Terror: Admitted

MUMBAI: An 11-year-old girl, the youngest witness to depose before the court in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case, was denied admission in a private school which fears that it would become a terror target if she was admitted.

"My daughter (Devika Rotwan) has been denied admission in New English High School at suburban Bandra. School authorities say they may face a terror threat as my daughter had deposed as a witness in the 26/11 case," her father Natwarlal Rotwan, a businessman, told PTI tonight. [Source: TOI Lead Story]

Like it or not, terror has won. People are not confident that the current ruling dispensation can save them from terror attacks. Of course, your local secular honcho will give a different spin to the story. like, for instance how you are responsible for all this. But then again, by now you should get used to it.

Lessons from the Bhopal Tragedy

We belong to a generation that grew up knowing that the man was important, not quite understanding why. Even today whatever little we know about the man is from hagiographic accounts sanctioned and approved by the dynasty. Funny thing is, even the current generation will grow up with exactly the same feeling.

You can run and you can hide, but from there is no escaping the myth making machine. Everything good about India or rather everything that the feudal masters think that the public think are good for them, are stamped with the man's name. So far, this has worked beautifully, India's ignorant masses believe in the mythology.

The Bhopal disaster happened right after the man took over the helms of the country. He would continue to rule over it for several years. After him, his party would continue this rule for several more years. Actually, all this is rather redundant really - suffice it to say the country has been ruled and any dissidents roughshod and silenced by the family to which the man belonged except for a few brief periods of times.

Yet, column after column, editorial after editorial, TV show after TV show discussed anything but this singularly important fact in the context of the Bhopal tragedy. This is no surprise. This is what this group is tasked with. Lying with a straight face and deflecting blame from the dynasty is their primary responsibility.

Every now and then, the nation will be gripped with some grave concern or the other, like hay fever. A few frenzied editorializing days later we will move on to the next topic. In this case perhaps Bihar elections where presumably the myth loses much of its power in transit.

In the end, we are left with an empty feeling. We still do not have any clarity whatsoever on industrial regulations, land acquisitions, accident redressal. A few days ago an airplane belonging to the national carrier nose dived on a substandard runway, killing all but a few on board. Yet nothing since the incident suggests a change in policies that could improve the situation. Bhopal happened over a generation ago.

The only lesson we ultimately learned from the Bhopal tragedy is that we do not learn from past tragedies. The only thing changes is the number of human rights activists, their relative wealth and power and the poisonous fumes coming out of their mouths. Needless to say, we are pretty darn near suffocating as a nation.