Stop the Bhopal spam

People who have been spamming each others mails sending petitions to sign to ensure that the ‘guilty’ in the Bhopal gas tragedy are brought to justice could do well to read an article in the foreign section of the Asian Age edition dated June 18.
It is about how several oil disasters of the type that has happened in the Gulf of Mexico are a weekly occurrence in the Niger Delta, an oil-rich swathe of land that allows both Nigeria and Niger to make tons of money while keeping the populace grounded in eye-popping poverty.
The big energy companies that operate in this area almost without fail manage to get away whenever there is a large oil spill or pipeline puncture, the types that kill almost 200 to 500 on an average. On rare occasions local engineers are hauled up and the case given a quite burial. Predominantly the spill/leak/puncture is blamed on the militants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MRND) and the energy companies as well as the provincial and national government escape any liability.

The point here is that Nigeria or Niger aren’t important nations in the world scheme of things to go around fixing liability on big American and European companies. These are impoverished nations that are ruled by an elite class that knows that it is these companies that can help them steal from the resources of the land. If the energy companies are frightened away, then the oil remains underground and so does the loot that it could spawn.

The problem here in India is that a dreamy nation has anointed itself an important cog in the worldly wheel and so various commentators and analysts cutting across media houses and political affiliations are demanding that Warren Anderson be hauled back to India to stand trial for the Bhopal tragedy.

However are we in a position to frighten away the scores of companies who come to India to take advantage of its corrupt legal system and polity?

Is the political class ready to give away its divine right to loot? I don’t think so. Let me give an example. Former chief minister and Gandhi loyalist Arjun Singh is being hauled over the coals by his own partymen- only to eager to save Rajiv Gandhi- for letting Anderson go. What is the ailing Singh’s response?

Nothing. Why? Because he knows back home there are children who want to cling on to the political legacy he built. There are children who want to be part of the Congress so that they remain in the ruling elite. There are children who want to continue to gnaw away at the political flesh bitten off by their father.

Under these circumstances, it is best for Singh to keep shut, take the shit that is being thrown at him, so that his progeny continue to smell roses.

In such a situation, with such a ruling class, do you really think we have the required courage to take on large business interests centred in the US and Europe? I don’t think so.
So let us accept that we aren’t all that important a nation- just like Niger and Nigeria- and let us get on with our lives and stop spamming each others mail boxes.

A nation full of gas need not be so worked up over a simple leak.