Letters: The tragedy of betrayal

This refers to Shyamal Majumdar’s column “In letter, but not in spirit” (Human factor, November 11). The last major strike in Maruti was in 2000 when the government still held 45 per cent equity. After more than three months of preventing workers from entering without signing a good conduct bond, a settlement was effected in Parliament as workers were in a permanent day-and-night demonstration at the Udyog Bhavan. An attractive voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) followed and barring 50 workers who were dismissed, every other worker either went back to work or opted for VRS. And the media, the government, the management, the shareholders and workers themselves forgot their leaders, as their cases languished back and forth in courts, including the apex court. Even the Left parties, who are champions of the working class, chose larger issues like the nuclear deal than support their foot soldiers.

So, Sonu Gujjar, having a sense of history, has chosen to opt out of this predicament. If he were a traitor, he could have abandoned the workers earlier, so let us be fair to him. Since he is unlikely to be employed by anyone else and may not possess any known entrepreneurial talents, the sum he has received is, at best, meagre. Why, then, is there a sense of betrayal? This is because observers of the events at Maruti have a sense of the hero in a tragic sense. In the modern world, the hero has to victorious and the tragic hero is pitied and ridiculed. Sonu perhaps had this sense of timing and betrayed the observers a chance to pity.

Hari Parmeshwar, Mumbai

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