BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY
More than three decades have passed by but the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy still wait desperately to attain justice. How long will it take for the nation to compensate the victims of the unprecedented industrial calamity?
Priyanka Yadav/ The New Leam
The Bhopal Gas Tragedy was perhaps the worst man-made tragedies to have affected India. This primarily comprised of an accident caused due to gas leakage in the city of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh in 1984. The incident occurred on the night of 2-3rd December at the Union Carbide India pesticide plant located in Bhopal. It is counted amongst the worst industrial disasters affecting more than 500,000 people. The toxic gas released impacted lives around the city of Bhopal. The disaster led to the deaths of thousands of people and permanently disabled hundreds of others. Activists and concerned people argue that slack management and low maintenance triggered the disaster in Bhopal.
Dow Cooperation was the United States Company which took over Union Carbide (The Company responsible for Bhopal Gas Tragedy) in 2001 as a result of which all legal and financial liabilities of Union carbide were transferred to the new firm Dow Cooperation. With the new merger of Dow Cooperation with the DuPont Nemours it will lead to spilt of the DowDupont incorporated into three different entities. This spilt will take place on June 1, 2019 after which Union Carbide Corporation will cease to be a legal entity and Indian courts then cannot file any charges on Union Carbide for the gas tragedy.
According to the organisation which supports the gas tragedy victim they wrote multiple letters to the Modi government and the State government but they never received a positive response from them. Both the government did not even care to update the claimants about any progress, as the organisation claimed.
The organisation, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal submitted its report claiming that the BJP government has failed to address the issues of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Victim.
The report has outlined three major avenues of disappointment and dissatisfaction faced by the victims at the hand of the BJP government.
The report claims that since August 2014 to August 2018, the high court of Madhya Pradesh has issued in total six summons to Dow Chemicals. But Dow Chemicals have instead ignored entire summons and have not appeared in the court at all.
According to the report by the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, the court issued six summons to Dow Chemical between August 2014 and July 2018, when the Modi government was in power. The summon was issued through to the Union Ministry for Home Affairs, which was supposed to ask the US government’s Department of Justice to ensure that Dow Chemical received the summons. But Dow Chemical ignored all six summons and did not appear before the court. The government of India further did not press the corporate giant to respond back.
The report has further pointed out towards the lack of willingness of the Modi government to provide better compensation for the victims of the gas tragedy.
The report mentions that the government data on the deaths which occurred in the tragedy is wrong and misleading. As the government records have shown that there were 5, 295 deaths but according to the records of the Indian Council of Medical Research the death toll went up to 22,917. The report also accuses the government for not taking care of people who sustained long term injuries and loss. The government has only compensated for the immediate and temporary loss.
It isn’t that the victims have started making demands during the Modi regime, no, their demands have been long pending, governments have come and gone but their atrocities have still not been addressed. Be it the Congress, be it the Modi government, victims have held protests, demonstration they have been writing letters, but no government has paid any substantial heed to their concern.
The third issue which the report claims is the no willingness of the government to allow any fresh survey for the victims who were affected in the tragedy.
The report notes that, in 2014 the organisation Campaign for Justice requested the United Nations Environment to conduct fresh survey in Bhopal to check the level of contamination in state. The United Nations agreed to the request but before initiating the survey the organisation required permissions from the government of India.
The organisation was hopeful to get the permission but strangely the government denied them permission. Not only this, the government also refused to take into consideration the survey reports of the independent institutes in India. This denial affected the compensation process of victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
The Bhopal Gas tragedy was an outcome of crony capitalism in India. The tragedy pointed out many fingers on the state, government, authorities, industrialists and individuals. The tragedy was representation of the alienation theory explained by Marx. The existence of Union Carbide Corporation not only exploited the workers of the Indian state but it is still continuing to affect their future generation. Reports and data have shown the children are still born with some or other physical ailment due to the contamination of ground water by iso-cynannide.
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The most unfortunate fact here is denial of the state to help the victims of the tragedy. Abdul Jabbar also a victim and the convenor of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan in his interaction with the media stated that “We have been betrayed by all political parties, and we have become outsiders in our own home. For us, the BJP is as good as the Congress.”
The residents and the struggling victims of the tragedy have realised that now that the elections are near political parties will make promises and suddenly become empathetic towards them But keeping in mind their long standing struggle for justice the people of Bhopal have decided to not give into fake promises.
They collectively made a statement that the candidate who is willing to give at least pay Rs. 5, 00,000 compensation to the state will be brought to power. The fate of the government to be formed at the centre will be decided this way too. More than thirty years have passed since the Bhopal Gas tragedy took place but those who suffered the tragedy continue to await justice in desperation. How will their destinies be altered?
