Rethinking DisastersA Case Study of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy
1
Rethinking DisastersA Case Study of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy
Master’s Dissertation
Submitted to
O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat
Haryana-131001, India
May 2014
Sanya Sabharwal
2
Jindal School of Government and Public Policy
Sonipat, Haryana 131001
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the Master’s Dissertation entitled “Rethinking Disasters- A Case
Study of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy” submitted by Sanya Sabharwal to O.P. Jindal Global
University, Sonipat has been completed under my guidance and supervision.
Shiv Visvanathan
Professor
Jindal School of Government and Public Policy
Sonipat
May 23, 2014
3
Jindal School of Government and Public Policy
O.P. Jindal Global University
Sonipat, Haryana-131001
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the Master’s Dissertation entitled “Rethinking Disasters- A Case
Study of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy” submitted by Sanya Sabharwal to O.P. Jindal Global
University, Haryana has been completed satisfactorily under the supervision of Professor
Shiv Visvanathan. All the necessary ethical committee clearances and relevant consents have
been duly obtained.
Prof. R. Sudarshan
Dean
Sonipat
May 23, 2014
4
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank my mentor professor, Shiv Visvanathan for pushing me towards taking this
particular project and encouraging me all through. He has been a pillar of support in times of
confusion and his constant feedback on my ideas has helped me refine my research greatly.
I also wish to thank Satinath Sarangi, managing trustee, Sambahvna Trust Clinic, Bhopal. I
would like to thank him for being such a helpful guide and for all his support while I was in
Bhopal. Not only did he guide me during my internship, he has helped me constantly with
suggestions during the course of my dissertation.
Lastly, big thanks to all the activists and survivors who were more than willing to share the
stories of their biggest nightmare even though I could not promise to help them. This
dissertation is dedicated to them. The activists and the survivors are an epitome of will-power
and strength.
Jindal School of Government and Public Policy
Sanya Sabharwal
5
Abstract
The Bhopal Gas disaster has been termed as the World’s worst industrial disaster. it
occurred on the night of December 3, 1984 when a Union Carbide pesticide plant, operating
under extensive cost-cutting measures with sub-par safety facilities, leaked over 27 tons of
methyl isocyanate—a deadly gas—into the air. Bhopal has been situated in debates over
corporate ethics and responsibility, government responsibility, legal structures, development
paradigms, disaster studies, environmental law and many more issues.
While situating Bhopal in these debates, this paper is an attempt to create a theory of a
disaster for Bhopal by studying the difficulties faced by the survivors on an everyday basis
and the activism in Bhopal. The last section creates a future of Bhopal by listing policy
suggestions regarding justice, rehabilitation and corporate accountability that are imperative
at this stage of Bhopal to help the survivors and create Bhopal as a good precedent to create a
new ethics of responsibility of the governments and corporations all over the world.
6
Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 6
Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 7
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 8
The Problem .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Chapter I: Memory and Everydayness .................................................................................................. 20
The Gas Leak .................................................................................................................................... 20
Evasion of Responsibility- The UCC, Indian Government and Dow Chemicals ............................. 22
Compensation ................................................................................................................................... 24
Rehabilitation .................................................................................................................................... 25
Medicine ........................................................................................................................................... 27
Chapter II- Victims as Agents of Change: The Bhopal Activism ......................................................... 31
Chapter III- The Future of Bhopal: Policy Recommendations ............................................................. 37
Site Clean-Up and De-Contamination .............................................................................................. 37
Rehabilitation .................................................................................................................................... 38
Documentation and Information Dissemination ............................................................................... 39
Creating a New Ethics of Corporate Responsibility ......................................................................... 40
Conclusion- Bhopal as a Lesson for the Future .................................................................................... 42
Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 44
Ethical Note: Names of some survivors have been omitted to protect confidentiality.
They have been named as Survivor1, 2, 3. Also, all medical and personal details have
been kept confidential.
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Introduction
Disaster Studies is an interdisciplinary domain concerned with the social and behavioural
aspects of disasters. These can be created by natural hazards, technological accidents, violent
intergroup conflicts, shortages of vital resources, and other major hazards to life, health,
property, well-being and everyday routines. It addresses the impacts of these events on all
social units ranging from individuals and households to nation-states.
Systematic and extensive social science work on disasters started in the very early
1950s. Yet, it has been a highly contested and relative term. As we move towards a more
globalized and developed world, the classifications of disasters are becoming blurred. Despite
all the debates around the definition of the term ‘disaster’, there has been a consensus that
this theoretical issue is a significant one. First, it enables one to gauge the consensus and
permits one to assess the extent and the conceptual dimensions along which the field of study
is growing and changing. Second, the discussion of disaster definitions encourages
refinement of the concept of disaster. The extent to which we are able to identify and manage
disasters of the future is contingent upon our collective understanding of the meaning and
dimensions of the concept1. Finally, there is a strong policy side to this work. It helps a
society create a theory of disasters that addresses the issues of risk-conception, reduction and
mitigation along with a theory of rehabilitation and justice.
With the above mentioned background of disaster studies and the debates around the
definition and conception of a disaster, I would like to introduce the topic of my researchThe Bhopal Gas Disaster.
The Bhopal Gas Disaster occurred in the morning hours of December 3, 1984, when a
Union Carbide pesticide plant, operating under extensive cost-cutting measures with sub-par
safety facilities, leaked over 27 tons of methyl isocyanate—a deadly gas—into the air. The
gas that was released was carried by winds into the heavily populated slum neighbourhoods
surrounding one side of the factory. Most of the city was asleep when the city was blanketed
with a cloud of highly toxic gases including hydrogen cyanide. People awoke with burning
eyes and aching lungs coughing and began to run for their lives. The morning saw streets
1
(Qurantelli, Perry, 2005, p.16)
1
lined up with carcasses of humans and animals. Over half a million Bhopalis were exposed to
the gas and 20,000 people died in the immediate aftermath as a result of their exposure, with
many more dying each year from gas-related illnesses.
People lost their families, their ability to work and their livelihoods. Additionally, the
Union Carbide has yet to pay for the plant clean-up, for treating the toxic ground water,
rehabilitating the degraded land or making arrangements for an alternate supply of drinking
water. Consequently, the site continues to poison the ground water used by the numerous
communities that surround it. Despite the various efforts by the people’s movements and the
activists to provide justice to the people of Bhopal, the victims are still lacking a proper
economic and medical support from the government. They have not received any
compensation yet and the few who have, the amount is less than satisfactory in terms of
amount and quality. Today in Bhopal, at least 120,000 people are still chronically sick from
the effects of that night, while some 40,000 others are ill as a result of contamination2. These
survivors are in desperate need of medical attention for chronic exposure induced illnesses
including breathlessness, persistent cough, early age cataracts, loss of appetite, menstrual
irregularities, male and female infertility, recurrent fever, back and body aches, loss of
sensation in limbs, fatigue, weakness, anxiety and depression. The children born after the
disaster have congenital defects like cerebral palsy, anxiety and disabilities. An
overwhelming majority of the exposed people earned their living through hard labour and
survived on daily wages. These families are on the brink of starvation as the bread-winners
are dead or too sick to work.
The Bhopal disaster has been called as the world’s worst industrial and depicts one of
the most heinous corporate crimes due to negligence and an inhuman pursuit of profit. It is an
instance of technology transfer gone terribly awry in the early days of globalization and is an
epitome of failure of policy makers to ensure the survivors their right to life and right to
justice. It is a failure of our so called paternal institutions like the law and the government to
generate and act upon timely knowledge of risks.
Bhopal also illustrates the global reach of corporate crimes. It is not an isolated event.
There are slow and silent Bhopals occurring in a routine manner in almost every part of the
world. There is abundant evidence that attributes the disappearing of indigenous human
populations, declining marine mammals, declining forests, contamination by pesticides and
2
(“Bhopal, a Brief Background,” n.d.)
9
industrial chemicals to corporations. In most instances, due to an unequal power play, it is the
poor that carry the burden of these activities and injustices.
The disaster at Bhopal is not bound by space, time or concept. It is an epitome of bad
public policy causing suffering of hundreds of thousands of people. It is a perfect example to
understand how the so-called western theories of development create an unequal burden on
the citizens of developing countries.
Yet, Bhopal is not just a story of failure and hopelessness, it a story of SURVIVORS
who are fighting for the grave injustices throughout the world. The struggle of the Bhopal
Survivors gives them an opportunity to them to create a world order where no poor will be
any more vulnerable than the rich, where no rich country will be able to harm a poor country
or its people in its pursuit of markets, where no government will turn its back to its people
and where citizens of the country will be ensured justice and their basic rights.
This paper is an attempt to create a theory of a disaster for Bhopal by bringing out the
difficulties faced by the survivors on an everyday basis. The first section attempts to bring out
the lived experiences of the disaster by the survivors by documenting their struggles and
difficulties. It talks about issues of evasion of corporate responsibility and insensitive
attitudes of the government that prevented these people from attaining justice, proper
medical, social and economic rehabilitation and an opportunity to pick up their lives again.
The second section of the paper talks extensively about the activism in Bhopal which has
created a global wave of awareness about the dangers of hazardous corporations and given
the victims an agency to fight for their rights. It has also underlined a need and the possibility
of involvement of survivors in defining and confronting corporate crime. The third section
describe a future of Bhopal by listing policy suggestions regarding justice, rehabilitation and
corporate accountability that are imperative at this stage of Bhopal to help the survivors and
create Bhopal as a good precedent to create a new ethics of responsibility of the governments
and corporations all over the world.
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The Problem
The Union Carbide's operations in India go back to the beginning of the 20th century when it
began marketing its products there. In 1924, an assembly plant for batteries was opened in
Calcutta. By 1983, Carbide had 14 plants in India manufacturing chemicals pesticides,
batteries and other products. Union Carbide's operations in India were conducted through a
subsidiary, Union Carbide India, Ltd. (UCIL). The parent US Company (UCC) held 50.9 %
of UCIL stock. The balance of 49.1% was owned by various Indian investors. Normally,
foreign investors are limited to 40% ownership of equity in Indian companies, but the Indian
government waived this requirement in the case of Union Carbide because of the
sophistication of its technology and the company's potential for export.3
The economic rationale for the construction of the Bhopal plant was the demand for
pesticides engineered by the “Green Revolution”4. It was set in motion in India during the
1960s and 1970s by an alliance of governments, multinational corporations and world
development and trade agencies.
The Bhopal plant formulated the carbamate pesticide Sevin for sale in the Indian
market, and imported its most hazardous components, phosgene and methyl iso-cyante. In
1972, there was an upgrade in the facilities that allowed the plant to manufacture these
components. The technology proposed for this upgrade was inferior to its sister plant in West
Virginia and additionally, the highly unstable and toxic MIC was to be stored in a large tank.
Although the UCC claims that its plant in Bhopal was built to the same safety and
engineering specifications as its American facilities, there were at least eleven significant
differences in safety and maintenance policies between Bhopal and its sister factory in West
Virginia. For instance, the West Virginia plan had an emergency plan, computer monitoring,
and used inert Chloroform for cooling their MIC tanks. Bhopal had no emergency plan,
3
(Hanna, 2007)
The Green Revolution refers to a series of research, and development, and technology transfer initiatives,
occurring between the 1940s and the late 1960s that increased agriculture production worldwide, particularly in
the developing world beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. (“Green Revolution,” 2014)
4
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computer monitoring, and used brine, a substance that may dangerously react with MIC, for
its cooling system.5
Sevin failed to perform as well on the Indian market as hoped, but by May 1982 the
factory had received a damning report from the safety audit team sent from the US which was
ignored. In the first ten months of 1984, losses amounted to Rs. 5, 03, 39,000. Union Carbide
India Limited (UCIL) was thus instructed by Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) to close the
plant and prepare it for sale. When no buyer was available in India, plans were made to
dismantle the factory and ship it to another country. Negotiations toward this shutdown were
completed by the end of November 1984. Financial losses and plans to dismantle the plant
exacerbated Carbide's already negligent management practices leading to executive decisions
that directly caused the contamination of the MIC storage tank that leaked its contents over
Bhopal. While saving money for both Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and UCIL,
negligent maintenance and substantial reductions of trained personnel culminated in the
horrors of December 3, 1984. Between 1980 and 1984, the work crew for the MIC unit was
cut in half and the maintenance crew was reduced from six to two workers. On the night of
the disaster, none of the plant’s six safety systems- the refrigeration unit installed to cool MIC
and prevent chemical reactions had been shut for 3 months, the vent gas scrubber had been
shut off for maintenance, the flare tower had been shut off, there were no effective alarm
systems in place, the water sprayers were incapable of reaching the flare towers, the
temperature and pressure gauges were malfunctioning. Tank number 610 for storing MIC
was filled above recommended capacity, and the stand by tank for use in case of excess was
already having MIC. They had been turned off to save money- $30 per day in case of the
refrigeration6.
These negligent management and maintenance practices lead to the leak of 40 tonnes
of MIC from the plant on December 3, 1984. The tragedy was described in different terms
such as: accident, disaster, catastrophe, crisis and also as sabotage, conspiracy, massacre, and
experiment, whichever best suited the arguments that would help to pin the 'blame' on
somebody.
One of biggest issues raised by literature on the disaster is the criticism of policies of
Globalization and liberalization along with the politics of power that is exercised by the
5
6
(Hanna, 2007)
(Hanna, Morehouse, Sarangi, 2005, p.39)
12
developed world on the developing world by imposing their notions of “right way” of
development. This process involves the juxtaposition of development theories of the first
world countries to the developing countries. It is criticised that in the name of development
Third World countries become dumping grounds for hazardous technologies from the
industrially advanced countries. Third world countries became play fields for MNCs to make
more profit because of cheap human labour and less stringent environmental regulations
besides ready availability of raw materials. Sheila Jasanoff, in her article “Bhopal’s Trials of
Knowledge and Ignorance7” talks of the structural asymmetries of technology transfer. The
transfer of unproven hazardous technology from the first world to the third world, the substandard maintenance and construction at the UCIL plant and the withholding of information
of these issues as well as about the toxicity of MIC are examples that prove her point. In her
article “Vulnerability and Development- Bhopal’s Lasting Legacy”8, she talks of the dangers
of globalization by stating “Bhopal was an instance of technology transfer gone terribly awry
in the early days of industrial globalization. What happened there offers sobering insights
when globalization promises to make transfers of technology more pervasive and less
respectful of epistemic, political and cultural borders than ever before 9”. Kim Fortun, in her
book “Advocacy after Bhopal10”, analyses the disaster through the issue of globalization. She
claims that the tragedy had begun before the actual leak and partly blames globalization for
the death and lax of recovery efforts at Bhopal which is evident in the discourse and analysis
of the book. Similarly, Upendra Baxi, while critiquing the legal structure puts attention at this
paradigm of development. He states, “A singular focus on these corporate governance
misdeeds and mayhems must be placed within the larger context of the ideology of
developmentalism, which led the Union of India (UOI) to invite UCC to establish such ultrahazardous manufacture at Bhopal in the first place.11”
After the tragedy, one of the first constitutive elements of the promise of justice for
Bhopal-violated was the adaptation of the doctrine of parens patriae by the sovereign Indian
democratic state. The Bhopal Act 1985 by which the Indian Parliament authorized the UOI to
pursue mass disaster litigation as a victim surrogate before US judicial fora, marked the first
step in the journey of attaining justice for the Bhopal affected. This has been critiqued on
many grounds. Upendra Baxi states the Bhopal Act remained entirely reducible to a technical
7
(Jasanoff, 2007)
(Jasanoff, 2014)
9
(Jasanoff, 2014, p.90)
10
(Fortun, 2009)
11
(Baxi, 2013, p.518)
8
13
rather than any profoundly ethical state/law innovation12. Technical, because it aimed first at
establishing jurisdiction over the UCC in US judicial fora, since the UCC otherwise remained
entirely outside Indian jurisdictional borders and boundaries; second, it was aimed at
protecting the Bhopal-violated peoples by the swarm of US contingency fee lawyers- thereby
ensuring them justice. the Bhopal Act has also been criticised on the grounds that it labelled
victims at “judicially incompetent”, a status usually reserved for minors and mentally ill 13.
The Act has no provisions for the victims to communicate with their sole representative, the
government, and no recourse for remedying poor representation. Further, this Act has only
reinforced the thinking that the victims are marginals, disenfranchised and unfit to articulate
their needs. Their “right” to treatment, justice and compensation has been translated by its
executors as charity for the undeserving poor.
The betrayal of the promise of justice was when the Supreme Court passed the
settlement of the dispute for a meagre amount of 470 million US dollars. This act constitutes
a judicial scandal for various reasons. First, the settlement orders were passed in gross of
Bhopal-violated as they were not given any opportunity of hearing in the proceedings. In a
subsequent review petition, the Court itself acknowledged this foundational error, only to
treat that proceeding as an instance of post-decisional hearing which in the end sustained the
settlement amount. Further, the original settlement orders went so far as to impose
obligations upon the UOI to defend the UCC in India and worldwide in any civil action
arising from the first catastrophe and to confer a blanket immunity on all criminal actions
against the UCC in India.
The Supreme Court of India proceeded to justify the settlement by stating the dire
need to provide some relief to victims but in the process also proceeded to recompose their
surviving bodies in terms of classification of compensable injuries into categories of death,
permanent total disability, temporary total or partial disability, injuries of utmost severity,
minor injuries and loss of livestock, and by the establishment of ‘specialized medical centres’
for treatment and therapy.14
With this, the issues of the incapability of law to understand the effects of the disaster
and the insensitivity of these official institutions were brought forward. At first, it was the
lack of laws that create any accountability of UCC. Secondly, the Indian courts were not
12
(Baxi, 2013, p.523)
(Hanna, 2007)
14
(Baxi, 2013, p.526)
13
14
qualified to handle a case like this within the national territory and there was no way to bring
the UCC under the jurisdiction of the Indian law. Legal institutions in Indian colluded with
the established institutions in the US to bring a definite end to the disaster. This was another
point of critique of the 1989 settlement. It was a means of limiting the disaster and its effects.
Additionally, there was no effort on the part of the official institutions to understand or
address the impacts of disaster on the future generations.
With this background, there was a dire need of activism and advocacy for the Bhopal
victims. While examining the failure of the rule of law in addressing the needs of the victims,
Fortun recognizes the need for activists to involve themselves in the legal processes. She
demonstrates the activism in Bhopal as a struggle for change and social justice. Her book
“Advocacy after Bhopal” serves as a reassessment of what advocacy is and can become. In
this light, she defines advocacy as “a performance of ethics in anticipation of the future”15.
Amnesty International, in its report titled “Clouds of Injustice”16 analyses the Bhopal
Disaster as a human rights issue. This report was released on the 20th anniversary of the
disaster in 2004. The report starts with a brief description of the disaster and its impact. It
then sets out a human rights framework used for assessing the disaster. Survivors of the
tragedy have been denied their right to justice, right to life, right to health and the right to a
clean and healthy environment. The report focusses on the human rights impact of the leak,
the corporate accountability of the leak as well as the obligation of the Indian state to hold
UCC to account and provide adequate rehabilitation to the survivors.
The report concludes that there is no substitute for taking steps to regulate the
activities of transnational corporations in both host and home countries. Laws in host
countries must be developed and enforced to allow national governments and local
communities to control the activities of transnational companies operating in their territory.
Transnational corporations should avoid double standards in safety and adopt the best
practices in all aspects of safety in all their operations.
It also advocates for an international human rights framework that can be applied to
companies directly, that could act as a catalyst for national legal reform, and could serve as a
benchmark for national law and regulations. Ensuring public participation and transparency
in decisions relating to the location, operational safety and waste disposal of industries using
15
16
(Fortun, 2009, p.16)
(Amnesty International, 2004)
15
hazardous materials and technology is an essential step to heighten risk awareness and
responsible behaviour as well as to ensure better preparedness to prevent and deal with
disasters like Bhopal. The international community must ensure that victims of human rights
violations have effective access to justice and effective redress for the harm suffered, without
discrimination, and regardless of whether those responsible for the violations are
governments or corporations.
Combining all these sets of issues was “The Bhopal Reader”17. Written to
commemorate the 20th anniversary, the Bhopal Reader includes primary source documents of
the evolution of the understanding of environmental safety and corporate accountability by
the public that Bhopal has helped create. It shows why the Bhopal Gas Disaster has become a
permanent symbol of corporate irresponsibility and technological abandon for the citizens of
our planet.
It documents first person stories of some of the permanently-injured survivors,
activists, journalists, scientists, doctors, government and corporate officials. This anthology
brings together never-before published testimonies, archival documents, legal and scientific
evidence and commentary, social analysis, even corporate perspectives on liability, and web
debates, with comprehensive introductions for each aspect of the disaster. With the use of
these documents and testimonies, it has set a base to recreate Bhopal not just as a disaster, but
as an event spread across space and time.
The book documents how the tragedy started years before the actual gas leak, as
internal Union Carbide documents reveal how the Bhopal plant was inferior to its sister plant
in the United States, and how the company was well aware of multiple safety breaches.
Through this, the book tries to show the 20 years of suffering experienced by the Bhopal
victims. Through its accounts of international debates and activism, it tries to show how
Bhopal has become a global issue- how the world has come to Bhopal and how Bhopal has
changed the world.
The Bhopal Reader documents forces that are even now bringing Bhopali women to
the very doors of the corporation in protest. It talks of the contamination of drinking water
because of the UCC never cleaning up its abandoned factory with bags of stored chemicals,
causing genetic damage to yet another generation from the deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC)
17
(Hanna, Morehouse, Sarangi, 2005)
16
gas. The book reports on the international Bhopal campaign being waged by survivors,
activists, lawyers, doctors - in India, the U.S., Britain and elsewhere around the world - for
compensation for all the Bhopal victims. It uses references from across these continents, into
newspapers, television stations, websites, courtrooms, shareholders annual meetings,
campuses, and chemical plants. The Bhopal Reader presents a valuable case study of the
complexities of fighting for justice in a world increasingly overrun by the politics of
corporate rule under globalization.
With this, it sets a background through which it shows how Bhopal is not an event
limited in space, time or even concept. The book is a valuable text for understanding
industrial hazards and corporate crimes and also focusses on research prevention and
activism. Satinath Sarangi, one of the editors of the book The Bhopal reader mentions, "Why
I really began telling these stories was to move you, dear reader, to action. Twenty years is
much too long and we have had a lot of words," he continues. "No more interpretations, no
more words--the point is to stop the medical disaster in Bhopal.18"
One of the least talked about aspects of the disaster is its gendered impacts and how it
has changed the societal threads in Bhopal. Women have become the face of the Bhopal
struggle and yet seem to missing from official documents—legal, medical, bureaucratic, and
those used in compensation courts. Such documents provide historical evidence of a ruthless
process of denial and erasure.
Suroopa Mukherjee, in her book titled “Surviving Bhopal”19 recounts the untold
stories of women, children and man whose lives were irreversibly damaged by the accident.
She uses oral history as a tool and makes a very convincing argument about the importance of
oral testimonies for writing the history of reactions of the survivors to the corporate crime,
state neglect and the fundamental injustices of the development models. She criticises official
accounts and documents by stating that they misrepresent, silence and lie about what
happened. She studies women’s activism in Bhopal, regarding the development model of
economic restructuring in the context of globalization. She has also shown how women’s
activism has championed an alternate vision for justice that reinforces the political rights of
people to choose a life of dignity.
18
19
(Hanna, Morehouse, Sarangi, 2005)
(Mukherjee, 2010)
17
She describes how the Bhopal survivors became living embodiments of everything
that had gone wrong with the development model. They carried the body burden of
chemicals, and therefore, it was no longer possible to see their problem in isolation from
developmental issues. A major thrust of her argument is to show how forces of globalization
and corporatization, with their models of development, rendered communities as
expendable by distancing them from the forward march of progress.
She supports this argument by stating that, “I believe that it is important to understand the
development model from the perspective of those who do not stand to gain by it. It shifts
attention from economic to social and moral issues, and it raises ethical questions on the
inequitable distribution of resources and wealth. It shows how a merely techno-driven
rehabilitation scheme that fails to assuage the demand for justice can set a bad precedent in
a world that is willing to pay any price for profit. Bhopal reveals the ugly underbelly of
globalization”20.
By showing how survivors were left out of the decision-making process, deprived of
the freedom to exercise personal choice, and individual self-expression she draws attention to
the unprecedented levels of violence and suffering that have been unleashed by the process of
marginalizing and erasure. A major thrust of this argument is to show how forces of
globalization and
corporatization,
with
their
models
of
development,
rendered
communities as expendable by distancing them from the forward march of progress.
She has also criticized mainstreaming Bhopal as a problem of poverty and
underdevelopment, rather than that of injustice and violation of human rights. She says that
this thinking explains why the idea of rehabilitation and restitution continues to be defined
within the paradigm of development as a poverty alleviation programme, with little space for
justice being done.
Bhopal has been written about by various people and seen through different lenses.
Despite the rich literature on Bhopal, one aspect that has been under-represented has been an
effort to understand Bhopal as a disaster and create policies and theories that enhance our
understanding of disasters beyond the aspects of mitigation and management. As I had earlier
mentioned, a theory of disaster must include a conception of normalcy, agency, justice, risk
etc.
20
(Mukherjee, 2010, p. 9)
18
With this thought in mind, I started my fieldwork in Bhopal. In the summer of 2013, I
had the privilege to work with the Sambhavna Trust Clinic in Bhopal. This trust primarily
seeks to provide free medical care to the survivors of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. For me, the
Bhopal Gas Tragedy has been a part of the folklore and I have seen it through the eyes of the
elders. I needed internalize and understand the disaster through the eyes of the victims as well
as the people involved in this struggle to be able to write or analyse it for myself. I worked
with the survivors and activists by interviewing them, engaging myself with rallies and
everyday works of Sambhavna. I interviewed mostly women survivors trying to understand
their everyday struggles and experiences of disaster, marginalization, activism etc. I try to use
these literary archives and oral history to create an understanding of how the disaster has
been experienced by the survivors and use to create a theory of disaster for the future of
Bhopal.
19
Chapter I: Memory and Everydayness
“On a cold December night, they began running for their lives and many have not known an
hour of comfort since.”
-Bhopal Marathon21
For almost thirty years, some of the poorest people on earth; sick, living on the edge
of hunger, without funds, wealthy friends or political influence, have been fighting for their
lives and fundamental human rights against a multinational giant backed by the governments
and economic elites of two powerful nations. The ‘nothing people’ have literally nothing. All
their efforts to gain medical care and justice through the courts have been opposed and
obstructed in every possible way by the corporation and the government.
This chapter tries to present some accounts by the survivors of Bhopal. The accounts
focus on issues like those of compensation, medical and economic rehabilitation,
contamination and ostracism that the survivors have faced and continue to face even now.
These issues bring out the continuation of the disaster and how it has surpassed the limits of
space and time. The focus here is to show through the issues mentioned- how the disaster has
become a part of the everyday lives of the survivors. It is not just an event- it is a living
embodiment of a flawed body, a flawed city and a flawed system.
The Gas Leak
“People ran in what they were wearing or in nothing at all. They were concerned only to
save their lives so they just blindly ran. Even cows ran in panic, and crushed people. The
road to the old city was a river of people, staggering as if in the last stages of a long race. We
knew if we fell we would not get up again.”22
-Champa Devi Shukla
“It felt like someone was burning chillies. Our eyes burned and we started coughing badly. I
wrapped my little girl in a cloth and ran to the bus stand. There I met my husband and we ran
to Hamidia and someone put medicine in my eyes and I don’t remember anything before
waking up in the morning. I couldn’t find my family and the bus that was evacuating the
colonies took us somewhere. We were brought back in the evening.”23
-Amma
“Outside, it appeared as though there was a stampede. A thick white cloud enveloped
everything and everyone. People were crying and screaming in horror. No one knew what to
do or where to run. People were strewn in their own urine and dirt but all that mattered to
21
(BMA&BGIA, August 2012, p.3)
(BMA&BGIA, August 2012, p.9)
23
(Amma, 2013)
22
20
them was to run. They ran to save their lives. Many ended up running towards the factory in
the dark which led to run more and more into the dark cloud.”24
-Survivor 1
These accounts of the survivors almost recreate the horror of the night of the disaster
in the mind. Minutes after midnight on 3rd December 1984, the world’s worst industrial
disaster shattered Bhopal. A cloud of heavy, deadly MIC gas escaped from a Union Carbide
pesticide plant and spread across some of the poorest sectors of the city. Forty tonnes of toxic
gases were released and spread throughout the city. The cause was the combination of MIC
storage tank 610 with water carrying out a catalytic reaction. The result was a nightmare that
still has no end. Residents awoke to clouds of suffocating gas and began a desperate flight
through dark streets. No alarm ever sounded a warning and no evacuation plan was prepared.
People woke up with burning eyes, coughing and groaning. People began to run in all
directions, trying to save their lives and many left their dear ones behind. People ran over
people, crushing many in their way, they ran with their own blood and faeces running down
their bodies. Nobody knew which way to run to escape the lethal effects. Nobody knew that it
was better if you didn't run from the burning fumes that the harder you breathed; the worse it
was for your body. Nobody knew that a wet cloth over the eyes and nose and mouth offered
a protection that might save your life. Nobody knew what was leaking from the Union
Carbide pesticide plant; most did not even know what was produced there. There was no
emergency plan. The leak began just after midnight. At two a.m. the Union Carbide
spokesman in Bhopal was still denying to the local police that there was anything wrong at
all25.
When the victims arrived at the hospitals breathless and blind, the doctors did not
know how to treat them since carbide had not provided any emergency information. It was
only when the sun rose the next morning that the magnitude of the devastation was clear.
Dead bodies of humans and animals blocked the streets, the leaves of tress had turned black,
and the smell of burning chilli lingered in the air. People were lying amongst dead bodies;
one could not distinguish between the dead and the alive. The survivors wandered among the
carnage desperately seeking their families and the loved ones they had lost in the chaos.
The number of people who died that night, like the number of chronically ill and
genetically damaged, continues to be a contested and highly politicized issue. Very few of
those closest to the factory were likely carrying identifying documents, many were itinerant,
24
25
(survivor 1, 2013)
(Hanna, Morehouse, Sarangi, 2005, p. 20)
21
and would not have been accounted for in a census, and large numbers were summarily
buried in mass graves or cremated immediately. The government has legitimized only the
documented and registered individual deaths, a process which required autopsy and
registration with the police. The current official death toll is therefore less than 7,000 totals,
of which 3,000 died in the immediate aftermath. Estimates based on the number of burial
shrouds and wood for cremation purchased in the aftermath could bring the estimate as high
as 10,000 immediately26. Amnesty International confirms that 7,000 people died
immediately, with additional deaths to date of 15,000, and with at least 100,000 chronically
ill27.Over twenty years later, 4,000 registered gas survivors still present themselves for
treatment to government hospitals every single day, according to the state government's
annual reports28.
Evasion of Responsibility- The UCC, Indian Government and Dow Chemicals
Union Carbide's response to Bhopal has followed two interrelated tactics: delay and denial.
The company has sought to delay both provision of relief and justice to the victims while
postponing any legal judgments against it. As if this was not enough, Union Carbide engaged
in another deceitful manoeuvre by claiming that the gas leak from its pesticide plant was
caused by "sabotage" by a disgruntled employee although it could never recognize the
particular worker. Moreover, in the first weeks of the event, the UCC and the UCIL media
operations moved swiftly to minimize the risk-exposure, denying that what was released was
MIC and insisting that it was merely harmless phosgene – and also providing misinformation
concerning remedial measures, thus further aggravating the plight of the suffering.
The first phase of Bhopal litigation before Judge Keenan fully confirmed the fact that
UCC failed to follow the best industrial practice standards in the manufacture and storage of
large quantities of MIC for the production of two brand insecticides/pesticides in a factory
located in a densely populated area of the capital city of the state of MP. Despite having
received a warning of a runway reaction by experts, there was a cut down of plant personnel
and vital safety systems. Moreover, this information was never shared with the plant
management at Bhopal. In addition, the people living around the plant never even knew what
was produced in the factory. Even the workers at the plant were never fully told about the
26
(Lapierre, Moro, 2002, p. 376)
(Amnesty International, 2004, pp. 1,12)
28
(Hanna, 2007)
27
22
hazardous nature of the chemicals in the factory. It was only when accidents started
happening at the factory and one of the major accidents happened in 1982 killing a worker,
that the workers understood the hazardous nature of the factory. Despite many written
requests from the workers and the engineers, there was no attempt at resolving these issues.
UCC has never fully explained why it needed to produce and store in such large
quantities a known lethal chemical substance at the Bhopal factory; nor has it placed in the
public domain – despite insistent activist demand – the epidemiological and toxicological
information concerning MIC over which UCC possesses a global knowledge monopoly.
Immediately after the disaster, the government filed almost 600,000 claims against the
UCC. To ensure a speedy trial, the Indian Parliament enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster
(Processing of Claims) Act in March 1985. This gave an exclusive right to the Indian
government, acting as parens patriae29, to represent and negotiate all the claims. Following
this, the Indian government sued the UCC in the court of United States. This request was
Rejected by Judge Keenan on the grounds of forum non convenes, literally, inconvenient
forum30. Consequently, in 1986, the government sued the UCC sued the UCC in the Court of
the District Judge for US$3 billion in damages.
In 1989, the Indian Supreme Court approved a "full and final" settlement between
UCC and the Indian Government for $470 million dollars in the civil litigation over the
Bhopal disaster. The settlement was based on an estimate of 300,000 people affected by the
gas, although the amount would eventually be disbursed to over 500,000 who could prove
victimhood. In addition, the court quashed the criminal charges of culpable homicide against
UCC, its former CEO Warren Anderson, UCC's Indian subsidiary, and all seven Indians
implicated in the disaster. No survivor representation or testimony was accepted in the case.
Aggravating all this, the Supreme Court decision in the review petition proceeded to quantify
damage awards for deaths, estimated at a conservative figure of 2000 fatalities, and arbitrarily
to classify the toxic and epidemiological injuries into ‘minor’ and ‘severe’ impairments,
further fixing the floor as well as the ceiling for compensation and rehabilitation.
In February 2001, Union Carbide in a "vanishing act" merged into the Dow Chemical
Company of Midland, Michigan, USA. Dow, now the largest chemical corporation in the
29
(par-ens pa-tree-ee) Latin for "parent of his or her country." The power of the state to act as guardian for
those who are unable to care for themselves, such as children or disabled individuals. (“parens patriae,” n.d.)
30
(Hanna, 2007)
23
world, has inherited the medical, social, environmental and criminal liabilities arising out of
the Bhopal disaster. Defying established legal procedures and judicial principles in USA and
India, Dow's position on Bhopal is that it does not hold itself liable for a factory they never
operated in a place they never have been. Continuing with Union Carbide's tradition of
liability evasion, Dow refuses to provide for long term health care, income support to the
destitute and the disabled, and cleaning up the ongoing contamination31.
As of 2006, warrants remain outstanding for both UCC and its former executive,
Warren Anderson, who was arrested in Bhopal in 1984, released after posting less than $2000
bail, and has never returned. Meanwhile, India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI),
charged with prosecuting the case, has repeatedly tried to dilute charges against all of the
accused. It has been repeatedly seeking to convert the world’s worst industrial massacre in
history to a crime equivalent to a car accident.
The combined effect of these failures has been to demonstrate India's inability and
unwillingness to protect her citizens from foreign and corporate interests. Willing to treat
survivors as children via parens patriae, the government has failed to care for them32.
Obliged to charge the guilty, the government has failed to successfully criminally prosecute a
single individual or corporation. They have attempted to cover for the corporation by
grappling with the crisis themselves. To protect UCC, the Indian government promised to
facilitate a social welfare and rehabilitation project that they remain loathe, and poorly
equipped, to execute effectively. Uninterested in protecting the vulnerable, they have been
even less interested in the difficult work required to heal them.
Compensation
“If the poor people also have a ‘right’ to justice in the fullest sense of the word, what good
does that right do them if they starve while attaining it?”33
The out-of-court settlement made by the Indian government in 1989 left the victims
with only US$ 470 million opposed to the stipulated amount of US$ 3 billion. This
unfortunate settlement was totally inadequate in meeting the needs to the victims.
31
(Sarangi, 2003)
(Hanna, 2007)
33
(Divan, Rosencranz, 2002, p. 557)
32
24
The three primary flaws concerning the compensation were- administrative burden
and time delay, the susceptibility of the claimants to exploitation and manipulation and most
importantly and the failure of this model to provide for the future of the Bhopal Community
and affected unborn generations. It also failed to respond to the severe medical and social
consequences of the disaster. It never took into account the trauma caused the disaster. The
government has repeatedly tried to show the already poor survivors as greedy and almost
deserving of their miseries. The suffering of the survivors was transformed into something
they deserved or inventing owing to their pre-existing poor conditions and suffering such as
malnutrition and other diseases. Moreover, many survivors could not relate their present
conditions to MIC exposure which jeopardized their compensation claims. This process of
disbursement was overly bureaucratic and founded on suspicion. Rather than awarding the
settlement money to the survivors, the process required each victim to prove their own
suffering and medical problems. Obtaining these proofs required the affected to give bribes to
the doctors. Also, the identification cards like the “Gas Peedit” cards or the “Tata Survey”
certificates were poorly targeted. It only helped the already rich survivors who could afford to
pay bribes to obtain these identification cards.
Many of the injured were unable to work and had severe persistent medical problems.
Without compensation they could not meet their medical bills, could not work, and often
were unable to get enough to eat. Dependants of breadwinners who were killed or disabled
faced similar difficulties. While talking about the compensation, a woman stated, “We only
received 25000 each twice. Most of it we spent on buying our house since we ran from our
house on the night of the disaster. Then the leftover was spent on my husband’s operation.
Now, neither of us can manage to work full-time because of our health and the house is
always short on money. At times, we cannot even afford some important medicines that are
not available in the hospital”34.
Rehabilitation
Due to the deaths and the disability of the bread winners of families, the survivors as well as
their dependants have had to face severe economic repercussions. This created a need for the
government to create opportunities to work so they could earn a wage. In 1985, in an attempt
to address the overwhelming economic impacts of the Union Carbide Gas Disaster, the
34
(Survivor 4, 2013)
25
government set up approximately 50 training/production centres in different localities to
provide gas-affected women with training in trades such as sewing, hosiery embroidery and
stationary manufacture35. These places came to be known as the “stationary centres” and
“sewing centres” where thousands of Bhopali women were employed in the hopes of
improving their economic situation. Within four years, the government had closed down all
but two of the centres, without notice, or consultation with the women employees. Despite
the reassurances made by the CM, these centres were finally shut leaving the women
unemployed.
Many of these survivors earned through manual labour and survived on daily wages
before the tragedy. Due to the gas exposure these people face constant fatigue, breathlessness,
eye problems and body aches which made it difficult for them to do any physical labour. A
woman during her interview confessed, “My husband would work almost 10 hours earlier
and we could happily feed ourselves. Now that he is ill mostly, he can barely do 2 hours of
labour. I try and help out by doing myself but there is only so much I can do. My child keeps
unwell and so do I. I have no help around the house chores and my husband in his frustration
drinks and sometimes behaves unpleasantly.36” During another interview, a survivor
confessed, “My husband and I are both so old and we keep unwell most of the time and
cannot manage any physical labour. We try to stitch plastic bags and sell them to a
wholesaler. My eyes ache almost constantly which means I can stitch maximum 10 bags a
day. The wholesaler does not pay us for anything unless we give him a minimum of 100 bags.
I can’t sell the bags before 10 days and there is always a shortage of funds. At times, we
cannot even afford to buy our eye drops or painkillers.37”
In addition to these schemes, there were also efforts at housing rehabilitation. Yet,
these colonies remain uninhabited. These developments lack the necessary public
transportation infrastructure and are built too far outside the city making it difficult for the
people to commute for work. Hundreds of millions of rupees have also been spent on housing
projects, but thoughtlessness and carelessness have plagued these ventures38. For example,
homes for gas widows were constructed as blocks of four-storey apartments on the far edge
of the town, and many widows, chronically breathless, cannot manage stairs, much less
afford to get into the city.
35
(Amnesty International, 2004, p. 70)
(survivor 2, 2013)
37
(survivor 3, 2013)
38
(Hanna, 2007)
36
26
Medicine
The Government keeps on building newer hospitals in the name of providing medical relief.
Soon the people in Bhopal will have more hospital beds available to them than is available in
countries in Europe and USA. But hospitals in Bhopal have little apart from beds. Doctors at
the Government hospitals have all opened private clinics and it is not possible to get
adequate treatment without first visiting these private clinics. Equipment donated by
international agencies is lying unused and hardly any investigation is carried out in the
hospitals.39
- Fortun
Over 2.6 billion rupees have been spent on free medical care, yet the victims are as sick as
ever. Hospital wards lie empty for lack of staff, expensive, never used machinery is
commonplace, and none of the hospitals keep records of their patients for long-term tracking
and monitoring of results.40
-Hanna
The Bhopal disaster which killed several thousand people and injured another two
lakhs in the space of a few hours constitutes a watershed in the history of the chemical
industry. The leak saw thousands blinded, breathless and giddy, flooding the hospitals,
carrying those who had collapsed along the way. In cases of acute exposure, victims had
suffered extensive damage to their lungs. Those who did not succumb to their injuries fell
victim to secondary infections of the lungs and respiratory tracts. The psychological trauma
caused by the accident is just beginning to be acknowledged and goes far beyond those
physically affected by the gas. Victims suffered depression, anxiety, impotence, loss of
appetite, nightmares etc.
For one whole week the government failed to assure the citizens of Bhopal on
whether the air they were breathing, the water they were drinking , and the food they were
consuming were safe or not.
The health repercussions of the gas disaster have been both extensive and ongoing.
Over the last 29 years, the survivors and their children have been suffering from a myriad of
health problems as both a result of gas inhalation and exposure to contaminated ground and
well water. Health issues include, but are not limited to breathlessness, persistent cough,
diminished vision, early age cataracts, loss of appetite, menstrual irregularities, recurrent
fever, back and body aches, and loss of sensation in the limbs, fatigue, weakness, anxiety and
depression.
39
40
(Fortun, 2009, p. 232)
(Hanna, 2007)
27
In response to the multiple medical problems suffered by the thousands of gasaffected Bhopalis, government health programs and hospitals were set up to address this
urgent situation and treat victims. Given the unique context into which these medical
programs were implemented, they proved unable to fill the multiple needs of Bhopal’s gasaffected communities. Initial government management of the crisis was neither organized nor
thorough and to this day, accurate documentation of the victims’ experiences and subsequent
health problems has not been carried out. Furthermore, it would appear that much of the
documentation undertaken was focused on downplaying the number of gas-affected victims
and their sustained injuries in order to prevent people from receiving compensation. There
have been numerous occasions in which “government authorities had destroyed
documentation and other evidence” which proved gas-related injuries and thus render victims
eligible for compensation.
Much of the compensation money received by the survivors was spent to cover
medical expenses. Medical care was guaranteed free to survivors but not to their children
who were also exposed to the toxic MIC. One of the biggest hindrances in medical research
was the withholding of information about the toxicity and the effects of MIC by the UCC.
This left victims without effective antidotes or treatment options in the wake of the
accident41. Till now, there has been no effort on the part of the government to create authentic
data on the effects of MIC on the body that could create a proper treatment protocol for the
patients. The patients, till today are being treated symptomatically. This leads them to
consume an enormous amount of psychotropic drugs, antibiotics, painkillers etc which has
resulted in worsening of their health. Also, the prescribed medicines are not administered
properly. The patients are not told about the dosage or the dietary restriction that must
accompany the consumption of these drugs. Most of the people end up going to the hospitals
more than 2-3 times a month and remain almost chronically ill due to the side effects of the
medicines. Moreover, many doctors perceive gas syndrome as an imagined or invented
symptom of poverty, despite the consistent excess mortality and morbidity in badly affected
areas.
Many of the doctors recruited in these hospitals have seen these victims as an
opportunity to earn and have opened their own private clinics. This leaves the victims no
choice but to pay for their healthcare. This pushes them further into poverty. When I asked an
41
(Jasanoff,, 2014,p.96)
28
elder woman about her poor health, she replied, “We can take either medicines or good food.
Both cost money and we don’t have funds enough to buy both. But medicines need to be
accompanied with healthy food. Now how can you expect us to be healthy and work?”
another account of a survivor was, “I have to visit the hospital almost twice a week. Because
of the huge lines and waiting I end up losing the entire day’s wage. If I keep going to the
hospital, who will feed my family?”42
In addition to these failures in providing medical rehabilitation, the continued
pollution caused by the plant site and the subsequent land and water pollution has worsened
the health conditions of the survivors. The testing of local ground and well-water has
revealed poisons such as mercury at levels “between 20,000 and 6 million than those
expected” causing cancer as well as birth defects. The people of Bhopal have worked for
years trying to create necessary data and momentum to force the government to address the
issue of contamination. Despite having orders from the Supreme Court, only 10% of the
water necessary has been supplied.
The environmental and contamination issues in Bhopal have been ignored and
marginalized for as long as possible because they disrupt an official discourse about Bhopal
as an event that was “fully and finally” ended as of the 1989 settlement. Similar to the
process of neglecting or marginalizing medical research and the victim’s access to it, the
official narrative of the contamination has been directed by the flawed presentation of data
and expertise controlled by the government and influenced by the corporation.
Another category that has been constantly missing from the official documents is the
women. Women’s health issues have been rarely discussed or been attended to in most of the
literature. The women who come from these communities have been disproportionately
affected by gas-exposure and water contamination and suffer from health problems that have
social consequences. Gas-affected women exhibit high levels of menstrual and reproductive
difficulties. Furthermore, the children of gas-affected women are subject to a frightening
array of debilitating illnesses, including retardation, gruesome birth defects, and reproductive
disorders. Women who have been affected by the gas leak bear a social stigma. Not only are
these health issues rarely discussed due to culturally specific social taboos, but also the social
implications of reproductive complications suffered by lower class women are tremendous. In
many cases, their inability to conceive sentences many women to live without ever getting
42
(survivor, 2013)
29
married, this can render them unable to attain economic security. Additionally, married
women exposed to the gas also face desertion by their husbands, possible difficulties with
childbearing or increased financial liability because of chronic illness. On talking about the
social issues faced by the victims, as woman said, “Almost of the money we received as
compensation, we spent as dowry for our daughter’s marriage. It was so difficult to find a
partner for her given that she too was a victim. Even if the boy himself was a victim, they
wouldn’t want a gas exposed girl. Finally, we found a boy who agreed to marry her but we
had to give dowry. Now, we live in economic conditions that are difficult to describe or even
believe.”43
Amnesty International, in their report on Bhopal notes that “It is clear that the gas leak
radically altered the social fabric and economics of everyday life, and entrenched existing
poverty and social disempowerment”44. The above experiences describe how the disaster has
become a part of everyday lives of the people of Bhopal. The survivors of the gas disaster lost
their family and friends, their health and thus their means to livelihood all in one
unforgettably and at the same time unspeakably mysterious, terrifying night. They are, and
will remain, haunted by it. They hope that never again, should anyone have to live through
the misery and fear of that unfortunate event.
There is an intimate connection of the survivors with the gas. People know the gas
like a member of their family – they know its smell, its colour, its favourite foods, its
predilections. And thus, any effort at understanding the disaster starts and ends at
understanding the miseries of the survivors.
43
44
(survivor, 2013)
(Amnesty International, 2004, p. 18)
30
Chapter II- Victims as Agents of Change: The Bhopal Activism
“The woman is alone in her room, late at night. It is cold and the air is clammy and damp. It
smells of misery- of despair and the loss of hope, it reminds her of those unwashed bodies
and spilled urine and worse. She is frightened; but she’s a fighter and there’s no question of
her giving up. She knows her protest is right. She will never give up; she would rather die.”45
The capacity of a corporation to cause immense and irreparable harm and loss moved
from conjecture to experience with the Bhopal gas disaster. Industrial risk which had found
tolerance as an inevitable, even if unfortunate aspect of enterprise and industrial progress,
precipitated into industrial hazard with the Bhopal Gas Disaster46.
The poison gas from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) factory affected the
lives of people living in old Bhopal. A large section of this population consisted of
first/second generation immigrants, who had come from villages in the neighbouring districts.
Most of these people earned their living in daily wages for hard, physical labour. The women
who belonged to the minority community piece-rate work from inside their homes and
lived lives in purdah within the strict confinement of their families. It is this population
that came in the path of the gas leak. Once the dead were buried, the “survivors” were left
behind to carry on with the legacy of suffering and hardship.
In the aftermath of the Bhopal Gas Disaster, the Indian government has been unable
to provide those gas-affected and water contaminated communities with 3 essential services:
1) effective and sustainable medical care, 2) income generating opportunities and economic
rehabilitation, and 3) advocacy and justice-seeking. Moreover, the inadequate efforts have
been further plagued by lack of oversight and accountability, characterized by
thoughtlessness, or premature termination.
Corruption, lack of transparency, an unwillingness to communicate with or listen to
the needs of survivors, and the lack of an overseeing body has allowed to misuse of much of
the resources earmarked for relief, and contributed to the failure of the government as the
guardian of the survivors. Thus, it became increasingly evident that the government had no
intentions of sufficiently addressing the needs of the gas-affected communities which created
a need for an alternative help-model.
45
46
(BMA&BGIA, August 2012)
(Ramanathan, 2004, p. 14)
31
Despite these injustices and the insensitive attitudes of the corporations and
government, the gas-exposed people of Bhopal have not remained passive victims of Union
Carbide's crimes. National and international campaigns demanding the particular
accountability of the UCC and its new owner, Dow, have been gaining strength as victims
become survivors47. There has been a mass mobilization of community members from
Bhopal’s gas-affected areas and their joining together under common goals: the victims’
fundamental right to lead healthy and productive lives. The communities mobilized to form
three interactive and inter-dependent projects: a medical trust and clinic that provides free
and sustainable health care to gas-affected patients, a women’s labour union fighting for the
economic rights of its members, and a campaign for justice in Bhopal that not only advocates
for Bhopali victim’s rights and compensation, but also creates awareness of environmental
issues and corporate injustices affecting communities all over the globe. They have received
support from communities victimized by corporations around the world as well as from trade
unions, environmental and human rights organizations and others.
These organizations also collect documents and record authentic data which are stored
in their offices. Despite paucity of funds and limited expertise, a lot of care is taken to keep
records of all the legal documents, newspaper clippings, campaign material and press releases
on organizational activities48. Apart from these documents, medical trust also keeps files of
every patient to record the progress and problems at different stages of treatment. It now has
authentic data on almost 15000 patients.
The city of Bhopal has a unique history of being ruled by the begums. The Begums
were the guardians of the city as we know it today. The unique feature of the Bhopal Struggle
post the gas tragedy has been the tremendous efforts and participation by the women of the
localities. Women have brought passion, endurance and empathy in the Bhopal struggle.
First protest movements started with women coming together to form unions and action
groups. In 1985, the Madhya Pradesh government created thirty-eight income generation
projects to employ the gas affected women. These workshops trained women in printing, the
production of leaf cups and plates, leatherwork, sewing and crafts. In 1986 however, the
government closed these centres claiming that these were no longer necessary. It was then
that 600 hundred women agitated for the reopening of the workshops, obtaining jobs for 2300
women. Along with this, women also agitated for regularization of wages from these
47
48
(Ramanathan, 2004,p.16)
(Mukherjee, 2010, p. 1)
32
workshops. Apart from this, the survivors, especially women have held constant protests and
rallies against the UCC, Dow and government of India.
Another example of the enduring will power of women was the 1989 padyatra. In
1989, a group of women, men and children set out a protests march on foot to Delhi to meet
the Prime Minister. They would lay before him the broken promises made by state
government and ask help. They did not care for media attention or any other help. They just
set out on an adventure that became one of turning points of Bhopali resistance. They faced
harsh weather, bad health, extreme poverty and other issues on the way but they still kept
going. It was then that the women used the phrase, “We are women of Bhopal. We are
flames, not Flowers”49.
Women negotiated with private and public spheres to break the barriers of the home
and the community to take to the streets. This emancipation helped women to carve out their
own social identities. Women have not only made up the backbone of the activist movement
by providing support and mobilizing in large numbers, but they have also provided the
leadership for the movement. Throughout their participation in the activist movement,
Bhopali women have had to overcome the enormous stigma of their poverty, their status as
women in a male-dominated society and illiteracy. They have also had to struggle with
chronic health problems that have intensified on the campaign trail.
Women survivors talk about their “experience” of living lives of destitution, and the
way in which this affects family life, especially that of elderly members, dependents, and
children. At the same time, the very process of coping with their ravaged, ailing bodies
enables them to understand the nature of the systemic failure that has continued to plague the
aftermath of the disaster. The body becomes the site of contestation, and survivors are able to
testify through their own experience of the ruthless manipulation that underlies the clash
between institutions, official discourses, and their social/political ramifications. It is in the
process of knowing the body that an alternative model for rehabilitation and justice is
created.50
‘Justice’ for the Bhopal activists was a matter of struggle, of people’s impassioned
politics and of direct action fully and constantly geared towards naming and shaming the
producers of social indifference, including state managers and agents and their normative
49
50
(BMA&BGIA, August 2012, p.52)
(Mukherjee, 2010, p. 7)
33
cohorts – comprising the commentariat – ‘learned’ professions, public intellectuals and the
24/7 mass media pundits51. This was visible in the slogans that were used in the protests such
as “Jhadu Maaro Dow ko” (Hit Dow with a Broom) and “Quit India, Dow”.
Justice here has assumed wider meaning than justice according to the law –contained
in the unanimous demand for retributive justice and the varying alternative legal strategies for
the pursuit of effective compensation and rehabilitation. Healthcare justice and economic
justice remained the central preoccupation of all the Bhopal activist groups. Indeed, legal
strategies were always viewed by ‘victim’ groups from the wider perspectives of healthcare
and economic justice. The issues of livelihood and healthcare are closely linked, given the
fact that most survivors suffer from severe disabilities, which has taken away their capacity to
earn a proper living. Here are some of the demands reiterated through years of agitation and
protests by the survivors- right to good health, right to a clean toxic-free environment, right to
information, and the right to a life of dignity.
One of the most valuable features of the activist moment in Bhopal has been its
continuous effort to situate disaster in a larger context of global environmental destruction
and corporate injustice. The movement recognizes that there are “Bhopals” all over this
world, and countless communities struggling through the same challenges Bhopalis face. This
connection to the larger picture is crucial, as it has encouraged the networking and exchange
of ideas between various communities undergoing similar experiences not only on the Indian
subcontinent, but also throughout the world. When I asked Hazra Bi, “what gives you the
strength to keep the struggle alive?” she replied, “This struggle is not just about us. This is
not just for us to get money and healthcare. It is a fight for all the future generations. It is a
fight to safeguard the interests of all the kids being born with birth defects, to help them make
a respectable life for themselves, for all the young girls and boys who couldn’t marry because
of the gas effects or the girls who couldn’t or won’t be able to conceive. Last, but not the
least, our struggle spreads a message of ‘No More Bhopals’. We don’t want to see such a
horrible catastrophe hit any other place or people. Till the time we spread this message all
over the world, we’ll keep going.52”
The Bhopal disaster has created more controversies than a proper understanding of its
effects on the lives of the Bhopalis. What is less known is that the fallout of the event
51
52
(Baxi, 2013, p.520)
(Bi, 2013)
34
continues even today as an environmental, social, medical, economic, and political disaster.
The most powerful media-generated images of the disaster are faces of men and women
staring blankly at the uncertain future. What began as a failure of documentation and lack of
authentic data on the cause and fallout of the disaster has over the years become a saga of
neglect.
Another aim of the Bhopal struggle has been to keep the memory of Bhopal disaster
alive in the media and all over the world. There is a constant effort to connect victims of
corporate crimes all over the world with the Bhopal struggle to create a new regime of
corporate accountability and sensitivity. In recent years, student volunteers and academics
have come to Bhopal on short-term projects that are conceptualized and funded by bigger
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in India and abroad. The findings of such
research are freely circulated on Web sites and brought out as low-cost pamphlets that are
meant for the layman and activists. The Bhopal gas tragedy has also created a plethora of
visual images and creative writing in popular forms53—including photographs, documentary
films, video clippings, theatre presentations, dance dramas, novels 54 and films55- all of which
have made Bhopal an integral part of the folklore.
At heart, beyond the many different kinds of violations that characterize the disaster,
Bhopal is a story of the powerless fighting back against the powerful. The Bhopal movement
is directed against exploitative and unequal social relations. It is a story of victims gaining
agency as they come face to face with the injustices and unequal power relations that underlie
the ideas of development. Supported over the years by activists, and occasionally by
international organizations, every tiny victory has been the result of enormous amounts of
work on the ground. The gas disaster also forced many in the affected communities to learn
about and face the dynamics in the outside world that brought Union Carbide to their
doorsteps. Despite the long and sometimes tiring struggle faced by the survivors, the unions
and other grass root organizations remain quite strong. Similarly, the expansion of the
activism about Bhopal onto the internet, in newspapers, and into the barely tested waters of
shareholder activism, has caused a recent explosion of interest and action. There have been
protests all over the world led by student organizations in support of the Bhopal survivors.
53
See Bhopal marathon, Seminar issue on Bhopal, newsletters of Sambhavna
54 Five Past Midnight in Bhopal by Dominique Lapierre
55
See Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain, 2013
35
In the absence of support and sensitivity by the UCC or Dow or the Indian
government, the grass root activism has been the only way for the survivors to gain their
rights. These activities now include candle-light protests, rallies that reiterate slogans such as
“Muawza nahi to vote nai” (No compensation no vote) and “Bhopal peediton ko pehle
muawza baad mein vote” (first compensation to the victims, then vote)56. Bhopal activism, at
its best, has centred around representing Bhopal as a continuing disaster that challenges
truisms about poverty, health, justice and the tolerated parameters of corporate behaviour. It
is only through these movements that the government has revisited its decisions and agreed to
make changes. One of the biggest achievements here is the end of denial of costs of
development by the government. Despite these achievements, there is an urgent need for
changing the policies around the globe regarding international justice, environmental law and
corporate accountability. The next chapter lists suggestion regarding these themes.
56
These quotes were reiterated in rallies of June 2013 when I was interning at Sambhavna
36
Chapter III- The Future of Bhopal: Policy Recommendations
The gas leak from the Union Carbide plant radically changed the public understanding of the
chemical industry. More significant however, is that since, little has changed: none of the
trials for personal criminal responsibility have been resolved, the issue of water
contamination near the site is still unresolved; the hospitals funded by UC do not
comprehensively address the health concerns of the survivors and their children, and there
has still been no admission of responsibility – by anyone. In short, there has been no shift in
the balance of power between corporations and those who survive their mistakes. It continues
to be a site of suffering, frustration and innovation.
However, it must simultaneously
continue to inform a wider understanding of the dangers and frontiers of environmental
contamination, corporate accountability, and disaster response.
To "remember Bhopal" today means not just collecting and understanding
information about the disaster and its aftermath, but also acting on it and using it in creative
ways. The way that we remember Bhopal should be different. One must aim at creating a
future memory of Bhopal that is not part of a continuing tragedy.
This chapter aims at listing out some urgent policy suggestions about the site clean-up
and medical and economic rehabilitation. It further tries to give suggestions to create a new
regime of corporate ethics and accountability.
Site Clean-Up and De-Contamination
Union Carbide’s US managers were aware of the danger of groundwater pollution from the
factory in Bhopal. After the gas leak of December 1984, the factory was closed, but the
corporation made no attempt to remove the huge stocks of lethal pesticides.
In 1999 a Greenpeace report57 revealed the full extent of the poisoning, discovering
severe contamination of the factory site, the surrounding land and the groundwater. Levels of
mercury in some places were 6,000,000 times higher than background levels. Drinking water
wells near the factory used by local people were heavily polluted with chemicals known to
57
(Greenpeace, 1999)
37
produce cancers and genetic birth defects. A 2002 study by the Fact-Finding Mission on
Bhopal found lead, mercury and organo-chlorines in the breast milk of nursing mothers58.
At present, over 20,000 people in the surrounding areas of the pant rely on this
contaminated drinking water suffering diseases such as cancer and congenital defects. The
plant still reeks of MIC and other chemicals. Moreover, the UCC and Dow chemicals have
refused to pay for the clean-up of the site and despite the Supreme Court orders to provide
clean drinking water to the affected communities, less than 10% of the water necessary has
been supplied. In addition to this, efforts to clean up the plant site by the survivors and
activists were put down violently exposing them further to the chemicals.
This situation calls for an urgent need to clean up the site and additional efforts to decontaminate the land and water around the plant. There must be a proper procedure
established to neutralize the chemicals that remain inside the plant and then dispose them off
safely. Also, the plant needs to be dismantled safely and deported. In addition, the land and
water contamination in and around the plant must be treated properly. Lastly, the affected
communities must be provided clean drinking water regularly and abundantly. These pumps
can be provided for shared use and put up at a proper site in small community. Moreover, all
taps and pumps which have contaminated water must be marked and sealed so that there is no
risk of people getting exposed to these chemicals.
Rehabilitation
Right from the start, both the company and the government were reluctant to admit to the
long-term effects of the gas on the body. They indicate that official medical discourse has
continued to deny the truth that the gas had affected more organs than just lungs and eyes.
The reality is grimmer still. Till now, the treatment in most of the government hospitals has
been primarily symptomatic which leads to an unnecessary administering of antibiotics,
painkillers and psychotropic drugs. This, in turn has more side effects. Moreover, many
effects of the MIC exposure like trauma59 and mental health have not been recognized at all.
The most devastating effect of toxic poisoning has been on women’s reproductive health,
resulting in the possibility of a second generation born with congenital defects. Almost thirty
years later, mothers affected by chemical poisoning are giving birth to children with
58
59
(Sarangi, 2003)
(Jasanoff, 2014, p.94)
38
congenital defects and it is the untold stories of this invisible “wounded generation”60 that
needs to be brought out in the open.
There is an urgent need for an alternative model for rehabilitation which works on
the simple paradigm that economic and medical rehabilitation has to go hand in hand.
More importantly, proper treatment protocol has to be accompanied by research, which looks
into long-term health issues. There is an urgent need to create a research base to fully
understand the medical effects of MIC exposure and contamination on the bodies of the
survivors.
Secondly, a theory of economic rehabilitation and compensation must be built around
two models- individual and community based. Compensation money for health and loss of
property must be paid on an individual level. Moreover, this model of compensation must
take the unborn yet affected generation in mind. At point of time, all survivors must be given
economic help for the rest of their lives. For the unborn generation, the compensation must
go as far as the next 30 years at least. A community based model of compensation must be
applied for issues such as loss of livelihood and creating alternate housing with proper
infrastructure and connectivity to the city. Any efforts at creating employment for the
survivors must aim at creating alternate livelihoods which can be sustained by the survivors
in light of their physical and medical conditions.
Most importantly, there is a need for creating an equitable system for disbursement of
economic and medical claims without putting the burden of proof on the survivors.
Documentation and Information Dissemination
There is a need for information dissemination and documentation of original and authentic
data. The government stopped counting deaths in 1992 and even before that, the number of
casualties were hugely downplayed. Moreover, most of the projects that look at medical
effects of MIC and contamination undertaken by the Indian Council of Medical Research
(ICMR) were discontinued and there are still no publications from the rest of the projects.
These projects must be restarted and finished. It is imperative to create a treatment protocol
for the patients. This has created a need for a regulating body that comprises of government
and non-government professionals and the activists as representatives of survivors. This body
60
(Mukherjee, 2010, p. 7)
39
must be given powers and funds to carry out research projects that document the medical and
economic effects of the disaster. Moreover, there must be new research projects started to
document the effect of disaster on the mental health of the survivors since trauma has still to
be recognized as an effect. Also, the effect of exposure of women to MIC and contamination
on unborn generations must be documented to create a proper model of compensation for the
unborn generations.
Also, in all hospitals, there must be proper documentation of every patient’s
conditions and progress or change in health status of the person. Lastly, these documents
must be made public and open for scrutiny and review by non-government organization.
These are also important for proper reviewing of government programmes for the welfare of
the survivors.
Creating a New Ethics of Corporate Responsibility
The larger question posed by the Bhopal Gas Disaster is how do we go about making
multinational corporations (and other large institutions such as governments and international
agencies) behave ethically; that is, how do we make them truly accountable to those whose
lives are most directly affected by their actions? Moreover, in case of such a catastrophic
event, the perpetrator must take responsibility towards the victims. The struggle for real
corporate accountability must begin with empowerment of risk bearers - for example,
workers and communities surrounding hazardous facilities like the Union Carbide plant in
Bhopal - and that means effective political mobilization at the grassroots. The little positive
treatment of the victims that has occurred has come about almost entirely through the victims
engaging in politics of protests.
Among measures that would help assure greater accountability and perhaps diminish
the intensity of immoral behaviour are such initiatives as worker and community hazard
indemnity funds, comprehensive health and environmental evaluation of hazardous products,
clear and readily enforceable rights for workers and communities surrounding hazardous
industrial facilities to know what is really going on in those facilities and to act (even to the
extent of shutting down the operation of such facilities if they are being run in a careless and
negligent manner), and criminal sanctions for corporate accountability. In addition to this, the
workers as well as the people living in the surroundings of such plants must be made aware
of what to do in case of leakage or any mishap through workshops, emergency evacuation
40
drills. They must also be told of the immediate measures that can be taken to prevent any
major damages to the body in such events. Other legal strategies include strict or absolute
liability where especially hazardous facilities are involved, multinational enterprise liability
for the acts of subsidiaries and joint ventures, and ground rules that specify the judicial forum
for litigation involving trans- boundary events. Moreover, MNCs should be subject to atleast
the same international human rights standards as national governments.
Most importantly, the most basic form of moral behaviour one must expect of the
corporation is that the survivors of Bhopal must be treated as human beings — not victims,
not greedy money-grabbers, just human beings who’ve gone through hell and are entitled to a
measure of dignity. That includes concrete things like cleaning up the mess and providing
health care for the sick, and also something more abstract but equally important — an
acknowledgment that a wrong was done to them, and an apology, which Bhopalis have yet to
receive.
Another important instrument to ensure greater accountability is political will.
Governments of both parent and other nation must create a strict regimen of accountability.
Also, there needs to be a global consensus among nations and corporations to protect the socalled expendable populations all over the world. There is a need of strict global regimes
created by organizations like the UN and other agencies. In addition to this, there must be a
voluntary unsaid code of conduct that runs corporation on lines of human rights and
responsibility. In addition to these, there must be proper risk and environmental impact
assessment undertaken by corporation to understand the effects of production on a certain
area and people.
41
Conclusion- Bhopal as a Lesson for the Future
More than ever, today, ensuring justice in Bhopal is vital to protect the lives and health of the
people considered expendable by the institutions of globalization. This paper brings out the
importance of corrective and new policy measures that look at the issues of compensation,
medicine and justice differently. One also needs new codes of conduct for the corporations
that extend corporate responsibility and accountability beyond shareholders. There is a need
to create an obligation for the corporations to protect the environment and ensure citizens
their right to a clean environment.
The story of Bhopal illustrates the worldwide inadequacy of codes and structures to
hold corporations and their senior officials accountable and of the utter lack of international
foray for redress of corporate crimes. Corporate crime has become more institutionalized,
legitimate and intense with the advent of globalization. The endless ability of the corporation
to slip beyond borders, change from one legal entity into another, play the litigation game,
deploy money power and the threat of all MNCs backing off from a state that calls an MNC
to account, is in plentiful evidence.
Seen from the eyes of the survivors, who have lived and experienced the disaster and
its aftermath for all these years, Bhopal is an unending disaster. Bhopal is not only an issue in
policy research or disaster studies- it is a story of silent suffering of thousands of people that
needs a place in the public sphere, it is an event that needs a debate, a discussion and a
conversation. It is a lesson that needs to be learnt, a story that needs to be narrated repeatedly,
it needs compassion and understanding. Hazra Bi told me “I will tell you my story, but you must
go out and tell it to others. We need your support in whichever way possible. I want to fight for
justice. To not just have a better life for me, I’m already so damaged. I want my next generation to be
able to live without scars, with dignity and be able to stand on their feet. My fight is not against this
tragedy, it’s about Bhopals all over the world”61.
One has to understand the effect that Bhopal – in both its acute and sustained phases –
has had on concepts of rights, crimes and justice. It continues to be a site of suffering,
frustration and innovation, but it must simultaneously continue to inform a wider
understanding of the dangers and frontiers of environmental contamination, corporate
accountability, and disaster response.
61
(Bi, 2013)
42
In this essay I have tried to highlight the everydayness of the disaster by using
accounts of survivors and their experiences with the disaster. This has been followed by an
extensive account of the Bhopal activism showing how, in the absence of any hope of justice
through official methods, the survivors become the agents of change. Lastly, I have listed
some policy measures that can be taken at this stage in Bhopal and I have also talked about
the creation of corporate conduct. There are global and regional policies that monitor
corporate behaviour already in place. While these policy measures are a way of improving
the lives of people at this stage, a theory of disaster, especially industrial disasters must start
much before. It needs a space in policy not just as disaster management but the directive rules
for risk must also go beyond just the precautionary principle or absolute liability.
I hope that this essay can be used as a document to respond to the immediate and
future needs of the survivors and to also create a new ethics of corporate accountability.
Apart from creating a policy document for Bhopal, this paper is an attempt to convey a story
of suffering, of injustice, of inequality but more than ever, Bhopal, for me, is a story of
undying courage of the so-called powerless people. They have in their hands, an opportunity
to create a new global order. This story is close to my heart and I would be honoured if I am
successful in spreading this story forward.
43
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