Bhopal memorial. Photo: Luca Frediani, uploaded by Simone.lippi via Wikimedia Commons.
Bhopal: A restorative response
Martin Wright suggests that a merger of two giant chemical companies could herald a fresh start
A common reaction to mention of the Bhopal poison gas disaster in India is: ‘I think I’ve heard of it, but wasn’t it a long time ago?’ Indeed it was, in 1984 to be precise; but many in Britain are unaware that people are still suffering its after-effects. Worse, there has been a second poisoning: deadly chemicals left on the abandoned site are leaching into the water supply.
According to the Bhopal Medical Appeal, to which many Quakers and other British people have contributed, there is an epidemic of unnatural births. Thousands of children are being born malformed, or with brain damage, or both: blind, lame, limbs twisted or missing, deaf-mute, brain-damaged, with cleft lips and palates, webbed fingers, cerebral palsy, and tumours where eyes should be.
These are the children of Bhopal, two generations after the fatal gas leak in 1984. The Sambhavna Clinic, funded by the appeal, treats thousands of survivors and has commissioned large-scale research; preliminary results show tuberculosis and paralysis are significantly commoner than normal, and there are over ten times more cancers than among people not exposed to the gas.
The Union Carbide Corporation
So, how did it all happen? A company controlled by the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) operated a pesticide factory in Bhopal; but safety precautions were skimped, and huge quantities of the volatile, deadly gas methyl isocyanate (MIC) escaped in the early hours of 3 December 1984. Within three days up to 10,000 people had died from exposure to the gas, rising later to an estimated 25,000; up to 500,000 were exposed to the gas and more than 150,000 still suffer from ailments caused by the accident and subsequent pollution. In the immediate aftermath the company took steps that many have argued appeared to aim mainly at limiting the compensation payable and the damage to its reputation.
In 2001 UCC became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company, which claimed, however, that it was taking over UCC’s assets and not its liabilities. In September 2017 Dow in turn merged with DuPont to form the world’s largest chemical company, DowDuPont Inc.
‘Irremediable injustice’
A ‘curative petition’ in India’s Supreme Court aiming to address inadequacies within the 1989 civil settlement of the initial disaster ($470 million) remains stalled despite the Indian government’s official position stating that the ‘gross inadequacy’ of the 1989 settlement, with Union Carbide, resulted in an ‘irremediable injustice’.
To this day, Union Carbide has never answered the criminal charges outstanding against it; and its current owner, Dow, when summonsed to explain why it should not produce Union Carbide to the courts, simply did not turn up. Marches, hunger strikes and other protests have not succeeded in persuading the government to take decisive action.
A small group of Quakers and others are trying another way. It is inspired by a case reported by the Australian criminologist John Braithwaite in his book Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation.
Insurance companies were selling worthless policies to poorly educated Aboriginal communities, among others. Top managers from the companies visited them and met the victims; some went back to the city ashamed of what their company had done. There were discussions with regulators and even the prime minister, and reforms to the law and regulations followed. This restorative problem solving was accomplished without going to court (except for two individuals who refused to cooperate).
The group, called Restorative Action for Bhopal, has tried to secure face-to-face contact, so far without success, but plans to continue. It will enlist the support of influential people and also use other approaches, such as letter writing. It will avoid the all-too-easy ‘blame game’; instead, it will concentrate on the humanitarian and human rights implications, as well as focusing on the commercial advantages to the newly merged company of starting with a clean slate and demonstrating its expertise in removing contaminants, such as arsenic and mercury, from water.
The group is in touch with the Quaker South Asia Interest Group and Quakers in Bhopal. All like-minded people who would like to help are invited to get in touch. This is only one example among many of a multinational company causing severe environmental damage through its operations in less developed countries. There is beginning to be a recognition that businesses have a responsibility to put ‘people and the planet alongside profits’, to quote from The B-Team, a not-for-profit initiative formed ‘to catalyze a better way of doing business’.
This is a welcome statement of principle, and it is up to all of us to hold them to it. But as Bhopal is the most serious and longest-running case, it should be at the forefront of such a campaign.
Three victims
The leak of poisons in Bhopal produced thousands and thousands of victims. These are just three of them:
Humera is three years old and has a serious development delay. Humera’s grandmother was exposed to Union Carbide’s poison gas in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster. Humera and her parents live in the Nawab Colony area, where they were exposed to the water contaminated by toxic waste while the Union Carbide factory (now abandoned) was still in production. This contaminated groundwater aquifer has been the primary drinking water source for tens of thousands of people for many years and is widely believed to be the cause of a spate of health problems and birth defects now affecting a third generation in the communities living there.
Ateek Uddeen is fifteen years old and suffers from cerebral palsy. Both his parents were exposed to Union Carbide’s poison gas in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster.
Enna is five years old and suffers from mental retardation along with cerebral palsy. Enna’s father was exposed to Union Carbide’s poison gas in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, and her mother died two years ago.
