Ongoing tragedy

At Arif Nagar slum, a toxic waste yard next to the boundary wall of the factory. The accident polluted the soil and groundwater in the neighbourhood to dangerous levels.-INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP

THERE is a stark anomaly about the dilapidated Union Carbide factory in Bhopal from which some 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked into the citys air on December 3, 1984. It has well-constructed and evidently new concrete roads with properly nurtured trees lined on either side providing the much needed relief to visitors who more often than not come to inspect 314 metric tonnes of toxic waste hideously stored in the compound. The area around the factory, which was the most affected by the spread of the poisonous plume, has a cluster of slums, inhabited mostly by daily-wage workers. The miserable living conditions of the slum-dwellers are compounded by the poor facilities to educate their children or provide medical care to those who were born after the disaster, which claimed some 23,000 lives. The survivors continue to suffer from respiratory and skin disorders, with only some 85 quacks available to treat them in the area.

The anomaly is evident not only in the geographical surroundings of old Bhopal town but also in the political action. There is a disconnect between the civil society organisations working for the rehabilitation of the victims and the State government.

The Madhya Pradesh government, which has a dedicated Ministry for Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation, claims that over a million people have already been compensated. Under a five-year action plan that began in 1990 and was extended in 1995, six 650-bed government hospitals were set up. These cater to 36 of the 56 municipal wards in Bhopal. In addition, the government also opened 18 ancillary clinics. We have spent Rs.3,058 crore to provide compensation to 5,74,000 people. About 11,800 people have not claimed their compensation money and as soon as they do that, we will disburse them as well, S.R. Mohanty, Principal Secretary, told Frontline. According to documents available with the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and Rehabilitation Department, the medical expenditure incurred to date is Rs.512.09 crore, and 64 per cent of the citys population at the time of the tragedy in 1984 has been given compensation.

However, the gas victims face the typical problem of bureaucratic insouciance. Most of the people living around the factory site complain that they have not got more than Rs.25,000 by way of compensation. Some of them say that they received Rs.50,000 in two instalments while the richer sections, such as lawyers and doctors, were given Rs.2 lakh to Rs.4 lakh by way of relief.

Medical help, too, they say, is deplorable. Manohar Lal, a vegetable vendor living in Arif Nagar adjacent to the factory, said: The doctors always ask for identification papers. Many of us were not given identification papers although we put up demands. Even those who have the papers are not given free medicines in the hospitals. The doctors prescribe medicines that are available in the market and the victims usually cannot afford those medicines. This statement bears credibility as the government itself claims that only 3,75,000 of the 5,74,000 affected people have been given medical cards that allow them free access to any of the government hospitals.

The single most important problem in the area is groundwater contamination owing to the disposal of toxic waste. According to government officials, the most affected areas are 14 slums in the vicinity of the factory. They say that owing to fears of groundwater contamination, many hand pumps in these slums were deactivated. Twelve slums have access to municipal water pipelines. Water tankers are sent to the remaining two slums to discourage the consumption of groundwater. However, a survey of these slums showed that water supply through the pipelines was irregular, as was the case with most of Bhopals poor colonies, forcing people to use hand pumps to draw water or use other groundwater sources. Though non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have sensitised people against the use of the groundwater in the area, the residents are left with no option but to consume it. The water contains toxic elements that have long-term health effects.

So, what is the purpose of an exclusive Ministry for the gas victims when the government says it has already done enough? Babulal Gaur, the Minister for Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation, told Frontline: The Ministry is important as we plan to improve the facilities in terms of medical help and better employment opportunities for the victims.

Evidently, the Ministrys promises have a populist appeal in old Bhopal. We are trying to build a memorial at the factory site as in Hiroshima and Chernobyl, Babulal Gaur said. Dismissing reports of any contamination at the site, he said this could also be leakage from the nearby Indian Oil Corporation depot or the dumping ground in Bhanpur near Bhopal. Social activists, who had earlier agreed to the construction of the memorial, are of the view that the government is using the idea of building a memorial as an excuse to absolve itself of the responsibility of making Dow Chemical Company, the present owner of Union Carbide Corporation, clean up the toxic waste at the site of the disaster.

Babulal Gaur, while talking of better medical help, implicitly admitted that there were long-term effects of the gas leak and justified the relevance of such a Ministry. However, the Ministry, of late, has been trying to negate the hazardous effects of the toxic release, through various government-funded studies on groundwater and soil contamination. The most recent study, which was commissioned by the State government in June, was done by the Gwalior-based Defence Research and Development Establishment. The DRDE, which concluded its study in August, found that the soil samples collected from the factory had very low mammalian toxicity and the waste material was non-reactive to the skin as it was tested safe on rats and rabbits. It went on to say that a human being weighing 70 kg could eat 200 grams of the waste and still be alive.

The government has been using the report to negate the effects of the waste lying in the factory. However, in reply to a Right to Information Act (RTI) petition by some Bhopal activists, government officials indicated that 40 tonnes of the same waste, which was transported to a landfill site in Pithampur near Indore, was too hazardous to be handled by laymen and it required specialists to dispose of the material under the norms of the Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989.

The findings of a study of 12 water samples and eight soil samples in and around the factory, carried out by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), and the findings of which were released on December 2, reveal that the soil and water contamination is much above the Indian standard norms and has caused chronic toxicity. It has also found that the soil and water outside the factory are contaminated with the same chemicals and heavy metals that the Union Carbide factory produced. Notably, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) officials took the same samples along with the CSE officials on the same date. Its results are awaited.

The samples [CPCBs] have gone to SGS and VIMTA laboratories, and the results are yet to come. We cannot predict the results, said S.P Gautam, the CPCB Chairman. Chandra Bhushan, associate director of the CSE, claimed that according to his information the tests had been done and the CPCB had got similar results of contamination, but the findings were being delayed owing to political pressure. He also said that the methods used by the DRDE were unscientific and termed them as junk science.

The most significant study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which surveyed the medical symptoms of the gas victims over a period of five years, was also shelved. N.R. Bhandari, head of five of the 20 projects that the ICMR did, said: In the study, we found how pregnant women and children who were affected by the gas showed hazardous medical symptoms. It was the first medical study of its kind done on the MIC poisoning, but it was shelved without informing us of any reasons. Today, the study is lying in the ICMR office uselessly. Similarly, many studies done by renowned scientific institutions such as the Greenpeace laboratories and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute revealed high levels of toxicity in the soil and groundwater of the area, but the government conveniently chose to ignore all of these and instead flashed the DRDE report.

Warren Anderson, former Union Carbide chairman and the prime accused in the industrial disaster case, who lives in New York, has still not been punished. The criminal case against him is pending in a lower court in Bhopal despite the fact that it was proven that all the four safety mechanisms to prevent MIC leakage had failed on the day of the disaster. There are also reports that excessive compromises with the safety systems had happened before the leak. Dow Chemicals refuses to take up the responsibility of cleaning up the site. In such a context, the question that arises is what could be the pressure on the government that is causing the political inaction.

Documents obtained from the U.S. State Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 1966, reveal some inconvenient truths. For instance, in a letter written to the State Department review authority Archie M. Bolster (dated July, 24, 2003) by a U.S. industry representative, it is explicitly stated that the request to extradite Warren Anderson should be rejected. No issue has greater potential to destroy U.S. business leaders confidence in India than the handling of the Warren Anderson case. It also states that the extradition request was sheer hypocrisy and that its chilling effect on American investment abroad cannot be overstated.

Other documents obtained under the FOIA suggest that the Indian government might not have pursued Andersons extradition on a priority basis. Unclassified documents prepared by the U.S. Consul in Mumbai, dated July 26, 2004, mention the advice of Soli Sorabjee, the Attorney-General of India in 2001, that efforts should not be made to extradite Mr Anderson as there was inadequate evidence to link him directly to the cause of the gas leak. It says, GOI [Government of India] officials may feel that, for political reasons, they need to be perceived as being concerned about extraditing Mr Anderson, although this does not currently appear to be a high priority bilateral issue for the GOI.

Documents obtained by Bhopal activists through RTI reveal Ratan Tatas personal letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister (then Finance Minister) P. Chidambaram and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia in 2006 urging them to let Indian industry clean up the Bhopal site as it was critical for Dow to have the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers withdraw their application for a financial deposit by Dow against the remediation cost. In a letter to Ronen Sen, Indian Ambassador to the U.S. at the time, Dow Chemicals CEO Andrew Liveris requested the Government of India to withdraw the application in return for economic growth in India, including key foreign investments that will promote job creation.

The failure to ensure adequate justice for the Bhopal victims is clearly an outcome of the governments nexus with international finance capital in pursuit of greater liberalisation of the national economy. After 25 years, civil society organisations fighting for justice to the gas victims are on the verge of reinvention. While the umbrella group International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, represented by Satinath Sarangi, which was responsible for bringing the Bhopal disaster to world attention, is focussed on building public opinion against Anderson and Dow Chemical, other important groups, such as the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS) under the leadership of Abdul Jabbar, the Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (BGPSSS) under N.D. Jayaprakash and the Gas Peedith Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha under Balakrishna Namdeo have already waged a political struggle against the free hand given to corporates in the name of investment and the resultant environmental hazards, not only in Bhopal but all over India.

On December 2, in an event named Aur Kitne Bhopal? (How many more Bhopals?), many such peoples movements came together to say that Bhopal cannot be seen in isolation. Bhopal does not remain the only instance of industrial disaster. In the coastal parts of India, thousands of chemical industries are polluting the seas and the government is turning a blind eye to them. We have to stand for the people of India and organise ourselves on broader issues of exploitation. Only then will the Bhopal movement take a leap, said Abdul Jabbar.