Bharati Mukherjee’s “The Management of Grief” and the Politics of Mourning in the Aftermath of the Air India Bombing

Abstract

CLARK BLAISE AND BHARATI MUKHERJEE'S 1987 NON-FICTION WORK The Sorrow and Terror: The Haunting Legacy of Air India Tragedy opens with a statement of facts on bombing at Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan and one that took placeno miles off southwest coast of Ireland [ . . . ] in forward baggage hold of Air India Flight 182, bound for New Delhi and Bombay, from Toronto and Montreal.1This statement concludes by emphasizing fact that Over ninety percent of passengers [on Flight 182] [ . . .] were citizens and that this was the worst at-sea air crash of all time [... and] bloodiest [act of terrorism] of modern era. Blaise and Mukherjee's book attempts to counteract and expose a seemingly endless series of literal, political, institutional, and cultural acts of erasure evident in history of Air India disaster. In order to make their case, they provide a history of roots of this disaster and interviews with various individuals, most notably family of victims of Flight 182. As they state in introduction to their book,When we began our research in January 1986, it seemed as though Air India disaster (as it has come to be called) was in process of disappearing from larger consciousness. Politically, tragedy was 'unhoused', in that Canada wished to see it as an Indian event sadly visited on these shores by uncontrollable fanatics, and India was happy to treat it as an 'overseas incident' with containable financial impUcations. (ix)Moreover, in wake of spectacular and surreal horrors of 9/11, undeniably the bloodiest [act of terrorism] of modern era, an American Tragedy captured on film and replayed over and over again to astonishment of all world, with its own attendant wars on terrorism and ongoing public displays of grieving, chances of Air India tragedy, essentially a tragedy, of penetrating the larger consciousness to any significant and longstanding degree are slim. But, then again, there was, as it is commonly referred to, Air India Inquiry, an event that permeated media, if not Canadian consciousness, in 2006 and 2007.The establishment of Commission of Inquiry into Investigation of Bombing of Air India Flight 182 was, in spring of 2006, a controversial move on part of government under Harper. There were those, like Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson, who believed that this Inquiry was simply an exercise in ethnic politics, that it would uncover nothing new, and cost taxpayer a great deal. Nonetheless, after widespread media coverage of emotional testimony of family members of victims of bombing in fall of 2006 and shocking testimony of people like James Bartleman (the senior intelligence officer in Department of External Affairs in 1985) in spring of 2007, it is far more difficult to question value and need for Inquiry. As a woman who lost her father on Flight 182 stated in early May of 2007 while Inquiry was in full swing: ' We have had one trial, one independent review, and this an inquiry. Only now are some people coming forward with their knowledge'.2 Prior to Inquiry, Bartleman had never come forward with fact that he was shown a document citing a specific terrorist threat against an Air India flight, for weekend of June 22-23 .3 The Inquiry has uncovered new information, provided an opportunity for mourning for those most effected by this disaster, and, if nothing else, has served to underline just how much this tragedy was and is a tragedy: lives lost on Air India Flight 182 on 23 June 1985 were largely Canadian; all indicators suggest that terrorist plot was planned and carried out by Canadians; it was lawenforcement and security forces that failed to prevent this preventable and catastrophic crime; and it was legal system that failed to convict anyone for bombing of Flight 182. …