HATS OFF TO TAVLEEN SINGH FOR WRITING SUCH A GREAT ARTICLE - FOR THE FIRST TIME CLEARLY IDENTIFYING THE MONSTER IN OUR MIDST!
GHULAM MUHAMMED, MUMBAI
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The price of democratic feudalism
Tavleen SinghTags : tavleensingh, columnPosted:
Last Sunday when I wrote about the Indian media’s reverence for Sonia Gandhi and her family, I had not foreseen that an event would shortly prove me right. That event was the judgment on the Bhopal gas tragedy that came soon after my column appeared and incensed public opinion because it amounted to no more than a gentle reprimand for those who had been responsible for the deaths of more than 25,000 people.
Last Sunday when I wrote about the Indian media’s reverence for Sonia Gandhi and her family, I had not foreseen that an event would shortly prove me right. That event was the judgment on the Bhopal gas tragedy that came soon after my column appeared and incensed public opinion because it amounted to no more than a gentle reprimand for those who had been responsible for the deaths of more than 25,000 people.
It was so shameful a verdict that our news channels went out of their way to hunt down those responsible for the tragedy and the terrible miscarriage of justice. We heard from pilots who flew Warren Andersen out of Bhopal in a government aircraft, drivers who drove him around, officials who shifted blame and retired officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation who said the Government of India ordered them to let Andersen off the hook. When the Congress Party’s spokesmen were called to answer, they happily blamed Arjun Singh who was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh at the time but nobody dared blame Rajiv Gandhi. Surely as Prime Minister he was more responsible for letting Andersen go? Surely it would have been impossible for Arjun Singh to let him flee the country without the Prime Minister’s permission?
When I tweeted about this I got some support but not a lot because it is not just the media that reveres and forgives our democratically elected royal family but a vast majority of Indians too. As a country we have accepted democratic feudalism as our preferred political system. So why should it surprise us that something as horrible as the Bhopal gas tragedy should happen and justice not be done for a quarter of a century? What does democratic feudalism have to do with what happened in Bhopal? Let me explain.
Feudalism through the ballot box is similar to real feudalism in that as a system it relies on keeping the majority of the populace poor and illiterate. The good thing about poor and illiterate people is that they can be relied on not to protest even in the face of horrible injustice. Not because they like it that way but because they cannot afford to do anything else. More than 4,000 people were gassed to death by Union Carbide on December 3, 1984 and our political leaders have behaved as if it were just another industrial accident. Worse still, the victims have accepted this in virtual silence. Social activists led a few protest marches but these were sporadic since most victims were too poor to do more than get on with their lives. This would be unthinkable in a country that had real democracy and people who were literate enough to understand that their rights as citizens went beyond voting in elections.
In India, ninety per cent of voters exercise their democratic rights only at election time and then wait for their lives to improve without realising that for real change you need real policies not just a leader who comes from the right family. Today, the roots of democratic feudalism have spread so far and wide that most Indian political parties revolve around personalities and not ideas or ideology. Even apolitical observers cannot fail to notice that nearly every political party from Kashmir to Kanyakumari is the property of some family and always there is an heir waiting in the wings. Among the heirs in waiting the most powerful is Rahul Gandhi because his inheritance is not Punjab or Tamil Nadu but the whole of India. The New York Times pointed out recently that all he has to do is collect his ‘inheritance’ when he decides that its time.
He is nice enough, our Rahul, and has spent the past few years being trained in politics, economics and statecraft. So, a worthy prince but a prince all the same. He will not change the system, no matter what he says, because feudalism of any kind needs poor and illiterate people to survive. Please notice that he has said not one word about the Bhopal verdict and nor has his Mummy. The victims of the tragedy are too desperate and poor to ask for more. It is for you and I who know better to recognise that democratic feudalism is the main reason why India remains mired in medieval problems of poverty and monumental injustice.
Since the verdict I have found myself wondering what India’s reaction would have been if that cloud of poisoned gas had wandered over Lutyen’s Delhi instead of a wretchedly poor slum on the edge of Bhopal. What would India’s reaction have been if among the 25,000 dead were senior members of the Indian government? Would Warren Andersen have been allowed to run away? Would an American company have been allowed to get away with mass murder?
Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh
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