17 Injustice Part-02

Two Months Later

Chennai

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari was reading through the documents in his office. The chief minister exclaimed from time to time while reading the documents.

On his opposite chair was a man sitting drinking tea leisurely. The man was wearing a black trouser and a white shirt tucked in the trouser, with a mustache on his thin face and thick glasses.

After some time Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari put down the documents in his hand, leaned on the black comfortable chair, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

The man could see that the chief minister was clearly troubled by the information he has just read. It doesn't matter to him how much trouble it will cause to the Chief Minister, his job is to just address the grievance orders received from the High Command, and provide sufficient intelligence to justify their action.

"How could these people do such a thing? We didn't pursue them after independence, they should be grateful, moving their minds on such things?" said Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari.

The Tamil Nadu government after National party came to power has carried out infrastructure projects like crazy. Roads, Bridges, Dams, Highways, Schools, Colleges, anything that is useful, can provide employment and help in the regions economic development they have spend money like it's not their own.

On the surface the state is developing rapidly, people have jobs, farmers have their own farms, children are going to school officials are working for the development of people's livelihood.

But such a tranquil development was devastated by the flood caused in July in which Avalanche Dam collapsed. The Dam that was build with so much resources collapsed just after 3 years it was build. No Matter how you look at it, it doesn't look right.

So Indrajeet ordered an investigation into the Avalanche Dam Floods. when you don't look into the details, it's okay. Once you look into the details, your shocked.

Forty percent of the material used for the construction of the Avalanche dam were of sub standard quality.

From the Chief Director to the contractor all the people were involved in the corruption scandal in the Avalanche Dam.

After that all the major projects carried out by the government in the last three years were investigated. Thousands of people were involved in the corruption, even some high-level National Party Cadre were involved in these things.

Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari could understand that the officials involved in the corruption were mostly those who inherited their position from the British India.

However Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari couldn't accept that some of the National Party Cadre also succumbed to their greed.

Revolution has not started and some revolutionaries has already surrendered to the enemy.

When Chief Minister M.K Rajagopalachari saw that the man didn't reply to his question, he sat straight in his chair and looked questionably at the man opposite.

The man ignored the chief minister's gaze as if he didn't see it and continued to finished his tea.

After the tea was finished, the man kept the tea cup on the tray kept on the table. He removed a white napkin from his pocket and clean his lips and put the napkin back into his pocket.

When the man saw that chief minister M.K. Rajagopalachari was still staring at him, he leaned forward and said,

"Sir, My job as a grievance officer is to provide you with enough information to take appropriate action so that the people's grievance are addressed by the government under Rule Of Law. Only when the government fails to do such, we will take action.

And you should understand that if we act before you, then it will not look good on your resume. You should understand that High Command doesn't like indecisive people the most."

"Yes, I know. But how to proceed forward. If it was one or two people, I can order the police to shoot them directly." Said Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari.

The man in blue chuckled softly.

"What's so funny?" asked Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari clearly annoyed that the man before him didn't help but laughed at him.

"I remembered one incident my colleague who was deployed in Utter Pradesh told me. In the 1960, the women workers working in a cotton mill in Patna asked for a 50 Paisa raise in their salary from the Mill.

Rather than discussing with the workers the boss hired ten-fifteen goons and raped the women who was representing the workers.

When the women wanted to file an F.I.R the police refused on the grounds that the boss and the goons were from the high caste, and they would not do such a thing with a lowly Dalit women.

When the women reached her home that night, she was raped again and she with her family was set on fire.

No one investigated the case, the women workers also stop demanding the raise and everyone wanted to go back to normal life.

Then our office received a note, on it was written

"Independence based on charity doesn't allow people to ignore their caste and treat each other as fellow citizen.

Only Independence that has gone through fire and blood will allow people to treat each other as fellow citizen.

However now that we are already independent, what we as people can do is give justice to the people with the criminals blood."

"Chief Minister, do you know what the result of that case was after we received that note?" asked the man.

Chief Minister M.K Rajagopalachari shook his head negatively.

"From the goons who raped and murdered the women and her family to the Inspector who refused to accept the F.I.R., they and their families were found dead after that. No one knows who did it, however their are rumors' in the market that the god's punished all these peoples families for that they have done lots of evil.

I don't actually believe such rumors', where does god have so much time to look after each and every person. I think some righteous people addressed the victims grievances."

There was small beads of sweat forming on Chief Minister M.K. Rajagopalachari.

The man stood up from the seat and before going outside stopped at the door and said without looking back,

"Mr. Chief Minister, You should remember that five thousand people have died in this tragedy, one thousand orphans are still waiting to settled by the government, hundreds of crores in property losses, this is a huge injustice. You shouldn't listen to some of the people who will be whispering in your ears, It is better that the government settles this issue to the satisfaction of high command, because you don't want some god to pay attention and send some righteous people to give justice to the people's grievances."

After that he walked outside the office and silently closed the door behind him.

The Tamil Nadu Government based on the evidence started arresting people left and right, all the people were arrested, there properties were confiscated.

After Arresting these people the Tamil Nadu government carried out a hasty trial and the Madras High Court sentenced 40 people with death penalty and another 898 people received jail sentence from 8-10 years.

The 40 people who received death sentence, they were executed that very night, and other people who received jail sentenced died in the next two years in jail under various circumstances.

The property that was confiscated from the corrupt officials was used for the orphans living allowances and work on the Avalanche Dam was started again.

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"The aftermath of the Avalanche Dam incident was a clear indication that the National Party Government has accumulated enough power to withstand the aftershocks it will receive after executing the prisoners'."

- Indian-American Historian Shashi Tarot