Volume 3, No. 1, January 2002

Seventeen years back, at mid-night on Dec. 2-3, 1984, half a million people in Bhopal were exposed to a mixture of 40 tonnes of the most poisonous gas known to man, di-ethyl-iso-cyanide. These gasses leaked from a pesticide factory owned by the US TNC, Union Carbide, taken over, earlier this year, by the Dow Chemical Company, to become the second largest chemical giant in the world. In the worst industrial disaster ever, the criminal company, and its then chief, Warren Andreson has been let off with nominal damages. Due to collaboration and secret deals with the TNC, the governments, at both the Centre and State, have betrayed the victims of the holocaust.

It is the Indian government that allowed Union Carbide to locate a hazardous plant amidst populous settlements, ignoring workers’ demands for a relocation of the plant, and improvement of work safety. It is they who underplayed the death and damage caused by the disaster. It is they who accepted a paltry settlement from Union Carbide, suppressed information regarding contamination of the soil and ground water around the factory, terminated monitoring of exposure related deaths, abandoned medical research on long-term health effects, suppressed all research findings, and failed to take even the minimum steps towards the extradition of Anderson and other co-accused. In fact, it has been reported that the research findings may have more probably been used by the US military in its experimentations on chemical warfare.

Considering the magnitude of the disaster, the Madhya Pradesh government’s ‘rehabilitation’ has been pathetic. It claims to have spent Rs.400 crores (Rs.200 crores on medical relief, Rs.70 crores on social rehabilitation, Rs.60 crores on economic rehabilitation, and Rs.70 crores on environmental rehabilitation), but only a small fraction of this has actually reached the devastated people. In fact the Comptroller and Auditor General has indicted the MP government for gross misappropriation of funds.

In this gigantic disaster, not only were thousands killed, over a lakh disabled, but also an entire generation of children has been born with deformities and growth problems. Yet no action whatsoever has been taken against the criminals responsible, the courts have been heavily biased in favour of the TNC, the government has been apathetic, and the people continue to suffer its effects even two decades later. The devastation caused is equivalent to that of a small nuclear bomb thrown on the country. Yet, the government, who yells for the extradition of tens of others, is totally silent about the biggest criminal of them all — Warren Anderson, the then Chairman of Union Carbide!!

It is precisely such callousness and unconcern for the lives of people in backward countries that are the breeding ground for hundreds of Bin Ladens, who would seek revenge on the American establishment. Imagine the plight of a family in Bhopal, who may have lost one of its earning members to the gas, with all others suffering from severe respiratory problems, and with a pregnant mother giving birth to a deformed child. This is not just a hypothetical case — there will be many such families there. Would there not be unimaginable rage against the perpetrators of this crime? And would not this be accentuated, when they find that no criminal action is taken, that the company gets away with minimal compensation (far less than what even the cigarette companies in the US gave had to give out), and that relief money meant for them is being siphoned off by corrupt officials and politicians. Bush and Vajpayee weep (maybe crocodile tears) for those who died at the WTC but they have not a care for the massacre at Bhopal. In fact, their main efforts are geared on how to protect the TNC. It is the people of Bhopal and the masses of the country that must bring these criminals to justice.

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