The Hindu Business Line : <I>A crime that beggars description </I>

February 2, 2000. The day that is indelibly etched in my memory. The day the trumpeted three millennia-old culture and civilisation of Tamil Nadu were betrayed by devils incarnate masquerading as human beings. The day on which monsters in men's clothing set fire to a bus carrying innocent girls, blocked their desperate efforts to escape from the raging inferno, and saw to it that three of them were burnt alive. All in gory protest at the conviction of the leader of a political party by the court of the land in a criminal case. A terrifying tragedy which brought a load of shame that the State will take long to live down.

There is a dominant reason why I shrink from recalling the date. Sometime in the afternoon on that day, the 90-year old statesman, C. Subramaniam, rang me up asking me to meet him at his residence without delay. He had come to know of the gruesome incident but I was unaware. I found him in deep anguish, almost writhing in agony. He shared with me the news of the outrage, and wanted a public expression of the shock and grief and a demonstration of the sympathy of the people for the bereaved families.

To that end, he wanted to mobilise the academic community, the students and civil society, and asked me to contact the heads and student leaders of as many schools and colleges, and representatives of as many voluntary organisations as possible, requesting them to attend a meeting the next day at 3 p.m. to decide on the further course of action, taking account of the murderous depths to which politics had sunk.

He felt that the incident would stir the people to such an extent that they would turn up in unmanageable numbers filling the big auditorium of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. I got in touch with about 40 academic institutions, students' unions and voluntary organisations requesting their presence.

Utter dejection

The nonagenarian leader who was not keeping well (he passed away before the end of the year on November 8, 2000) came 15 minutes before the scheduled time, expecting a huge crowd. Not one soul was there, except himself and myself, and by 3-30, the number trickling in was eight or so and they too were stray individuals with no representative character. After some desultory discussion, CS called off the meeting and went home in great despondency.

Even a few days before his death, CS was in utter dejection over this experience. Was this all that people of the State could rouse themselves to in reaction to an egregious atrocity?

After all, was this not a culture that gloried in stories of a king who found a creeper on the floor and left his chariot for its support, and another who ran his chariot over his own son as a punishment for the latter running over a calf and making the mother cow disconsolate?

NoT a word of regret

How come there was not a single word expressing regret, or condemnation, from the party leadership — and that too in a country of Mahatma Gandhi who called off a country-wide civil disobedience movement and confessed to committing a Himalayan blunder because a few participants in the movement burnt some constables alive in Chauri Chaura police station? Far from expressing contrition, how did the party and government establishment headed by someone with feminine sensibilities do everything possible to impede the course of justice?

Questions abound. However, for the moment, let us console ourselves that the perpetrators of the crime face the gallows.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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