Forty years ago, on the night of 2-3 December 1984, the world’s worst industrial disaster took place in our country, in the city of Bhopal.
On that night, in the Union Carbide factory located right next to residential areas of the city, a large quantity of the poisonous gas Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) that was stored in containers on the premises, leaked. The toxic fumes spread rapidly across the city, affecting 36 out of the 56 municipal wards of Bhopal. More than 2500 people were officially stated to have died that night because of gas poisoning, while more than 35,000 people have died since then due to gas related diseases. Severe damage to their health was sustained by about 550,000 others, out of a total population of less than a million at that time.
Both in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and in subsequent months and years, what stands out is the complicity of the officials of the company Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), and the state and central government in hiding their own culpability. Together they cover up the magnitude of the disaster, and then did everything possible to ensure that the affected people never got justice.
UCIL, a huge multinational corporation with its headquarters in the US, was interested in exploiting India as one of the largest markets for chemical pesticides in the world. The gas MIC, with cyanide content, was one of the ingredients in the pesticide Sevin which they sold in the Indian market. Well before the gas leak took place, both local unions and journalists had highlighted the dangers from potential cyanide poisoning. They had warned many times that the city and the areas surrounding the factory were a ticking time bomb. They pointed out that, in their greed to cut costs and maximise their profits, the company had violated safety precautions and had not taken adequate measures needed to store the chemicals properly.
When the toxic gases were released into the air, the first step taken by those in positions of responsibility was to cover up that these gases contained MIC. This led to delay in timely treatment that could have saved hundreds of lives.
The trauma and travails faced by the gas victims were compounded by the false propaganda spread by the authorities and their utter indifference to the plight of the suffering people, in matters relating to medical relief, rehabilitation, documentation and research. The UCC/UCIL had remained totally silent regarding the best possible antidote to MIC-related poisoning. It had staunchly opposed the application of sodium thiosulphate as an antidote. Dr Sriramachari, a leading Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) scientist had later observed that the moment the Bhopal gas disaster took place, the Union Carbide Company adopted a policy of suppression of truth and spreading falsehood. Concerted efforts were made by UCIL and the Indian government authorities to spread maximum disinformation.
Voluntary social organisations, doctors and academics who poured into Bhopal over the next few weeks to help the people, conducted detailed house to house surveys to identify the extent and nature of the damage. The government obstructed their work. It made sure that the results of these surveys were never made public or even made available to agencies involved in relief work. Even the Justice NK Singh Commission appointed to investigate the disaster criticised the state government and its agencies for adopting delaying tactics to make the work of investigation impossible.
As a result, no comprehensive medical records of those affected were kept, leading to lack of proper treatment and compensation.
The chief of UCIL, Warren Andersen, was allowed to escape from India with the help of the central government, even though there was a warrant out for his arrest. He was never held culpable for the crimes of Union Carbide under his leadership.
The central government then resorted to criminally deceptive measures to prevent the lakhs of people affected from getting justice or compensation that they deserved. In March 1985, it ensured the passing of the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act. This gave the government of India the sole right to represent the victims in civil litigation against Union Carbide.
It was the duty of the government of India to defend the interests of the victims of the Bhopal gas disaster and ensure that those who were responsible for this disaster be severely punished. Instead, the subsequent development of events showed that the government of India used this act to defend the interests of UCIL, and attack the interests of the victims of the tragedy.
In 1989, without any consultation or agreement from the victims and their representatives, the government unilaterally concluded an agreement with Union Carbide. It accepted the extremely low sum of US$ 470 million as compensation. The victims and their families received just Rs 1 lakh for each death and Rs 25,000 for lifelong injury. In return, Union Carbide, its subsidiaries and affiliates, were absolved of all civil liabilities for their crime. No criminal proceedings could be instituted against them either. The government even agreed to take up the defence of the company in any further lawsuits that could come up. Thereby, all avenues to seek real justice for the victims were closed permanently.
In spite of this, several organisations of those affected by the disaster have continued to struggle valiantly against all odds for justice.
Numerous studies have indicated that the lessons from the toxic gas leak were never accepted or taken up for implementation to prevent such disasters from taking place again. For the ruling class and the state, the lives of ordinary people are expendable, even when it involves thousands of people felled in one stroke. The abandoned Union Carbide factory compound, still standing with all its equipment rusted and poisonous chemicals leaching into the ground, is a testament to the callous indifference of the authorities towards the health and well-being of the people.
What are the lessons that our people must draw from this calamity? It is that the big capitalists both in India and abroad will stop at nothing to get maximum profits by exploiting our people. It is that these capitalists use the state and all its agencies to facilitate their operations and to cover up for their crimes against the people. None of the organs of the state can be relied upon to get justice for the people from the capitalists.
The masses of working people cannot have any illusions that the existing state will ever defend their interests. The present state in India is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and acts consistently in defence of the interests of the capitalists, allowing them to get away with heinous crimes against the people, including mass murders of this kind.
Forty years after the unprecedented tragedy in Bhopal, we must resolve never to let the memory of the victims and their suffering be forgotten, and to continue our struggle, to stop the rulers from committing further such crimes against our people. We have to step up our struggle with the perspective of replacing the present rule of the bourgeoisie with the rule of the workers, peasants and all the toiling masses, which is the only guarantee against such disasters.