Aftermath of Bhopal gas tragedy

The nation has had to relive the gruesome memory of the aftermath of that fateful night of December 3, 1984 of Bhopal. Those heartrending cries of helplessness and the spasms of the deadly end that people met — men and women, children and the infirm which outraged the nation and our people — are being played out again to disturb our cozy little cocoons. 

The long wait of 26 years for justice in the gas leak disaster has come to a shameful end.  This has caused a sense of tragedy and betrayal no less in magnitude than the original disaster itself. It was not confined to the country.  In most parts of the world, public opinion and media have castigated the judicial outcome in Bhopal.  There seems to be a sense of outrage at allowing Union Carbide’s top brass to get away, particularly the chairman at the time, Warren Anderson, who continues to lead an extremely comfortable life of retirement in an upmarket neighbourhood of New York state. 

People are asking questions.  Why have the families of the 25,000 and more dead not received the compassionate consideration of the executive and the judiciary whose Constitutional obligation it was to protect them?  Why did the CBI conduct the investigation and prosecution in such a manner that corporate delinquency amounting to culpable homicide went unpunished?  Why did the CBI not file a review petition when charge of culpable homicide was being diluted by the Supreme Court to accidental deaths? 

Did the government in 2005 persuade itself to go slow on Anderson and the Union Carbide at the instance of several high level officials and the then Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, on the specious argument that this will undermine billions of dollars of investment?  Did the External Affairs Ministry write to the CBI not to pursue extradition of Anderson and did the Indian ambassador in Washington put this assessment in black and white as revealed in the media?  Whether it is a fact that soon after Anderson was arrested in Bhopal in the wake of the disaster, the government facilitated his bail and he was escorted out of the prison and the city by the state government machinery itself? 

People want to know the truth.  But there is no official answer.  There is also no answer as to whether the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal which had undertaken the production of the deadly pesticide ‘Savin’ had the essential safety features which would eliminate the possibility of the production of methyl isocyanate (MIC), the lethal gas that took so many lives and which is responsible for the birth to malformed babies even today?   

Marx wrote in Das Kapital: “With adequate profit, capital is very
bold. A certain 10 per cent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent will produce eagerness; 50 per cent, positive audacity; 100 per cent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent and there is not a crime that it will scruple, nor a risk it will run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged”.  The truth is Warren Anderson and the Union Carbide acted much in the way that Marx has described.  But the tragedy is that they have been allowed to get off the hook by the obnoxious collusion of the Indian executive and judiciary.  

That is why in the nuclear liability bill, which is in Parliament, in the event of a future nuclear accident, there will be virtually no onus on the foreign nuclear reactor supplier companies which may be culpable.  If, as in the case of Bhopal, the government had to manipulate to undermine the legal possibilities to pin down the perpetrators, in case of future nuclear plant accidents, the government wants to legally disempower themselves and the citizens to force accountability and compensation.  

Meanwhile there is intense pressure from the Americans, which is reflected in what the US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley has observed in the wake of the Bhopal judgment — “ Our economies are increasingly closely connected. So I certainly would hope that this particular case does not inhibit the continuing expansion of economic, cultural and political ties between our two countries”.

The UPA government — as it does so often — when it is confronted with a tricky situation — has formed a group of ministers with Chidambaram at its head.  Obviously, the government wants to play out a further waiting game for the sense of outrage of the nation to die down.

We have to speak out against the machinations that led to a human disaster of the magnitude as happened in Bhopal.  We have to speak out against creating legal space for future Warren Andersons in the event of nuclear disaster.  Issues of such serious import cannot be left to the government to handle.