for our own and for one whom we see as our fellow human being. I feel outraged at the verdict not because it is delivered in such liquidated manner after so many years, I feel outraged because knowing that this is the system, one never really try to deliver a timely blow to make it correct. A Law, a society or system which corrupts in its mechanism of self improvement, needs external aid or annihilation to appear in improved form. If we look at evolution of societies, we see that every time an act which was out of domain of acceptability happened to cure the disease. A mutiny, on success becomes a justified struggle.
Have we learnt lesson? Our blind belief about perfection of technology is yet dominant. Bhopal tragedy has not shaken, and now it is part of distant memory. We are allowing nuclear power plants, of scale which was not functioned before and can have most disastrous and silent damage. We are allowing them in fragile coastal area and near the sea. Companies which will run these plants have limited liabilities in any Bhopal Like tragedy. I see the need of power. To some extent, I agree that nuclear power will be current solution, but are we placing solution in manner which will cause least harm if anything goes wrong? And, if ‘the state’ is repeatedly failing to place it in right manner, why we are not delivering the timely blow, which may end up in some short scale violence, but can make amendments which will help. Even ‘the state’ in its actual operation, is run by a person. That person can err, but should learn eventually. If there is no learning, then that person must be punished, either by ballet or bullet. One must be conscious with bullet, but should not forget that it supports ballet.