Bhopal verdict — a disappointment?

The Bhopal verdict came and went.
Many people were disappointed. But seriously, what were they expecting?
We lost the Bhopal battle long ago, again and again. Yesterday, it was just once again that we lost it.
December 3, 1984: People dying like flies after inhaling the Methyl Isocyanate emanating from the Union Carbide factory. Doctors helplessly watching them die as they did not know what the poison was and what drug to administer.
Warren Anderson CAME to India. You cannot fault him on that. Then we just helped him leave, made all the arrangements and wished him Godspeed... Am not surprised he never came back.
We said it was criminal negligence when it was culpable homicide. If people working at a pesticide plant did not know switching off a refigeration unit would have affected the safety standards at the factory and proved devastating, as they did in 1983, what were they doing there? Why were they allowed to be there? And if they did something so inane, should it be negligence or homicide? It could be negligence if they did not know...but there is evidence that they were informed about the act and the dangers it posed.
Why did we let them off?
We asked for more than 3 billion dollars in compensation. Forget the 15,000 and counting lives lost. That sum, disbursed well, could have helped those who survived live a life of dignity with better medical facilities and probably research that could prevent the disastrous effect the fumes had on generations to come.
We settled for a pittance. $470 million...We sold ourselves and our people for that sum. Whom were we trying to appease?
We let a case that involved the immediate death of 3,000 people and the subsequent deaths of thousands others drag for more than two decades. We never made the attempt to make the man who headed the Union Carbide accountable for the disaster the company caused.
We forged new ties with the company in its myriad forms. We accepted funds from it in other ways. We told the people they were hallucinating when they claimed the water in the area was poisoned.
We allowed the generations that followed forget the Bhopal Gas Tragedy so much so that in Bhopal today there are people who did not what happened on a cold winter night of 1984.
We clamour for justice. We want those men to be sent to the gallows. And we are disappointed when seven of them get two years in prison. Why?
The people who are struggling everyday for pure drinking water, adequate compensation and more may be agitating because they believe in justice. I am sure they will appeal the trial court's verdict.
But I am a cynic. Or have I become one? I know the same politicans who allowed Anderson to get away, who claim the water from the area surrounding Union Carbide's skeletal factory is drinkable, will be voted back to power. And they will continue to spend millions on building a memorial for the gas victims even as they cite paucity of funds when it comes to spending on research into the ongoing effects of the dance of death.
And the same politicians will set up more memorials when another such industrial disaster, god forbid, occurs in some other unsuspecting factory in some other part of the country.
For God's sake, there's more to worry about right now. And public memory is short-lived. We will wait for the next anniversary before raking the same old facts again. Meanwhile, life will go on in the ghettoes of old Bhopal, and in a sunny villa somewhere in the US.

More Bhopal

Bhopal -- 25 years of living with a toxic tragedy.

At this same moment two decades and a half ago, poisonous fumes leaked out of a pesticide plant in Bhopal, killing thousands of people. According to government figures about 3,000 people died. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, between 8,000 and 10,000 people died in the first three days of the gas leak. About 25,000 died of exposure to radiation within the next ten years.

Tragic, isn't it? That an industrial disaster could have caused so much death and destruction?

But what is more tragic is that 25 years later, the government still claims that there are no hazardous chemical wastes in the Union Carbide factory or around it. This, when independent groups have conducted research that calls their bluff.

To add to it, the Madhya Pradesh government wants about Rs 116 crore from the Centre to build a Hiroshima-type memorial at the site.

Isn't it crazy? Rs 116 crore, which is almost 5% of the total sum the Indian government got as compensation for the thousands of victims affected by the leak of methyl isocyanate will be spent on setting up a memorial for the victims. So much of it can be spent on medical research that may find cures to the various kinds of ailments that come with drinking poison everyday. After all, isn't it tragic, that even 25 years after a pesticide plant misfired and shut down, children are still born with deformities?

Or with foresight, the government may find a more permanent and lasting solution to the drinking water problem there, so that at least from now on, they will not be drinking contaminated water.

The government could also spend the money on cleaning up the crap left behind by Union Carbide, so that there can be an end to the continued contamination. There could be special facilities for those affected by the gas leak.

But no, what we want there, is a memorial, where more and more politicians in future can go to pay homage to the people they have failed and will continue to fail.

What will be the purpose of such a memorial? To remember the futility of the deaths? To keep reminding ourselves of how well we have failed them? Or to pat ourselves on our back that we have the courage to continue working and making people work in death traps such as the Union Carbide plant?

It really makes me wonder about the value of human life. Is there any value for life? Or have we stooped so far below into the depths of greed that we do not care anymore?

Will things change? What is the price of justice? What is the fruit of justice?

When we have deadlines for everything, why not for something as basic as a deadline to provide the right to a life of dignity so that we don't die like flies stuck to a swatter, helpless, and oblivious to the greater heights we can aspire for.

It's 1.26 am. Maybe the fumes would have been churning now, waiting to escape into the dark starry night and poison a city's destiny. May be I should just go to bed and leave the world handle its minor glitches on its own.

:(

Bhopal Again

Another date on the calendar, or is it just another date?

When 25 years ago, thousands of people dropped dead

Like flies swarming to those same dead bodies...

Today, they are but photographs and memories

Not lessons learnt and lessons that should have been learnt.

A toxic gas leaked they said, blinding, killing, maiming

Accidents happen. Deaths are inevitable.

But what of the generations of maimed we bring into this imperfect world?

Twenty-five years ago, the B&W photo of a child stunned by toxic fumes

Shocked living rooms across the world

Today the same child gazes out with those same haunting eyes

From the same B&W photo out of the same newspapers

It surprisingly fails to move me the way it did the first time

Something has snapped.

Is it the hope that things will change?

That the child’s life was not lost in vain?

It's all about numbers and facts.

So many dead, so many dying,

Chemicals with fancy names, fancier aims

Bleed people, day in and day out.

Poison water in a ghost town.

More children are born with the scar of a mistake made 25 years ago

More children will die, because that wrong was never righted

Because we have lost the will to fight for justice

Because we do not care any more about deaths, disease and despair

Because we have become numb to everything around us

Because we have to be worried about tomorrow's headlines & today's deadlines

Much deeper than the toxic wastes seeping into the ground

A cynicism has seeped into our collective existence.

We are all in a stupor, chasing a fading finish line

Where the only way to get is grab

Where the only progress is regressive

Where the only pleasure is pain

And where the only knowledge is ignorance.

Forgive us O unnamed child of Bhopal,

Who died in 1984 and lived forever after,

That we have failed you and so many others like you

That we have sacrificed your lives

In this race for some unnamed utopia that keeps us going.

Maybe there will be a time for redemption

Or maybe there is no Judgment Day

Till whatever the end, it's just another disaster

Just another anniversary

Just another date in just another yellowing calendar.