Contempt of the dead

I still remember, it was a chilly evening of December 3, 2005 and a group of teenagers, under the banner of an environmental group, had gathered at the Gateway of India to register a protest. A friend, who is quite an active member of the organisation, persuaded me to go with him.

Although I was a bit anxious, as I had never been part of such an affair before, I trusted him completely and went along. Amusingly, I wasn't even aware of the reason why the entire protest march was organised and whom we were protesting against. All I knew, as my friend had told me, that I was participating in a righteous cause.

Soon after reaching the spot, the picture began to get clearer. I saw a huge statue of a woman holding a kid in her arms, which was put up by the activists. I asked my friend what it was to which he replied that it's a symbol of the Bhopal gas tragedy.

He then explained to me what had happened the year I was born. I felt strongly for those, who died working in karkhaanas, walking down the streets and even sleeping in the safety of their homes. The fact that most of them didn't even know the reason why they and their loved ones were falling dead literally shook me to the core.

That's when I came to know about the tragedy and started following news about the ongoing case against those responsible for the deaths. Last Monday, when the court delivered its verdict against them, I, like millions of people across the world, was dazed. Just two years imprisonment for being responsible for thousands of deaths?

The number of victims is far more than those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Besides, what's most annoying is that the culprits applied for bail soon after they were sentenced and were granted relief in the case by the court. I know that we have over a billion people, but are human lives here so cheap?

If something of this magnitude had happened with the people of any European country with an Indian company involved, one can imagine what would have been our plight. India would have been another Afghanistan or Iraq.
However, the government then and in all these years has done little to get the culprits to the task. I don't understand why we become so weak in front of the fair-skinned that we prefer to ignore cold-blooded murders of our very own people.

Someone please explain to me the reason why have we disdained the dead with this callous judgement.