Ten, fifteen, twenty thousand killed, blinded and maimed and their distraught families keep screaming – in person or in spirit – on Bhopal and New Delhi streets. We’ll compensate them with some small money and then turn the page on the history book and move forward; better yet, erase that history from newly published text books. Happily, in today’s Jai Ho Incredible India, nobody gives a hoot about history. So, no bother.
Rewind to 1984. Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide, stepped into Bhopal on December 7, four days after the hellish gas-chamber genocide, and was quickly arrested. However, at the directives of a mysterious few at the top, he got an immediate bail, and escaped India to return to his Long Island Hamptons palace for good, never to return to India to face any charges.
Who let him off the hook? Who could have made that ‘let him go’ call? Nobody knows. But just a couple of days ago, we read newspaper reports that then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh (where Bhopal is the state capital) got a VVIP telephone call. The caller asked Arjun Singh to release Anderson immediately. We might want to talk to him now to know more. In all necessity, we must do it; after all, he is now quite old.
But why did they let Warren Anderson go? This man now lives in his mega mansion only a short two hours driving distance from my dilapidated Brooklyn; he’s as happy as a grasshopper and dandy as a Dalmatian, surrounded by his friends and relatives and exclusive golf clubs.
Had he been held in India back then and questioned and tried under Indian criminal laws, we could have gotten a lot of precious information out of him. We could have known the names of the people – both Indian and American – behind the criminal negligence that caused the deadly methyl isocyanate gas to leak out of the factory, and just like a nuclear cloud, killed at least fifteen thousand poor workers and their families and children (official figure) and permanently blinded and crippled at least fifty thousand more.
Was there any bribe involved before or after the catastrophe, and if so, who gave and took it? How much big money was involved? Who in the political circles meddled in the wrongdoings?
In fact, we would have also gotten information about what are some of the ways ‘globalized’ Indian corporations and their trustee politicians do such deal-making with their American and Western counterparts. Warren Anderson could enlighten us a great deal about the ‘great’ deals.
But, we came to know nothing.
As soon as the Indian officials let Anderson jump bail and flee India, the investigation and trial of the worst industrial disaster in the history of mankind became a lightweight backburner, dragging the legal proceedings over the next twenty-five years. Just two days ago, the Indian courts finally convicted only eight people – the sentence is a ridiculous, laughable two years in jail and two thousand dollars in fine. Plus, all the convicted are free on bail, with a possibility that they’ll never go to prison.
Warren Anderson must be laughing his tail off sitting in front of his TV set in the plush Hamptons.
We Indians are ‘Gandhians’ – we do not believe in violence to avenge violence, or terror against terror. The powers that be perhaps went one step above and decided that no matter what the crime is, they’re never going to do any harm to an American or European multinational corporation. Because that might hurt the Indian government’s business-friendly image, and trouble the up-and-coming Westernized MTV-McDonald-generation Indian middle class and their quest for personal wealth.
Another Bhopal coming up? Some old-fashioned journalist already signaled a red flag, just the way they did it six months before the December 1984 disaster? We’ll look the other way and stick the other cheek they can slap.
The Independent, the British paper, reported that when Greenpeace – that “radical-commie” environment and human rights group – tracked down Anderson to his luxury home back in 2002, the group attempted to hand him a symbolic copy of a warrant for his arrest. How rude! How arrogant! What violation of a peaceful, private American citizen’s rights! We don’t hear from Greenpeace any more; must be that New York courts took care of them soon after.
We don’t believe in violence of any kind – Greenpeace or Redface. Didn’t I say we were all big ‘Gandhians’? Stay the course.
(Partha Banerjee is a New York based college professor, labor and immigrant rights activist. The opinion is of the author.)
Gas Tragedy 2 – Benign Sentence for the Worst Disaster
– The Telegraph
Bhopal, June 7: Guilt— the death of at least 15,000. Punishment — two years in jail but bail for now.
Seven ageing Indian men walked out of a Bhopal court with a sense of relief today, convicted of negligence that caused the world’s worst industrial disaster 26 years ago but spared jail till their appeals are disposed of — a process that could take years.
Outside, thousands of gas victims wept in disappointment, calling the sentence of two years’ jail and Rs 1.01 lakh in fines a “joke” after a 23-year trial that moved at a snail’s pace.
Read the full story here
2 Comments
Why is Bhopal being treated like a stepchild? Why is this money not distributed yet? How can India move forward with justice denied to so many of its citizens – and unborn generations? So many questions, and so few answers.
Obviously a deeply thought out piece, Partha.
The brouhaha over Warren Anderson, while it expresses a deep indignation and rightfully so, doesn’t serve much more than the Indian politician’s deflection strategy. Of great relevance is the answer to the question, what about the key Indian executives of this who were on location and in a superior position to judge the hazards that the plant presented? Warren Anderson and his crew at best provided distant advice and surely not the last word on actions to be taken.
We did not need to repatriate them to prosecute them diligently – how come they are never talked about and get away with light sentences and will not serve time as bail was granted immediately?
Mr.Keshub Mahindra, the Chairman of Union Carbide India, was awarded a lifetime achievement award by India’s very own TIMES GROUP in 2007 – How did that happen?
India obviously has greater talent in media management than it has in law enforcement.
Of the 470 million that Union Carbide paid, 390 million dollars still lie undistributed (after two decades) to the victims who are treated like grass under the feet of the politicians and big business. 30 people die every month on an average from reasons linked to the disaster, babies are still born with birth defects.
The rapacious system that we have built between business and politics works only in spreadsheet arithmetic.
If this isn’t a travesty, what is?