By Navsharan Singh
On this Constitution Day November 26 how do we reflect on the world’s worst industrial disaster in Union Carbide, Bhopal as we approach the 40th anniversary of this carnage on December 2 and 3? It is a tragedy every Indian is familiar with, but over the years, it has been reduced to a footnote in public memory, ruefully remembered by most people just once a year when the anniversary approaches.
In the meantime, untold suffering, trauma and harm people were subjected to continue to haunt them and future generations bear the harsh impact in the form of disabilities, mutagenic disorders, reproductive wrongs, cancer and mental health issues even four decades after the tragedy.
Successive governments have not created any substantial policy changes to address, prevent or prepare for such disasters in the future, and there is still no law on corporate accountability in case of such accidents. With the new buzz around ‘ease of doing business’, accountability has been eroded further.
The same industries continue to be encouraged and there is no promise of non-repetition. In these four decades, we have witnessed malicious attempts by Union Carbide and the State to deny culpability by deliberately misconstruing the harm, passing the buck and squabbling over the number of dead and the affected.
What are the lessons for the movements for justice that the 1984 disaster offers and how do we read Bhopal 40 years later?
U.S. multinational Union Carbide and its Indian subsidiary, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) started setting up the Bhopal factory in the late sixties and by the 1970s, began dealing in a chemical pesticide, Sevin.
The 1960s was a time when India’s so-called Green Revolution was ushered in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh. Pesticides were the key ingredients, along with chemical fertilisers, for the new high-yielding variety seeds that were pushed through institutional support in these states.
Green Revolution, the package of high-yielding seeds of rice and wheat, networks of irrigation and heavy groundwater usage, dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilisers, and broad institutional support had raised new hopes for food self-sufficiency, and hunger and malnutrition mitigation in India.
Today, there are a million reasons to question the so-called Green Revolution’s promise (which it failed to deliver). It was environmentally unsustainable, the indiscriminate use of groundwater it encouraged took a toll on human health through heavy metal poisoning and the monocropping accelerated a heavy onslaught of pests causing major crop loss, bankruptcies and suicides.
But back in the 1960s, the hegemony of science and the technology package offered under the Green Revolution was unquestioned. Even the sceptics maintained that ecologically destructive methods may be detestable but are necessary to increase farm production.
Ignoring the evidence that indigenous methods are capable of similar or higher yields, agriculture under the Green Revolution technology package was made heavily dependent on chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
When it entered the fray, Union Carbide was voraciously targeting precisely the market that the dependence on that technology package had opened. The Indian pesticide market was estimated to be one of the largest in the world — nearly 40 percent of the area under cultivation had already been brought under high-yielding varieties. The demand for pesticides was only going to grow.
The manufacturing process of Sevin required some lethal chemicals such as methyl isocyanate (MIC), a volatile chemical that the carbide factory initially imported. To enhance profits by eliminating international shipping costs and taking advantage of lower labour costs in India, the company proposed to manufacture and store MIC at the plant.
The government also pushed local manufacturing to reduce imports and protect foreign exchange. So even when the climatic conditions for its storage were not favourable, the production process was initiated.
It is well documented that from the beginning there were shortcuts in safety procedures. Union Carbide built the factory in a densely populated urban area and the storage of large quantities of methyl isocyanate overlooked the risk factors.
The maintenance costs were routinely cut, some systems did not work and other systems were often turned off to make small savings in electricity costs. The workers’ union — Union Carbide Karamchari Sangh — formed in the early 1980s, consistently warned the local population and the workers of the occupational hazards.
But all forewarnings were ignored and the State demonstrated complete indifference. The inspection of the factory was consistently inadequate; just a few weeks before the gas leak, the Union Carbide factory was granted an environmental clearance certificate by the state pollution control board.
On the night of December 2–3, 1984, a large amount of MIC escaped from a storage tank and the poisonous gases quickly spread, affecting around 36 of the 56 Bhopal municipal wards. It is estimated that the disaster claimed the lives of over 2,000 the same night and 20,000 died over the following years. Severe injuries were caused to approximately 550,000 others — this was over 60 per cent of the city’s population.
Four days after the disaster, Warren Anderson, the then chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Union Carbide Corporation, appeared in Bhopal and was arrested immediately. But he was let off within hours of his arrest, allegedly on the orders of some senior political leader in Delhi.
He managed to escape, allegedly under the safe passage of a few officials and politicians. As the criminal cases proceeded against Union Carbide, Anderson’s extradition was sought but it was rejected by Washington in 1992. Another 2011 Indian government request for extradition remained pending. Anderson died in September 2014, a few months before the 30th anniversary of the disaster, without facing a trial.
In March 1985, the government of India passed the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, which granted it the exclusive authority to represent the victims of the disaster in civil litigation against Union Carbide.
In 1989, the government of India reached a settlement with Union Carbide — one made without the consultation or consent of the survivors themselves — whereby the US multinational agreed to pay US $470 million to the government of India.
Holding no accountability to the victims, the compensation was paid to the government but not to the victims directly. In exchange for the payment, Union Carbide was absolved of all civil liabilities, including all claims by Indian citizens, corporations, partnerships or other entities arising connected with the Bhopal gas leak disaster against the multinational and its subsidiaries and affiliates. All criminal proceedings were also extinguished.
The families of the victims of the carnage received compensation of ₹1 lakh for every death and ₹25,000 for lifelong injuries. The Indian government shamefully signed on to this settlement and also agreed to defend the corporation in the event of any future lawsuits. The Bhopal victims’ compensation case was sealed with this settlement.
Over the years, several individual survivors tried to file lawsuits against Union Carbide (which became part of Dow Chemical in 2001) in the United States. However, these lawsuits were dismissed, with the recommendation to pursue claims through the Indian legal system instead. In most cases, they were dismissed because the court found that these claims were barred by the 1989 Union Carbide settlement in India.
Forty years later, the victims and survivors of Bhopal remain without justice and continue to wage a struggle without much support. The victims endured the harmful impact of the poisonous gas, and the impacts are being passed down genetically.
To date, the State and the corporation have not been held to account. Union Carbide, Warren Anderson and Dow Chemical never stood trial. The state government created a Department of Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation in 1985. It outlined a medical rehabilitation programme spanning several years, widows were given a pension of ₹200 per month, and in 1992 a housing colony called the Gas Vidhwa (Gas widows) Colony with 2,486 units was built to provide housing for the widows of 1984. This is as far as the compensation goes.
The vast area around the Union Carbide factory lay ravaged by the remnants of the killer factory. Union Carbide shut down the site and left it to rust. It has never been cleaned up. But the people have not given up their fight, they are archiving cruelties, they are keeping records and moving to local courts to fight for their rights, and fix liabilities against grave criminal negligence heaped on them.
They built local and national support groups and found international allies in their fight. Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS), the Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (BGPSSS) and several others remain steadfast in their resolve and continue to voice protest at various forums to not let the pain be suppressed.
Their undying campaigns remain a thorn in the side of the Indian State and the responsible corporations, Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals. It remains an inspiration for people all over the world.
It is our good fortune that nothing on the scale of Bhopal has happened again but Malbros and many other similar plants show a continuity, and the spectre of 1984 Bhopal continues to loom large.
History tells us that nations rethink and course correct after disasters but there has not been any such conversation in India. As ‘production over safety and profit over everything’ continues to be the bedrock of corporate decision-making and the State continues to sit in defence of capital, offering Indian soil for exploitation by corporations using global labour arbitrage, the spectre of death and disease is always looming overhead.
The more we lower our labour standards, the more vulnerable we make our people, and the higher the attraction for global capital to come to India.
Union Carbide is an untold tragedy, but many more are waiting in this race to the bottom if they are not resisted. The 40th anniversary is perhaps already too late to start a conversation about a different future that ensures justice for the people harmed by the development process. But start we must because the collective struggles show governments and corporations are invincible until they are not! (IPA Service)
Courtesy: The Leaflet
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