Bhopal: Trivializing the Tragedy

ANAND TELTUMBDE
Countercurrents.org

Swaminathan S Ankalesaria Aiyar crudely trivialized Bhopal showing it as a minor killer than the Mumbai rail system. Quipping in his column in the Times of India of 13 June he rightly noted that we shout at the sensational but take many other things for granted. However, as the seasoned free-market columnist, he has not left his point unmade that the outpour of the anger against the Union Carbide was misplaced, that it was just a negligent act of some operative in a shutdown plant, that the people like Anderson or Keshub Mahindra are no more responsible for it than president Pratibha Patil is for some railway accident, and such others. His exposure of pervasive callousness and unaccountability of the Indian polity then are just an alibi, as it sells well with the middle classes; his core point was to make out Bhopal as an ordinary accident which was not worth raising a hue and cry about.

The facts of Bhopal are so outrageous that this world’s worst industrial disaster will also be the biggest trade of the dead and dying by the tricksters in history. The foreclosed judgement treating it just as a ‘road accident’, and shameful release of the culprits on Rs. 25000 bail was so grievous that it should have set the entire country afire. Instead, it unleashed all kinds of debates, mainly mediated by media that has been further trivializing the major tragedy of the last century.

Deaths by Design

Bhopal was not an accident; it was the design killer of Union Carbide (India) (UCI). In the din over Anderson’s extradition, its deficiency galore in design got completely overlooked. Many experts have attributed them to UCI’s zeal to cut capital expenditure. For instance, water curtains meant to contain lethal methyl isocyanate (MIC) leak could reach only a height of 10-15 meters whereas the MIC vents were at 33 meters high. The vent scrubbers meant for neutralizing MIC were underprovided by a factor of six. The safety system in such a highly hazardous industry should be self-switching but in Bhopal it was manual. The low level of instrumentation did not have any redundancy (if one fails other takes over). Considering the consequences, there should have been additional safety system as in Bayer plants, where MIC vented into a nearby area capable of flooding with water. An additional provision for flaring MIC form the top of the vent scrubber should also have been provided. But all these were deliberately ignored in the design just for the sake of profits.

Many of the design lacunae can be overcome by robust operational and maintenance system. But in the UCI plant, the design lacunae were rather amplified by poor operational and maintenance system. A US team that visited Bhopal in 1982 had pointed out number of safety deficiencies in the plant, but no corrective measures were taken by the UCI management. Some of the major lacunae identified in relation with MIC were manual control for filling of the MIC tank with no instrumentation backup, which created a possibility of accidental overfilling; there was no fixed water spray system for fire protection or vapour dispersion in the MIC operation area; there were several conditions in the operation of the unit that presented a serious potential for sizable releases of toxic materials; filter cleaning operations of the MIC pipes were performed without slip binding of process lines, which could create serious exposures due to leaking valves; long pressure gauge inlet lines, without vents, could result in the release of MIC when the gauge were replaced, due to the inability to evacuate them safely.

After the plant was commissioned, many new safety devices/systems (new monitoring system comprising sensors for pressure, temperature, volume, flow, gas detection) became available but the management on cost cutting spree never considered them. Automatic warning system that triggered by the rapid rise of pressures in the MIC tank, an automatic switching mechanism for the scrubbers, a safety interlock arrangement to prevent the operation of the plant if the scrubber and/or refrigeration unit were disconnected, an automatic water spraying system linked to gas detection, etc. could have been easily installed to overcome initial design deficiency. Surprisingly, the UCI plant did not have even a gas detection system and enough breathing masks. Other operational processes such as regular inspection of critical components, detailed safety analysis exercises, etc. were conspicuous with there absence. Would Aiyar still call it just an accident?

Accomplices in the Crime

The Government that approved setting up the plant without vetting technology, carrying out hazard and operability analyses, environment impact assessment, examining pollution aspects is certainly accomplice in the crime. The plant was built very close to the highly populated areas. Contrary to Aiyar’s contention, the railway station, the bus station, the old secretariat, hospitals and even the lake that supplies drinking water to Bhopal city are all close to the plant. During 1971-81 Bhopal’s population grew by almost 75 per cent. Like any similar city, squatter settlements developed in the vicinity of the UCI plant. The government did not do anything to prevent it and rather legalized them in 1983. After the plant became operational in 1969 the regulatory machinery of the government could have easily noticed many of the wrongs noted above but it did not. UCI had cut corners even in training of manpower and even reduced it in numbers. There was a move to shift the plant in 1976 but the chief minister Arjun Singh had stalled it saying that there was no risk. UCI was given permission to expand its capacity in 1979. The spate of accidents in the plant, number of press reports in October 1982 and June 1984, creating alarm about the impending risk could shake the government out of its slumber but it was not to be.

When the tragedy struck, the government’s ineptitude came to limelight. Even after 5000 people dropped dead within few hours it failed to have its emergency meeting until the next day. It did little in evacuating people, in providing treatment. As a matter of fact nobody knew the line of treatment for several days because the UCC and UCI had allegedly kept it secret not to reveal the risk of their operations. The Anderson episode has too shamefully revealed the sale out of our governments, both state as well as the centre, to hide. Then followed a series of intrigues and treacheries. Bringing the case from the US court to India, government assuming representation of the victims in the legal case, Supreme Court bench headed by the then chief justice A.H. Ahmadi mysteriously deciding that the world’s worst industrial accident was nothing more than ‘a road accident’ when the lower court in Bhopal was to hear the case, the inexplicable settlement at a paltry 480 million dollars as against government’s own claim of 3.3 billion dollars on behalf of the victims, dragging the almost open and shut case for a quarter of a century, and so on. At every stage the tragedy was trivialized and the victims betrayed.

When in the wake of such political deceits and judicial disasters, the court verdict came on – June 2010, although sans surprise, it provoked nationwide outrage. The media sensationalized the issue around Anderson and successfully sidetracked the roles of scores of our own people who facilitated his ilk to play havoc on in our country. Who is guiltier? Anderson, who with a sense of some responsibility had come all the way from the US to the accident site or our own rulers, who after arresting him treated him like a VIP and provided their own plane to escape from the country?

GoM Cover Up

When all leads began pointing to Rajiv Gandhi as responsible for Anderson’s escape, the government constituted the Group of Ministers (GoM) to thwart the political build up against itself. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, who lobbied, along with Kamal Nath, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Ronen Sen, on behalf of Dow Chemicals, the company that bought Carbide, for absolving them from latter’s liabilities. Jairam Ramesh, the big mouth minister of environment, who recently blurted out in Bhopal, “I held the toxic waste in my hand. I am still alive and not coughing”, is also a member of the GoM. Every member of this GoM has some history of betraying the interests of the Bhopal victims. The government always resorts to throwing crumbs to people to stave off its crisis, which is what the GoM is expected to do. As per media reports, it has come out with a recommendation for huge financial package for compensation, site remediation, and rehabilitation and to make fresh attempt for extradition of Anderson and a curative petition in the Supreme Court against dilution of charges against the accused in the case. All this just to say that Anderson’s escape was a ‘system failure’ and had nothing to do with Rajiv Gandhi! As for the Bhopal victims, they know from experience that nothing would come out of it, excepting for confusing the issues further.

Whether it benefits the victims or not, the GoM package would expend public funds to pay for private sins as per the neoliberal code of public-private partnership. This may facilitate the passage of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, which seeks to put a cap of Rs. 500 crores on liabilities of nuclear plant operators, the rest to be borne by the public. Instead of taking lessons from Bhopal tragedy, our neoliberalist rulers have used it to reassure global capitalists that they can take away all profits leaving losses to be borne by poor Indians.

If the government has any shame, it would possibly enact a special law to expeditiously try all the guilty of Bhopal and rehabilitate all victims with human dignity and with a sense of recompense for its wrong doing for 25 years. The guilty of Bhopal are not only Andersons, Mahindras and Gokhales, but also include hundreds of its own bureaucrats and ministers who have variously contributed to this tragedy. There is no question of Indian people bearing any liability; it should recover every penny from the criminals. Anything else, GoM show included, amounts to trivializing this grave tragedy and insulting its victims!

Dr. Anand Teltumbde, writer and civil rights activist with CPDR, Mumbai, can be reached at tanand@gmail.com

Bhopal judgment symbolises decayed justice in a deficient democracy

The following is a statement issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong:

The recent judgment delivered by a court in the Bhopal Gas disaster case convicting all the seven accused could have been a welcome one and could have gone a long way in ensuring people's faith in the country's judiciary and the rule of law, but for the features of a failing justice regime the investigation and trial exhibits. It took 25 years for the court to decide the case letting many of the accused slip out of the hands of law. When the verdict finally came, convicting seven executives of the erstwhile Union Carbide India Limited, the fact that the multinational responsible for the gas leak, the Union Carbide Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, is left scot-free proved to be a far bigger disaster than the tragedy itself.

Even worse is the gravity of the sentence. What can be a bigger subversion of justice than giving a two-year prison term to those responsible for killing more than 15000 people and causing grave health problems for more than half a million? As if with an intention of rubbing salt to the injury, the convicts barring one who is now diseased are bailed out within two hours of their sentencing. In addition, Mr. Warren Anderson, one of the accused in the case was never produced in the court despite the court's order to Central Bureau of Investigation to produce him in court. The CBI declared him untraceable and thus unable to serve the arrest warrant upon him and failed to get him extradited even after Greenpeace activists traced him and informed the world about his whereabouts with his address in the US.

The verdict, rightfully, has outraged not only the people in India but across the world. However, the discussions following the debate have been spontaneous, highly inadequate and fall far short of debating the serious issues emerging of it. The verdict is a textbook case of studying all that ails the Indian judicial system. It is a classic case proving the oft-cited aphorism of justice delayed is justice denied. Further, the whole trial and the hearing is a classic case of how the prosecution sides with the guilty instead of helping the victims.

This verdict points towards the absolute failure of the rule of law and the consequent prevalence of the culture of impunity in India. Bhopal is another reminder for those who believe that India is a functioning democracy with adherence to the rule of law in general despite having often reported cases from those areas where the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) prevails over the accepted norms of justice! What is the difference if a perpetrator of crime can get away after killing people either in Manipur, a troubled area by Indian government's own admissions or in Bhopal a city within the largely 'peaceful mainland' India?

Rather, one can find a lot of similarities in the ways the criminal investigation and justice systems operate in both these areas. In Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir and other 'disturbed' areas of India, the state itself encourages the Army and paramilitary units to engage in violations and abuse of democratic rights of the people in the name of maintaining law and order. In these areas it not only tolerates but also actively promotes undemocratic methods of quelling dissent by means of extrajudicial executions and torture; by stalling any criminal investigation into the conduct of guilty officers by providing them impunity by draconian laws like the AFSPA. The point that these laws are bad in both letter and the spirit does not even require mentioning.

The only thing that changes in the Bhopal case is the modus operandi. Instead of supporting the criminals proactively the state helped them with acts of omission than commission. So it would let Warren Anderson slip out of the country merely four days after the tragedy on a bail knowing fully well that he would be most unlikely to return. Then the CBI, the prosecuting agency would take full four years just for filing a charge-sheet which it did in December 1987. It would let the accused, the powerful and mighty as the representative of the international capital, use all the delaying tactics including going to the Supreme Court asking relief for the fact that charges against them were harsher than justified.

Then the Government of India would go for an out of court settlement with the Union Carbide offering the corporation immunity from all civil and criminal cases regarding the disaster and startlingly the Supreme Court of India would ratify this out of court settlement. Thankfully, another bench of the Supreme Court reversed the decision in 1991 and the proceedings resumed only after that. Add to this the Union Carbide paying meagre USD 470 million as a compensation, which incidentally means Indian Rupees 12410 for each person who got killed in the tragedy. And finally, the Minister of State for Environment recently certified the land around the plant as safe because he claimed he was all right even after visiting the area. No wonder that any action were taken against him despite the fact that Centre for Science and Environment had found that the groundwater in the area near the plant contained almost forty times more pesticides than the normal standard.

Taking all the facts into account, Bhopal Gas Leak case was an open and shut case of criminal and corporate liability. A thorough enquiry and trial in the case could have paved the way for far stricter rules to insure industrial safety and corporate responsibility.

The Government of India is contemplating to enact a legislation named Civil Liability For Nuclear Damages Bill which caps the maximum liability to five billion Rupees in case of a nuclear accident, while providing complete immunity to a foreign nuclear reactor builder from any victim-initiated civil suit or a criminal proceedings both in an Indian court or in a court in its home country. Incidentally, the US with whom the Government of India is intending to sign the Bill is contemplating a criminal prosecution against British Petroleum, the petroleum major for causing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The verdict proves, almost conclusively, that India is a failing, if not already failed state. That far from being the biggest democracy of the world, it, in fact, is nothing more than a banana republic. That it is a country where murderers of ordinary citizen, whether in Manipur or Madhya Pradesh, can go scot free.

It is a state that will protect the interests of the corporations at the cost of the common man it pledges allegiance to and that it will sell its dead real cheap, around USD 249 to be precise.


About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Bhopal: mourn the dead, fight for the living

Thursday (December 3) is the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, the world’s biggest industrial disaster.

Justice has eluded the victims of the tragedy all these years despite prolonged legal action in India and the United States. About 3,500 died. Half a million people are still suffering from the after-effects of the gas leak.

In solidarity with Bhopal’s Campaign for Justice, human rights activists in many places are organizing candle light vigil between 5 and 7 p.m. on that day to mourn for the dead and fight for the living.

In Chennai the programme is at Gandhi Statue, Marina; in Bangalore at Gandhi Statue, M.G.Road.

In the small hours of the fateful day, 27 tons of highly toxic gas (MIC) leaked out of a storage tank from the Union Carbide Company’s pesticide factory in Bhopal leaving thousands of people dead and several thousand more maimed for life and generations to come.

For the survivors, it has been a battle against huge corporations who are escaping the liabilities through devious means and against governments who are clearly out to protect the corporations. An out-of-court settlement for a paltry compensation, severe ground water contamination, hiding of critical information needed to treat victims properly, bribery, stoppage of a scientific investigation, etc are just some of the series of misdeeds of the companies, governments and officials that have been unearthed during the 25-year-old struggle.

As the fight for justice continues, supporters around the world remember Bhopal, its victims and its heroes on the anniversary of the tragedy – drawing strength from its struggle, renewing the inspiration to continue fighting for justice – for Bhopal and for many other Bhopals.

Survivors of the disaster are now on a weeklong protest fast at Bhopal. See report.

The International Campaign for Justice for Bhopal (ICJB) and Students for Bhopal (SfB) are two organizations which are striving to keep the memory of Bhopal alive.

ICJB is a coalition of disaster survivors and environmental, social justice, progressive Indian, and human rights groups, who have joined forces to hold the Indian government and Dow Chemical Corporation, which now owns UCC, accountable for the ongoing chemical disaster.

SfB is a network of students, young professionals and activists working in solidarity with the survivors of the disaster in their struggle for justice. It uses education, grassroots organizing and non-violent direct action to pressure Dow Chemical and the Indian government to uphold the Bhopalis' demand for justice, and their fundamental human right to live free of chemical poison.

SfB's motto is: We all live in Bhopal and we will not rest without justice in Bhopal!

More info at www.bhopal.net and www.studentsforbhopal.org

Contact:
Shweta Narayan – 094440 24315
Archanaa Seker – 098405 23235
email: nopvcever@gmail.com

Dow Chemicals acquired the Union Carbide Company eight years ago. On the 20th anniversary of the disaster, Dow formally accepted responsibility for the disaster.

Union Carbide has opened a Bhopal website to present its side. It claims the chemical industry has since the disaster “worked to voluntarily develop and implement strict safety and environmental standards to help ensure that an incident of this type never occurs again”.

National Day of Action and Solidarity for Bhopal

Tuesday, JUNE 17 2008, is National Day of Action and Solidarity for Bhopal. The following is an appeal issued jointly by several civil society organizations in this connection:

Dear Friends,

The survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster and activists have been on a dharna at Jantar Mantar for over 75 days. So far there has been no concrete response from the Prime Minister on their demands. On June 9 in response to a peaceful sit-in at South Block they were arrested and children were abused by the Delhi police. In protest, 5 days ago, nine activists started an indefinite hunger strike. Even till today 23 of the Bhopalis are in Tihar Jail and our attempts to secure bail for them has been met with stiff resistance from the State.

This shameful state of affairs must stop. It is crucial that groups across the country unite in support to up the ante on the Manmohan Singh Government.
In consultation with the Bhopal Groups it has been decided to observe a National Day of Action and Solidarity for Bhopal on 17th June 2008 across the country.
We hope you will endorse this call (pasted below), organise events in your cities, towns, regions and stand in solidarity with Bhopalis.

Also collect as many signatures as possible on the statement to PM (pasted below) so that it can be delivered collectively to PMO after 17th.

We have heard from friends and comrades in Delhi, Bombay, Chennai, Coimbatore, Raipur and some other places who will hold some kind of action there. Let us all join hands now…

In Solidarity
Supporters of Bhopal
*****************************
Tuesday, June 17 2008
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AND SOLIDARITY FOR BHOPAL
UNITE FOR JUSTICE!NO MORE BHOPALS!
PRIME MINISTER MANMOHAN SINGH WAKE UP!
HOLD DOW AND UNION CARBIDE ACCOUNTABLE!
23 YEARS IS ENOUGH! WE NEED JUSTICE NOW

For the past 23 years the Bhopalis have had a set of basic and simple demands; those that should have been met decades ago by any Government that claimed to work for its people. With no response forthcoming women, children and men from Bhopal again walked 800 kms to Delhi to remind Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of his promises made in 2006.

PM Singh through his minister Prithvi Raj Chauhan has met the 2 month long dharna with vague and empty promises and the Delhi police has responded to their non-violent protests with beatings and jailing. Several activists are now on an indefinite fast and are being joined by a growing number of people across the country, including several from the USA and UK.

It's time for people across the country to stand up and demand that the Prime Minister respond to their demands which include:
•Setting up of an Empowered Commission on Bhopal and committing the funds required to allow the Commission to function for 30 years for medical, economic, social and environmental rehabilitation.
•Immediate legal action against Dow Chemical and Union Carbide

JOIN US!
On June 17, people across the country will show their solidarity with the Bhopal Struggle by holding various actions in cities, towns, taluks and villages.
You can

Hold a protest demonstration/ die-ins/ human chains, candle light vigils, and raise slogans in support of the struggle and against Dow Chemicals

Submit a memorandum to the local or state government protesting against the inaction of the Government of India

Sign the open statement to the Prime Minister and send it to us (madhuresh@cacim.net) so that it can be collectively handed over to PM

Organise an evening of cultural performances celebrating 23 brave years of struggle by the Bhopalis

Raise financial support for the protestors.

Please visit www.bhopal.net for more details on the ongoing struggle in Jantar Mantar, Delhi or call Shalini at 9891442037. To donate to the Bhopal struggle send your donation by draft/cheque favouring 'The Other Media', with Bhopal Solidarity written on the envelope (The Other Media, B-5/136, Safdarjang Enclave, New Delhi 29). Contact Bipin at 9868280191 for more details.

In solidarity,
Aasha Parivar, AID India, AISA, Amnesty International, Delhi Solidarity Group, Fishermen Coordination of Tamil Nadu & Pondycherry, INSAF, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, JNUSU, NAPM Delhi, Nadi Ghati Morcha, NCDHR, NFFPFW, PSU, PUCL Rajasthan, People's Union for civil Liberties - Tamil Nadu, Stree Adhikar Sangathan, Students for Bhopal, Tamil Nadu Womens' Collective, Yuva Samvad, CACIM, Corporate Accountability Desk Collective, TN, Delhi Forum, Focus on the Global South, Intercultural Resources, Jagori, The Other Media, Swechcha, Tamil Nadu Environment Council-Dindigul, Human Rights Initiative- Tamil Nadu, Cuddalore District Consumer Protection Organisation, Kanchi Makkal Mandram, Corporate Accountability Desk, Chennai, Speak Out, Salem

and many other alliances, federations, movements and organisations