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August 22, 2007
'I feel strong contempt for Indian politicians'
Interview with Indra Sinha by Lindsay Pereira for rediff.com, August 22, 2007
Consider, if you will, a peculiar experiment. Pick an advertising agency; any agency. Walk to where the copywriters congregate, and gently whisper the name 'Indra Sinha'. Then stand back and watch as feelings of inadequacy suddenly rush into the room.
There is a perfectly logical explanation for the reaction. For decades now, Sinha has been making copywriters around the world feel inadequate and inspired in turns. Being voted one of the top ten British copywriters of all time tends to give one that kind of power. Back in the sixties, Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners was known as Britain's most influential advertising agency, home to big names including Sinha, Frank Lowe, David Puttnam, Alan Parker and Charles Saatchi.
What has made Sinha more interesting to non-advertising folk is a battle he has helped wage for over a decade now -- his battle for victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy.
Thirteen years ago, when Sinha decided to give up advertising for things he considered more important, his peers were in shock. What they didn't know was that Sinha had been visited a year earlier by a man called Satyu Sarangi. The latter wanted his help to raise funds for a free medical clinic that could make life less painful for the thousands who survived the early hours of December 3, 1984. It was the night a Union Carbide pesticide factory released 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate, killing 3,000 people immediately and eventually claiming around 22,000.
With the help of a now-iconic photograph of a child's burial by Raghu Rai, Sinha created an advertisement for Bhopal Medical Appeal, kick-starting a movement that continues to serve thousands every year. Between 1996 and now, a clinic set up through charitable funds has helped 20,000 people. Sinha's fight for justice in a country far from home -- he currently lives in southern France with his wife of 30 years and three children -- continues.
Earlier this month, the world at large was given a third reason to pay attention to Indra Sinha. Animal's People, his second novel, made it to that spotlight-grabbing pedestal coveted by writers worldwide -- the Man Booker long list, 2007.
Sinha's writing career has been intriguing. He began with a translation (Kama Sutra) and followed it with an explanation of the Tantric tradition (Tantra: The Cult of Ecstasy), before winning acclaim with his rather frightening memoir on hours spent online in the early years of the Internet, The Cybergypsies. His first novel, The Death of Mr Love, was based on a real-life murder in his hometown, Mumbai.
Animal's People is set in a town called Khaufpur which, interestingly, now has its own Web site that documents its alleged history, has its own matrimonial (featuring a certain 19-year- old called Jaanvar), and even lists current events (Dominique Lapierre, author of City of Joy, will apparently read from his new book at an upcoming open-air event)! Leaving aside the Web site though, what makes the novel compelling is the Bhopal disaster that resonates through its pages, as the protagonist -- called, simply, 'Animal' -- shares his tale with an unnamed journalist, or 'jarnaliss'.
Whether Sinha wins the Booker or not is irrelevant. What is, is that his fiction will finally get the recognition it has long deserved. When that happens, maybe a lot more people will weigh in on his side of the fight against a big, bad, real-life company.
While your adult life has been rather well documented, little is known of your childhood, except that a large part was spent in Mumbai.
A lot of my childhood, including several happy years running wild in the Western ghats near Lonavla, found its way into my first novel, The Death of Mr Love. Mumbai is my home town. I was born in Colaba, grew up with Guru Dutt movies, pani puri at Chowpatty, Cathedral School, the 132 bus, and Cuffe Parade. I love the city and always have a wonderful feeling of homecoming when I step off a plane into that unique Mumbai tang of fish, smoke and taxi exhaust.
Your giving up copywriting is a move that, as far as I can tell, still surprises the advertising fraternity in India. Considering those were extremely rewarding years for you, do you ever regret giving up on that industry?
No, but I miss the money.
You refer to your first two books, Kama Sutra and Tantra, as 'ad hoc forays into translation and non-fiction', respectively. What drew you to either subject?
My wife worked at a publisher that was looking for new ideas. I had read (Richard) Burton's translation of the Kama Sutra and felt it did not properly represent the Indian original, so I suggested we do a fresh translation illustrated with mainly Rajasthani miniatures. Ours was the first new English translation in the West since Burton's in 1883 and is still in print.
Indra Sinha's Kama Sutra, available at the Rediff Bookshop
Some years later, I was invited by a publisher to write the text for Tantra. Having done some research, what fascinated me was the evidence that many 'tantric' ideas actually came to India from the Mediterranean. It is rather a dry read and debunks reports of orgies and sexual mischief -- sorry to disappoint.
Cybergypsies remains a wise, yet frightening account of your obsession with the Internet. From 1984 to what it has evolved into today, are you pleased with what the medium has accomplished?
Today, life would be unimaginable without e-mail, online banking and sites like rediff.com In those early days, there was no Web, no e-mail. We rode electron beams through darkness into unknown and uncharted territory, encountering other wanderers who had their own obsessions and agendas. The Internet today offers ordinary people a chance to bypass corporate-owned communication channels and evolve a new popular culture. Whether we will collectively take that chance remains to be seen.
The Death of Mr Love was inspired by an event (the 1959 Nanavati murder in Mumbai, then Bombay) that had all the makings of a good story. How did readers, or critics, in Mumbai react to the book?
On the whole, it had excellent reviews. Nonita Kalra of Elle has invited me to ride the 132 bus through Mumbai with her when next in the city, and I will hold her to this when my wife and I visit later this year. My favourite comment came from a reader, who wrote: 'As someone who grew up in Mumbai, I have to say this is the only novel I have ever read that brings back to me the city I knew, its sounds, smells and above all, the feel of being there. From bus rides on the 132, smells of Sassoon Dock, reminders of the great days of Hindi movies (Guru Dutt, Johnny Walker) to parts of the city like Dongri which are never written about elsewhere because only a person who knows can write: This plus a great story and characters and what must be the definitive description of the Western ghats through the eyes of a small child make this a novel that haunts one long after one has finished the last page and regretfully put it down.' Thank you, Fred Gomes.
I assume you continue to watch the advertising industry in India, considering recent comments you have made regarding plagiarism there. You were surprisingly tolerant of it, pointing out that ideas in advertising have 'many parents'. How do you feel about plagiarism in literature, now a riskier affair thanks to the Internet?
I was specifically invited to comment on an article about plagiarism in the Gulf, and obliged out of politeness. It isn't a discussion that interests me much, either in relation to advertising or literature. It goes without saying that no one with any pride in their work would copy someone else's, but the ad industry has been utterly corrupted by a lust for awards and senior creative people live in constant fear of losing their jobs. Given that the question was hardly worth debating, I was trying to say something more interesting than 'plagiarism smells.'
The Bhopal tragedy claimed more victims than September 11. You have been an extremely vocal spokesperson in the fight for justice that continues. Are you still hopeful?
I feel the strongest contempt for Indian politicians, who as far as I can see, do not give a damn for the poor and sick. Congress or BJP, they are as bad as one another. How is it possible simply to ignore a Supreme Court order to provide clean drinking water to people whose wells have been poisoned? Now it seems the politicians and bureaucrats are colluding to get Dow Chemical off the hook of its inherited legal liabilities? Strangely enough, this is the very situation described in Animal's People.
I hope that in real life the politicians will realise their primary responsibility is not to foreign corporations but to their own suffering and very brave people. The media in India could do a lot more than they do to hold politicians accountable.
One could say -- rather harshly, I admit -- that a subject like Bhopal would be poignant when discussed in any form. As a writer, do you manage to dissociate yourself from a subject so personal to you when you set out to write fiction based on it?
I have given nearly 15 years to working with the Bhopalis, many of my close friends live in the bastis of Bhopal and my involvement with them goes a little deeper than poignant discussion. However, Animal's People is not a polemic. If it were, it would have no power as a novel. It is a story about people. The characters are everything and the plot evolves out of their desires, idiosyncrasies and failings. Despite the dark subject matter, it is quite a light-hearted book.
New York Magazine called it 'scabrously funny', which delighted me. If this book gets a wide readership, it could do a lot to alert people to the horrific cruelty perpetrated on the Bhopal victims: the neglect and betrayal, and the nobility of those who have turned their own suffering into struggle and art.
Is the Man Booker award one of importance to you? How satisfied have you been with its choices of the past few years?
It is very important, but in the end it isn't hype but word-of-mouth that creates lasting success. Getting long-listed for the Booker is excellent news because perhaps now the book will have the chance to be more widely read. I have enjoyed and greatly admired most of the books that have won the prize over the last few years. I am a huge fan of Ian McEwan and have the highest respect for Arundhati Roy, both as writer and activist.
I am surprised -- and a little saddened -- that your books aren't easily found on bookshelves in India. Is this a marketing and distribution oversight, or have you simply chosen to stay away from the publicity tours that seem to mark each book launch these days?
I would naturally love my books to be stacked high in every bookshop. As for publicity, I would gladly do a book tour of India but no one has ever asked me. Are there literary festivals in Indian cities the way every Australian city has one? With such a huge and well-educated reading public, and with Indian writers doing so well in the world, maybe it would be a good idea to start one. Or two. Maybe Rediff could do it. Then you could invite me.
When you name a village Khaufpur, do you assume a global audience will be able to appreciate the connotations?
Khaufpur has its own Web site, but Lucy Beresford in her New Statesman review of Animal's People discovered that 'khauf' is a Urdu word meaning 'terror' and wrote, 'my sense is that Khaufpur is fictional, a place of terror and dread. Its real-life counterpart is Bhopal.' It isn't necessary for every nuance in the book to be picked up. Will anyone notice the alchemical motifs that run through it? It doesn't matter if you don't, but is enriching if you do. I used to adore Nabokov who could pun in three languages, to read him was like watching a dolphin playing in the sea of language. You followed him if you could, and if you couldn't, it was still enthralling.
One of your blog posts has an extremely interesting thing to say about advertising and its potential to falsify history. Isn't it also accurate to say it distorts the way society perceives itself? Do you condone advertising for products like Fair & Lovely, or for sites promising visitors '5,000 fair brides to choose from'?
Corporations and governments use advertising to create fantasy worlds which bear little relation to reality, but advertising can also be used to counter lies. Please see the series of artworks made as a reply to Dow Chemical's 'human element' campaign in the United States. I think people who write ads on behalf of Dow and other such corporations can't morally dissociate themselves from what they are promoting.
I am no saint. Before my own road-to-Damascus moment, I had worked on cigarette ads and for corporations like Shell. When I quit advertising, I burned my portfolio. I have since used advertising to raise money to found and fund a free clinic in Bhopal for the benefit of the survivors. As for the examples you give, skin lightening creams and wheat-complexioned brides, I find the Indian obsession with skin colour rather sad.
Posted by tim at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2007
"The foulest act of corporate homicide in modern history"
Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, A Week in Books
Published: 17 August 2007
August sees a seasonal outbreak of head-scratching and site-searching as panicky critics, editors, retailers and bookies rush to discover more about the lesser-known novels on the Man Booker long-list. Quite rightly, in an art form now subject to a crass star system, the judges routinely decide that part of their job consists in baffling the pundits. In a contest where South Asian writers loom large, you might say that they're bowling doosras (Urdu, "the other one") that spin past defences to result in the embarrassing clatter of critical wickets.
Yet these surprises offer readers, as well as authors, a precious second chance. In the spring, I spent insufficient time with Indra Sinha's long-listed second novel Animal's People (Simon & Schuster, £11.99) to grasp its value. Now I have and, although some of its virtues stand apart from those of most literary fiction, I wouldn't dispute that it counts as an extraordinary achievement. Buy it from Sinha's own site (indrasinha.com) and 60 pence of the price will go to support the work of the Bhopal Medical Appeal (bhopal.org).
And there's the rub. For all its brio and audacity, this novel stands on the shoulders of a terrible truth. Sinha, an award-winning ad copywriter in a former life, has spent a decade immersed in the campaign to secure justice for the victims of the leak of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, central India, in December 1984 (bhopal.net). Every Bhopal figure comes clouded in argument, but the disaster caused perhaps 8,000 immediate deaths, 20,000 over the longer term, and 120,000 permanent disabilities.
A settlement in 1989 led to a compensation payment of $470 million (a seventh of the claim). But the former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson remains a fugitive from justice (Dow Chemical acquired the company in 2001), and the clean-up operation a matter of Dickensian court wrangling.
Animal's People bypasses the often-told story of "that night" to focus on the aftermath of suffering, despair and recrimination in a thinly disguised city named "Khaufpur" ("Dreadville"). Scampering though its slums on all fours after his six-year-old bones "twisted like a hairpin", the orphan Animal is now a street-smart, foul-mouthed, angry-souled young man who – so runs the novel's conceit – tells the sufferers' story into the tape-recorder of a "jarnalis". Animal, and his city, spurn the pity of outsiders. Sinha fends off all condescension with the salty and scabrous urchin's voice – a virtuoso compound of Irvine Welsh and Salman Rushdie – that he crafts for the bitter hero as he moves among "the people of the Apokalis".
Yet, for all its surface profanity, Animal's People mingles sentiment with its savagery. Animal protects the aged French nun, "Ma Franci", aids the endless battle with corporate culprits waged by the activist Zafar and musician's daughter Nisha, and helps the mysterious US doctor Elli to set up a free clinic when most victims suspect her of acting for the hated "Kampani". Along the way, he and Sinha forge a comic, obscene, pun-filled patois in exuberant "Hinglish". This barnstorming monologue ranks among the strongest of the many bids to bend English into an Indian shape since GV Desani's lost 1948 classic All About H. Hatterr.
At the same time, the novel draws its strength from a vast reservoir of real-world pain. If the long torment of "Khaufpur" existed solely in fantasy, could even Animal force us to care? The borrowed prestige of the real can limit as well as liberate fiction. Sinha's judges and readers will have to make that call. In the meantime, his long-listing should spur a new generation to find out about the foulest act of corporate homicide in modern history.
Posted by tim at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2007
Bhopal revisited: Animal`s Story
SPEAKING VOLUMES, Nilanjana S Roy, Business Standard
Indra Sinha's novel Animal's People currently sits on the Man Booker longlist
New Delhi August 14, 2007: I used to be human once. So I’m told. I don’t remember it myself, but people who knew me when I was small say I walked on two feet just like a human being...” Opening lines of Animal’s People by Indra Sinha
Most Indians will remember December 3, 1984; those who were in Bhopal on that day will never be able to forget it. In the early hours of December 3, a holding tank at a Union Carbide pesticide plant overheated, releasing 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas; the death toll from what is considered one of the worst industrial disasters ever was somewhere between 15,000 and 22,000.
Bhopal was extensively reported on and written about, but unlike other disasters, it seemed to daunt writers. Partition literature has grown over the years, and become more complex in the telling. The assassination of Indira Gandhi, earlier in 1984, finds its way — usually clumsily — into a score of contemporary Indian novels. This generation of young writers, from Sujit Saraf (The Peacock Throne) and Raj Kamal Jha (Fireproof) to Altaf Tyrewala (No God in Sight), are beginning to find ways to tell the darker stories that emerge in the wake of contemporary riots and disasters. The Kargil war found its best chroniclers not in the ranks of fiction writers, but among journalists whose memoirs of that brief conflict remain invaluable.
The accident at the plant that made Bhopal, like Chernobyl, into something approaching a verb, a city’s name converted into shorthand for an almost Biblical tragedy, deterred most fiction writers. The redoubtable Dominique Lapierre was one of the few to boldly go where wiser souls had not gone before. About 18 years after the gas tragedy, Lapierre co-wrote It Was Five Minutes Past Midnight along with Javier Moro. This fast-paced novel blended some solid investigative journalism into the history of the Union Carbide plant with the mawkish, fairy-tale-to-noir horrorshow story of Padmini, a young slum dweller whose marriage takes place on the night of the disaster. Lapierre, whose generosity as an author is only surpassed by his instinctive talent for finding the right cliché for the right occasion, donated his royalties from the book to Bhopal victims.
In 2002, Amulya Malladi came out with A Breath of Fresh Air, a delicate, meandering but eminently readable novel that looked at the gas tragedy from the perspective of Anjali, a young woman who can never forgive her ex-husband for his role in the damage she suffers on December 3. Malladi’s book captured the nuances of relationships very well, and grapples with some of the complexities and challenges of the cost of being a survivor. But while it was a competent and moving novel, it lacked force, and suffered from some of the defects of a debut novel.
“Sunil, for much of your short life, you believed people were coming to murder you,” Indra Sinha wrote in 2006, in a tribute to a friend of his, a fellow activist who worked on behalf of the Bhopal victims. Sunil Kumar, also known as ‘Jaanvar’ or ‘Animal’, (Sunil Kumar was never known as 'Jaanvar' or 'Animal', and was not the model of the character in Indra Sinha's book Animal's People - ed.) was 13 at the time of the Bhopal gas tragedy. Separated from his parents, he lost consciousness and was tossed onto a pile of corpses to be taken to hospital. He survived that; he managed to find his younger siblings; he found work; he became an activist for Bhopal; and slowly, little by little, he lost his sanity. In 2006, Sunil Kumar put on a T-shirt that said, “No More Bhopals”, and hanged himself from the ceiling fan.
I have never met Indra Sinha, but from his previous books, I know him as a man of magnificent obsessions. His non-fiction work, The Cybergypsies, chronicled cyberculture in an age when that word had not yet been invented. His first novel, The Death of Mr Love, was an entertaining if uneven fictionalisation of the Nanavati murder, one of Bombay’s best-beloved scandals. It was clear from both books that Sinha had the ability to immerse himself in the world that he was writing about, whether virtual, historical or real.
But his involvement with Bhopal is much more than an obsession: finding justice and practical help for those who survived the tragedy is a commitment that Sinha has made for several years, as a journalist, as an activist, and now as a writer. His novel, Animal’s People, is about a boy called Jaanvar, crippled by a disaster that’s hit the fictional city of Khaufpur. It’s on the Booker longlist, but that isn’t why you should read it. Despite the occasional clunkiness of the language and a tendency to be over-lyrical, Sinha’s writing is powerful and Jaanvar’s story is deeply moving. This may the closest to the non-stereotypical Bhopal novel that we’re going to get for a while.
nilanjanasroy@gmail.com
(Disclaimer: The author is chief editor, EastWest and Westland Books. The opinions expressed here are personal)
Posted by tim at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2007
Spoof awards: Bhopal survivors ‘honour’ Manmohan, Ambani
Vibha Sharma, Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 12
It was an award ceremony with a difference. The “Dalal Foundation”, formed just around 15 days ago by Bhopal survivors’ organisations, yesterday presented “Mir Zafar awards for treachery” to top politicians and bureaucrats of the country in a dramatised version, peppered with satire.
The spoof awards were given to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, finance minister P. Chidambaram, vice-chairman planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and industrialists Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani, who according to Bhopal survivors were being “felicitated for their efforts to bury Dow Chemical’s liabilities in Bhopal tragedy cases and clear the way for Dow and Carbide to freely do business in India”. Activists wearing respective masks received the awards.
Mir Zafar had betrayed his troops and cut a deal with the British East India Company. Today’s event marked the 250 anniversary of the Battle of Plassey, where Mir Zafar betrayed his troops and his act could be likened to the present government’s “kowtowing” to US corporations.
“The Indian government is indulging in activities that favour the elite and exacted a heavy toll on lives of common citizens,” they said.
The list of award-winners included commerce minister Kamal Nath, industrialist Ashok Punjwani, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi and senior bureaucrats like principal secretary T.K.A. Nair and former cabinet secretary B.K. Chaturvedi.
Madhya Pradesh gas relief minister Babu Lal Gaur came in for special mention for a “lifetime spent in betraying Bhopal victims”. Besides, Indian Ambassador to US Ronen Sen was also presented a Mir Zafar Award.
The Mir Zafar “Best environmental talk the talk award” was given to Ashok Punjwani, director of Bharuch Enviro Infrastructure Limited, Gujarat.
The “Birds of a feather award 2007” went to Mukesh Ambani, “who recently announced plans to acquire Union Carbide technology for his new plastic factories in Gujarat.” B. K. Chaturvedi won the Mir Zafar “Bureaucrat for Business Award 2007”.
Ratan Tata, played by activist Satinath Sarangi, received the award from a Singur resident to highlight his offer to lead an effort to mop up Union Carbide’s toxic wastes and facilitate Dow’s investments in India.
Bhopal survivors said the ministry of chemicals filed an application seeking Rs 100 crore from Dow Chemical. However, files unearthed from the PMO using the RTI Act revealed that most of the “award-winners” were strongly pushing to exempt Dow.
Survivors added that a note by the cabinet secretary on April 6 said given the scope for future investments in the petrochemical sector, Dow’s Bhopal liabilities should be resolved out of court.
The Mir Zafar Awards will be now be an annual affair. This year’s ceremony was officiated by theatre personality Suhasini Mulay who spoke for the Dalal Foundation.
She said: “We at Dalal Foundation believe that freedom is okay as long as it is recognised and respected that the freedom to exploit natural and human resources for profit generation takes precedence over all other freedoms.”
Posted by tim at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)
Bhopal gas tragedy victims observe 250th anniversary of Battle of Plassey
Pankaj Chaudhary, dailyindia.com
New Delhi, Aug.12: Bhopal gas tragedy victims observed the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Plassey by conferring on Mir Jafar awards on a dozen of politicians and well-known personalities from different walks of life here on Saturday.
The gathering remembered Mir Jafar, the famed betrayer, who had sided with the British Indian Company and let down his own compatriots leading to their defeat.
But the mode to remember Mir Jafar was the institution of a series of awards named after him.
Under the banner of Dalal Foundation, the survivors of the Union Carbide's catastrophe of 1984 from Bhopal, conferred 'awards' on selective public figures for their acts of treachery to the nation.
The survivors of the gas tragedy drew a parallel to the treacherous acts of Mir Jafar to certain public figures for having let them down in terms of adequate compensation and proper rehabilitation.
The awards were publicly conferred to persons wearing respective masks of politicians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P.Chidambram and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath. The others included industrialists Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani and Ashok Punjwani of Bharuch Environ Infrastructure Limited (BEIL).
Among others, the spokesman of Congress party, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who also handles the brief of DOW Chemicals, senior bureaucrats such as the Principal Secretary in Prime Minister's Office (PMO) T K A Nair and former Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi. Another award winner was the former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Babu Lal Gaur for 'betraying' the gas victims.
The survivors of the tragedy were disappointed over the half-hearted attempts of the people in power or holding high positions to understand their plight.
Rashida Bee, a leader of the Bhopal Gas Affected Women Stationary Workers Association, said: "They (the politicians) just want that these companies should come here and invest. They just care for their own pockets. They don't know that this poisonous water, soil can also affect their own lives. From this award we want to tell them that although Mir Jafar is no more, his legacy of treachery prevails."
The survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy and the residents of Nandigram and Singur that recently witnessed violence in West Bengal over Special Economic Zone (SEZ) issue, gave the awards.
The award ceremony was attended by actress turned activist Nafisa Ali and character actress Suhasini Mulay.
It was also decided to make the event an annual feature.
The Battle of Plassey took place on June 23, 1757 at Palashi on the banks of the River Bhagirathi, about 150 kilometres north of Calcutta, near Murshidabad, then the capital of the Nawab of Bengal. The opponents were Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, and the British East India Company
Mir Jafar, for his betrayal of the Nawab Siraj Ud Daulah and alliance with the British, was installed as the new Nawab, while Siraj Ud Daulah was captured on July 2 in Murshidabad as he attempted to escape further north. He was later executed on the order of Mir Jafar's son.
Copyright Dailyindia.com/ANI
Posted by tim at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
Bhopal victims 'award' ministers
Sunday, August 12, 2007 (New Delhi)
Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and Finance Minister P Chidambaram have been given the Mir Zaffar Award as a symbol of their betrayal of the Bhopal gas tragedy victims.
NGOs fighting for the victims have instituted the awards in the name of Mir Zafffar, who had sold out for to the East India Company at the time of the Battle of Plassey.
The awards were presented by an organisation that calls itself the Dalal (broker) Foundation.
Organised by the International Council for Justice, the event was an attempt to lampoon politicians, bureaucrats and industrialists who have allegedly sold out to Dow Chemicals.
"The documents we got from the Prime Minister's office through the Right to Information clearly show that these people are trying to help Dow escape its legal liabilities in Bhopal," said Satinath Sarangi, Activist and Organiser.
"This is being done because Dow has offered to invest $1 billion in India".
Dubious distinction
The ''winners'' also included Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Dow's legal representative in India, and Ratan Tata, who has recommended the Dow case to the PM's office and the Planning Commission.
''The Ministry of Fertilizers and Chemicals has filed an appeal that Rs 100 crore be deposited by Dow for the clean up of toxic waste at the Union Carbide site,'' Sarangi said.
''Dow, through the US and its friends like Kamal Nath and Tata, is pressurising the government to withdraw the application so that Dow's legal liability is not established''.
Through the tongue-in-cheek ceremony, survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy and the Dalal Foundation are trying to show that justice has still not been done.
They feel that politicians and industrialists are busy promoting the interests of Dow Chemicals instead of that of their own people.
Posted by tim at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)