It is shocking for many to know that the disaster in Bhopal, caused by the leak of poisonous gas from a pesticide factory nearly 30 years ago, is still continuing. One fifth of the half-a-million people exposed to toxic gases in December 1984 continue to battle exposure-induced chronic illnesses today and the death toll, currently at 25,000, continues to rise, as does the number of people with cancers and tuberculosis, and children with congenital malformations.
Another disaster at the factory — once designed, owned and operated by American multinational Union Carbide and affecting 50,000 families — is also ongoing in Bhopal unbeknown to most outside the city. For up to 24 years, the victims of this second environmental disaster have drunk and cooked with local groundwater containing chemicals and heavy metals that cause cancer and birth defects and damage the liver, kidneys, lungs, brain and other organs. Scientific studies carried out by the government and non-government agencies have established that these chemicals and heavy metals in the groundwater have leached from the hazardous waste recklessly dumped by Union Carbide in and around the factory.
The poisoning in this second disaster is devoid of the commotion and panic that characterised the gas disaster. Unlike the acute exposure to high concentration of toxic gases, the victims in this disaster have had chronic exposure to low amounts of poisons that accumulate in the body and cause damage depending upon the length of exposure. From all available records, the second disaster started at least two years before the gas disaster and, given the scientific evidence of its spreading, continues to find new victims.
The dissimilarities between the two ongoing disasters in Bhopal, however, are far outweighed by their uncanny similarities.
First, the origins of both are located in the proposal for the Bhopal Methyl isocyanate plant approved by the 11-member managing committee chaired by the recently-deceased Warren Anderson in December 1972. While design changes and ‘untested technology’ advised in the proposal to effect 25 to 30 per cent cost cutting are causative factors for the gas disaster, it is the unsafe design of the waste management system in the proposal that is the main cause behind the ongoing contamination of groundwater. Interestingly, apprehensions about the design’s hazardous consequences are contained in the proposal itself.
Second, both disasters were preventable, in the sense that there was sufficient warning of the occurrence of a life- and health-threatening situation. In the case of the gas disaster, the warning was in the occurrence of the comparably smaller leak of Methyl isocyanate (MIC) at the Institute, West Virginia plant in September 1984. Internal correspondence of Union Carbide shows that as early as May 1982, the Danbury, Connecticut, headquarters was aware of the leakage of toxic material from the Solar Evaporation Ponds where the hazardous wastes were dumped. In both cases the warnings were not followed by any effective preventive measure.
In the case of the gas disaster, Union Carbide actively suppressed information on the health consequences of the toxic gas exposure by downplaying and withholding information on their impact. Union Carbide’s own reports generated at the Carnegie Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, establish the extreme toxicity of MIC but that did not prevent Jackson Browning, vice-president, health, safety and environmental affairs, Union Carbide, from claiming that MIC was like ‘potent tear gas’. Documents made available through the process of discovery in the ongoing suit in the US Federal Court show that the corporation followed a similar strategy in the case of groundwater contamination. A report on bioassay of groundwater samples from the Bhopal factory site carried out by Union Carbide’s scientists in 1989 mentions 100 per cent fish mortality at all dilutions. This report was suppressed, in the same manner as the Carnegie Mellon Institute papers on effects of MIC were made unavailable.
The other similarity between the two disasters in Bhopal is the ignominious role of scientific agencies in downplaying the impact and thus downsizing the liability of the corporation.
Yet another similarity is the utter neglect of successive governments at the state and the centre in protecting the legal rights of the victims, a constitutional obligation. In the case of the gas disaster, the collusive settlement that the government secretly entered into with Union Carbide meant that 93 per cent of the exposed population received only Rs. 25,000 as compensation and the rest did only marginally better. In the case of the contamination-affected population, there has been no official initiative towards registering claims for the injuries caused by chronic poisoning, let alone assessment of such injuries.
In both the disasters, similar official neglect is evident in the provision of health care and rehabilitation to the victims. In the case of the gas disaster, the Supreme Court appointed Monitoring Committee has documented lack of doctors and specialists, absence of treatment protocols and other serious lacunae in the hospitals meant for free treatment of the survivors. The victims of water contamination on the other hand are denied free treatment at these hospitals. In both cases, government initiatives for providing rehabilitation, particularly to the thousands of children with congenital disabilities are markedly absent.
Given official apathy and neglect, the victims have had to fight long and hard for the means to a life of dignity. In the case of the gas disaster, survivors’ organisations continue to agitate on issues of health care, economic rehabilitation and social support. The victims of groundwater contamination, on the other hand, have had to struggle for 10 years for access to clean drinking water. In both, the victims faced arrests, beatings and false criminal charges for demanding their constitutional rights through democratic forms of protest.
Lastly, the judiciary in both the U.S. and India failed the victims of both disasters. In the case of the gas disaster, the judge in the Federal District Court refused adjudication in the U.S. court despite abundant evidence of its American origin. The same judge has dismissed the case relating to the toxic contamination five times, with the appellate court reversing his judgment four times so far. In both cases, matters related to compensation linger on in the Indian courts. The case for additional compensation for the gas disaster has been pending in the Supreme Court for last four years without a hearing, and the case on contamination of groundwater has been going on for the last 10 years without the slightest resolution in sight.
The striking similarities in the unfolding script of both the disasters underline the systemic impediments to justice, the corporate machinations to evade liability and the complicity of government agencies in corporate crime. Under these circumstances, one can only hope, as the poet Seamus Heany advises: History says don’t hope/ On this side of the grave./ But then, once in a lifetime/ The longed for tidal wave/ Of justice can rise up/ And hope and history rhyme.
Satinath Sarangi is founder and managing trustee, Sambhavna trust, and founder-member of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action.
