Recall Bhopal Tragedy

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Aravindan Neelakandan - February 24, 2015, 11:46 pm
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When her reaction to the gas tragedy was sought, Mother Teresa projected Pro
it as
le
a consequence of sin and said the affected must seek forgiveness. Then sheLogout
de ected the issue to abortion, a pet subject of the Church.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is right. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
Sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat has no business criticising Mother Teresa of
Calcutta a carefully cultivated icon of charity, which has today transcended all
barriers of religion and has emerged a national archetype for sel ess service. Just as
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how the RSS has been the caricatured
storm-troopers of hatred in the media Teresa is
the epitome of love and that is of course a monopolized Christian virtue.

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Let us take just one instance for comparison. On the night of 2 December 1984 at
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Bhopal,
methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked and created the worlds worst industrial
disaster. Within the close circles of the RSS, one hears occasionally about how
swayamsevaks managed to reach there along
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braved the gas leak and helped the victims. They toiled hard to restore the collapsing
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water and sanitation facilities. They repaired latrines. They removed the dead bodies
and helped the bereaved identify the dead ones. The boys in half pants who were
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medical students came from Agra, camped at Bhopal and offered round-the-clock
service to the affected people. All these one could hear in Sangh circles and read in
Sanghi literature. But are there any documents? Any photographs? The usual answer
one gets in the Sangh circles: Serving our brothers in times of calamity is our duty.
And one does not document what one does to ones own brother.
Contrast this with what Teresa did soon after the Bhopal disaster. Her words and
activities are well documented. Let us leave out for a moment what her critics like
Christopher Hitchens have accused her of a sly empathy towards Warren Anderson,
then Chairman of Union Carbide. What we have here are recordings from an admiring
journalist, not a cub reporter but a veteran, Anees Chisti. His book Dateline Bhopal is,
as the subtitle explains, a newsmans diary of the gas disaster and is much
acclaimed. Mother of all, as the author-reporter calls her, was asked to spell out her
message for the people of Bhopal reeling under the horrible effects of the disaster, she
simply said: Forgiveness. Forgiveness gives one purity of heart and peace of heart,
she elaborated after a pause. Her answers to numberless and many of them child-like
questions by reporters, Chisti states with obvious adoration, were short but
thoughtful.
And here is the sample:
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Question: Where would you place the magnitude of the Bhopal tragedy among
the many having experienced by you?
Teresa: I never compare. Each one has its own dimension and effect.
How has the tragedy affected you?
We are so excited because it has affected us. No one thinks of millions of abortions
taking place all over.
Do you have any special feelings for pregnant mothers with whom their
unborn kids also died?
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It was an accident; the mothers died, so, the children also died.(Dateline Bhopal, p
52) Password
Now, had anyone else answered the above
way,
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IN it would have been considered the
crass, inhuman fundamentalism. But not so with Teresa of Calcutta. She could get
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away with putting the onus of forgiveness on the victims and trivialising their
sufferings by magnifying the pet-crusade cause of the Church battling abortions.
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She could get away with utter inhumanity towards fellow human beings who had been
the victims of a colossal criminal negligence, particularly if that negligence is caused
by someone sympathetic and fat in his cheque-book towards Christian charity. We
now know that even as Bhopal gas tragedy struck, Warren Anderson was engaged in
negotiations with one Indira Ayengar, a rabid Christian fundamentalist activist, as to
how they couldavert the public relations fallout by donating to the Missionaries of
Charity. That institution of Teresa, of course, being acutely aware of the negative
publicity it would bring upon, refused to oblige. But Teresa at once started singing the
tune of forgiveness (if it is an accident as Teresa claimed, whom should the victims
of Bhopal disaster forgive? God?)
The saint could transform through media magic any inhumanity towards heathens
into a Christian act of love. Imagine a Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar or a Bhagwat
saying similar things during such a human tragedy and getting away with it!
Conversely, the RSS may be the only national organisation in India that gets to the
area of any natural calamity within a few hours and sel essly dedicates themselves to
the rescue and care of the victims irrespective of their religion. Yet this organisation
will still be seen as storm-troopers of hatred and the only media miracle they can do
is that often then become invisible to the cameras covering the disasters.
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Decades later, one of Teresas international spin doctors Dominique Lapierre would
come out with a docu-drama on Bhopal. Lapierre had earlier in his City of Joy called
Ramakrishna Mission monks pimps. Now the same charlatan chronicler would, with
media fanfare, make the Missionaries of Charity, particularly a young Scot nun,
probably a ctitious character, the crusader against the corrupt Indian system that
allowed thousands of Indians to die through crony capitalism. Now that chronicle
would become history and any role by the RSS would be relegated to the whispering
literature circulated within shakha circles.

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Yet strangely, something survived despite the RSSs constant urge to shun media
limelight. Photographer Pablo Bartholomew can, by no stretch of imagination, be
considered a friend or even a distant admirer of the Sangh. If anything, he seems to be
more in awe of the Nehru-Gandhi family and its socialism. But in his online photo
exhibition on the Bhopal gas tragedy, one nds those much caricatured boys in khaki
pants serving the victims, caring not for the photo ashes. Ironically this may be the
only media documentation of RSS service to Bhopal victims outside Sanghi circles.
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With such a defeat throughout media narrative of present history, how dare the RSS
chief question the fabricated integrity of the icon of our ages the White, Christian
angel toiling for the salvation of dark-skinned heathens! Shut up Hindus! Hail Teresa!
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Aravindan Neelakandan
Aravindan is a contributing editor at Swarajya.
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From The Archives: Rabindranath And Radhakrishnan
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Recall Bhopal Tragedy

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9/5/2016

Recall Bhopal Tragedy To FORGOT

the epitome of love and that is of course a monopolized Christian virtue.

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literature circulated within shakha circles.

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From The Archives: Rabindranath And Radhakrishnan

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