Dharna Blog

Day 13: Aug 7, 2010

Rachna and Shalini visited parliamentarian Abni Roy who has been to the dharna sthal and been very supportive up to now. He wrote a detailed letter to the Prime Minister asking for a set of steps to be taken around Bhopal, based on our demands.

The girls wanted to go see Delhi today, unanimously they had planned to go see Red Fort. Unfortunately by the time they could wrap up the dharna work it was too late and they were short on money for travel. They were disheartened but very soon the volunteers from AID Delhi and NCR started collecting at the dharna site. Yasmin and Safreen who were unhappy about the cancellation of their travel plans were now engrossed in talking to AID volunteers about the campaigns that Children Against Dow Carbide has been involved with. The AID volunteers were very impressed with the 'Give your ear to the PM' campaign and were inquisitive about how these young girls have been doing such good work along with their regular studies. Banno Bee and Rachna discussed the ill effects of the toxins seeping in the land and contaminating the drinking water. They also spoke about Dow liabilities and the remediation processes that will help Bhopal.

Dharna Blog

Day 12: Aug 6, 2010

As with many days, the day began with the dawn of interacting with the children of Delhi. Unlike most days, they came to us.

Students from the Millenium School came to visit Jantar Mantar, not our dharna per se. The students were walking around Jantar Mantar and they chanced upon our group. There was much interaction with our group, lots of questions, lots of answers. The students and teachers were taking pictures of us, and meanwhile Vikas took photos of them interacting with us. One of the teachers asked Vikas to hand over the camera, and he handed it over thinking they wanted to take more pictures. When he checked what they were doing, they asked how they could delete the pictures he was taking. He asked them - Why? They said - You won't understand. Vikas said - Explain it to me. So the teachers said - Don't take pictures of the girls. This led to an interesting discussion about how the students and teachers didn't seem equally worried about the consequences of their taking photographs of the young girls from Bhopal. It led to a discussion about how trust had to be mutual, about notions of unidirectional protection across class lines, and the teachers and students felt they'd benefitted from this aspect of the discussion in addition to what they'd learned about Bhopal.

Dharna Blog

Day 11: Aug 5, 2010

The morning began once again with a visit to St Mary's School by Rachna, Yasmeen and Safreen. The school didn't have electricity, so no film screening was possible, and the children described the gas disaster instead and talked about the issues they faced.

The big event of the day was a significant meeting with Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh. Sathyu and Rachna were present along with Jayprakashji of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahyog Samiti), and our lawyers Karuna and Avinendra. Karuna ji represents the survivors' groups in the Supreme Court while Avinendra represents the survivors in MP high court and Delhi high court. We presented Jairam Ramesh with our set of demands and plan to also send him our map to remediation.