Tragedy as farce

One of Marx’s more commonly quoted aphorisms is that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”. There are few countries where that could be truer than India—as the Bhopal case shows. But Bhopal is not an exception, only a pointer to what happens all the time. Indeed, the substantive Bhopal case was killed and buried a long time ago, which is one reason why the sudden media anger over the farcical denouement raises uncomfortable questions. In any case, the problem is much larger than Bhopal, because in case after case over the decades, the bigger scandal in India has been what happens after the first scandal hits the headlines. Reference is also made to other cases such as Bofors, Ayodhya etc.