To the President of India Pranab Mukherjee and the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi,
I am writing in follow up of my earlier email pointing out retired Supreme Court Judge Deepak Verma's dubious role in covering up the extent of damage to human life and health cause by the Bhopal gas leak, in denying victims their rightful claims to compensation, and in helping Union Carbide, Dow Chemical and the Government of India to evade liability for the massive impact upon the victims, those who inhaled the gas that night, those who were born thereafter with defects attributable to the effects of the gas inhaled by parents and upon those who continue to live in and be affected by the toxic waste left behind by Union Carbide.
I point out that Deepak Verma who was appointed to the Supreme Court of India in 2009 as a reward for his services towards this cover-up when he was Welfare Commissioner for Bhopal between 2003 and 2008 authored only 19 judgements in his three years at the Supreme Court and none of them is of any lasting significance. He was completely unfit to be a Supreme Court Judge, yet he had shown himself as pliable, had served the pro-US and complicit political establishment (read Dr Manmohan Singh and cronies) in the Bhopal gas leak aftermath well, and was therefore rewarded with this post.
http://bandb.savasinc.net/content/212/verdictum-justice-deepak-verma#.VIVRBzGUf_I
Deepak Verma authored only 19 judgments in almost 3 years at the Supreme Court. He was Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court for only 2 months before he was appointed to the Supreme Court.
My research on the Bhopal gas leak disaster led me to wonder if the gas leak was planned or deliberate, a scenario which Union Carbide itself suggested but which Indian authorities did not investigate.
I found that in more recent years, with the access that the internet has provided to the wealth of information available about the Bhopal gas leak, several persons besides me have started to question if the Bhopal gas leak was a planned test/ demonstration of chemical weapons by a foreign agency on what were considered dispensable lives of poor Indians. I reproduce some of this material available on the internet on this issue below.
There are several facts which point to the real possibility that a foreign intelligence agency like the CIA might have been behind the Bhopal gas leak. There are several suspicious facts. The exact mix of the gases released was never known nor disclosed. Union Carbide refused to share its research on the toxic effects of methyl isocyanate. The fact that the antidote for cyanide was discouraged by Union Carbide officials. The fact that a huge amount of this gas was stored in the plant for no valid reason. The fact that the design and safety deficiencies in the plant were so gross. The fact that the warning siren was delayed. The fact that slums were encouraged to be set up close to the plant in 1984 itself. The fact that early research studies were suspiciously terminated. The fact that between 1984 and 1989 no real data was collected on the human impact of the gas leak. The fact that early forensic evidence collected in the days and weeks after the gas leak from the dead/ victims is all missing. The fact that medical evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of victims has been grossly lacking in quality. The evidence pointing to the inexplicable presence of phosgene in the plant and in the victims. The fact that the plant held a seminar on chemical and biological weapons in 1984 itself. The fact that the plant was likely a chemical weapons manufacturing facility.
Note that 1984 was a tumultuous year for India, with the Khalistan separatist terrorist movement at its height, with Operation Bluestar, the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi, the Sikh riots, and the assumption of the Prime Minister post by Rajiv Gandhi. Was the Bhopal gas leak intended to destabilise India? Was it a chemical weapons test on Indian soil by a foreign intelligence agency like the CIA? Was it a planned chemical weapons attack on Indian soil and against Indian citizens by a then hostile foreign intelligence agency (read the CIA)? Now of course the CIA has penetrated deep into India's political/ judicial/ police/ bureaucratic/intelligence establishments at the highest levels.
The truth about the Bhopal gas leak is still to emerge it appears.
I request that you set up a broad-based commission of inquiry to look into this. The issue is too big to be simply ignored.
Seema Sapra
Bhopal gas tragedy: The man who tried to expose Union Carbide and the warnings that were ignored
Rupashree Nanda, CNN-IBN
@ibnlive
New Delhi: Journalist Rajkumar Keswani shot into fame in the aftermath of the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984. His passionate stories in 1982, warning of the disaster waiting to happen were ignored. Keswani was so convinced about the threat the pesticide plant of UCIL posed to Bhopal that he wrote to the then chief minster Arjun Singh, all the members of the Legislative Assembly of Madhya Pradesh and even petitioned to the Supreme Court and yet nothing moved. Keswani's was a solitary voice that was ignored. The Bhopal gas tragedy struck six months after Keswani wrote his last article. Speaking to CNN-IBN's Rupashree Nanda, Keswani revists some defining moments of the world's worst industrial disaster:
Why did the Bhopal gas tragedy happen:
It happened because of the greed of corporates like Union Carbide to make money, it happened because we live in such a corrupt system where the government works hand in hand with big corporate houses and helps them to violate the laws. Had they followed all the safety systems provided by the law as required, this would not have happened. Why is not a question, why was it allowed to happen is the question? Our political bosses in the country are more concerned about their own well being than of people. They can sell people. Human lives have no value. They are more concerned about themselves, their families and their party.
Bhopal gas tragedy: The man who tried to expose Union Carbide and the warnings that were ignored
Rajkumar Keswani's passionate stories in 1982, warning of the disaster waiting to happen were ignored.
#bhopal gas tragedy #union carbide #warren anderson #ucil
Warnings that were ignored:
In 1978, there was a fire in the Union Carbide plant and it was in the Naphthol store. At that time people had no idea. A large crowd had gathered and even I was one of those in the crowd. This company was better identified with the torch cells, Eveready batteries, not with the kind of chemicals they were using and not with the kind of products like sevin and temic. It was known to people dealing with agriculture but not to the common man. The UCIL had a great reputation in Bhopal because it was the only multinational operating here and, those who were working with Carbide (UCIL) were treated with utter respect. Hence, there was little scope for doubt about Union Carbide. There was a question. The sky was covered by dark cloud. There was a bad smell. In 1981, a friend, Mohammad Ashraf who was working with Union Carbide got exposed to Phosgene and died. That was the alarm (for me) from where I started working on it. It was tough because I had no science background. I found 2 persons who were fired - Bashirullah and Shankar Malvia. They helped me to get a foothold there. With all manuals and confidential reports, it was nine months before I could write my first piece in 1982. After going through all information, one basic fact stuck with me was that Phosgene and MIC were heavier than air and something which is heavier would come down and settle down. When I found that such huge quantity is being stored and there were three tanks, then I wrote my first piece saying, "Bachayiye huzoor, is sheher ko bachayiye" (Sir save the city), giving all the details I had.
But when I did that, it went unheeded. There was no response from government. As an afterthought, I feel that people could not believe it because there has been no precedence of this kind. Even my circulation was very limited. It did not have an impact. I wrote another article with an alarming and sensational headline, "Bhopal sitting on top of volcano". I attempted another time because lives of people were at stake. I was angry with myself. I had seen from inside that all safety norms had been bypassed. Even pipelines were not in very good shape. That was dangerous. I did my second piece on October 1 and on October 5 there was a small leak inside the plant. Methyl IsoCyanate (MIC) did leak. That was controlled within limits. But it did impact nearby population and people had to escape to save lives. But, because it was contained so quickly, police did not register a case, there were no complaints. If at all it was investigated, it was investigated by the factories inspector. It was not a big deal, it was not even reported in the local media properly. So I did my third piece on October 8 and I narrated the story of what happened that night. I said this is an indication of things to come - I wrote a headline, "Na samjhoge to mit hi jaoge" (If you don't understand, then you will be wiped out). Everyone would try and convince me that what you say will never happen. You are wrong. We know better that you. The factory inspector suggested if I had any problems with Carbide (UCIL) I could talk. I wrote a letter to the then chief minister Arjun Singh to constitute a committee and to save the city. I went to members of state assembly and I persuaded them to raise it in assembly and it was raised. The concerned minister informed the house that he had visited the factory, (and assured the house that) there will be water curtains that will contain the gas leak if it happened. When some members insisted why not shift the factory? Someone said it was not a piece of stone! Then I sent a petition to the Supreme Court in 1982 itself and just got an acknowledgement. I left Bhopal for a year.
When I returned, once again I started working on same story. After six months, I did a longer piece for Jansatta on the June 16, 1984. The Editor Mr Prabhas Joshi gave it a great display. That was just six months before the disaster. Even after that when nothing happened, I felt that this is the most that I could have done. Before I could think of anything else, came the illfated December.
When Warren Anderson visited Bhopal:
When Warren Anderson arrived and was arrested, he was taken to the Union Carbide guest house at Shamla hills. A large number of journalists had reached and I was one of those. There was a huge wall and no one was allowed into the guest house where Anderson was. I climbed the wall to look into the Carbide guest house. I was just trying to look inside, I think it was Mark Fineman from Philadelphia Inquirer who said, "Rajkumar come down, come down. Anderson is already gone, I just spoke to American embassy and they have organized it." Anderson was received by the district magistrate and the superintendent of police at the airport, and midway he was politely informed that he was arrested. He started shouting, he was taken not to the police station not to the court but to his guest house. From there he made a call to the American Embassy. The American Embassy got into action and someone (name not clear) at the Ministry of External Affairs was contacted, then the Home Ministry, then the PMO. Rajiv Gandhi was then campaigning in Harda for elections and Arjun Singh was with him. Arjun Singh left instruction with local administration and was gone. When Rajiv Gandhi returned, Arjun Singh got instructions to release from the PMO because there was lot of pressure from the American embassy. Hence they provided him a state aircraft and he was sent back to Delhi the very same evening. When Anderson reached New York, he held a press conference and he said, "I was treated with utmost courtesy and respect, they were very nice to me, I have no complaints, it was done for my safety!"
Listen, the PMO cannot act on his own without the PM's consent. Because, in absence of the PM, they did not pass on any instructions. Only after Rajiv Gandhi reached Delhi, the instructions passed.
Justice Kochar Commission yet to submit report, Anderson dead:
In 1985, a commission was appointed which was headed by Justice NK Singh. It had been working for a year but once the state government found out that it was going to nail their guilt they abandoned it midway. Again, after a long gap, another commission was set up. But the cases are already decided, the main accused are dead. When Anderson died, people were saying one accused has died. Call me a cynic, nobody is going to be punished now. Mr K who was representing the victims has died, Justice Deb who passed an interim order died, KB Rai Choudhury died, thousands of victims have died, lawyers, judges and even Keshub Mahindra is an old man. By the time the case comes to a conclusion and a call is made from this court, there will be no answer because everybody would be dead. I am sure they will all die a natural death. Our legal system is such that you can make it go merry go round. Puri saluted Anderson while he was leaving!
Collective failure:
It is not A, B or C who has failed. We have failed collectively. Judiciary if it cannot decide a case involving half a million lives, what do you say about this? What do you say about CBI which could not properly investigate and represent? What do you say of political bosses who helped Carbide get away? They asked for $3.3 billion and accepted $470 million! Look at the medical fraternity. In those areas the quacks have become rich because real doctors never attended to the victims. Even properly qualified doctors had no clue. Everyone over here has flourished and prospered except the gas victims.
We simply fail to learn. Just one example - 25 years after this disaster, in 2010, I was working on a documentary for ESPN on playgrounds around Union Carbide where children play. They get diseases and no one is bothered. Had you learnt any lessons, this would not have happened. They entered into a settlement with a figure of 3000 deaths when by their own admission, they had acknowledged 15,000. Now there is a case is pending in front of the Supreme Court that looks for more compensation because the money that was actually meant for 3000 death cases and 1.5 lakh injury case - was actually distributed among 15,000 death cases and half a million people. Learning is not in our culture. We just talk of learning, but we don't learn.
Bhopal gas disaster: Leak that gassed a generation
Subodh Varma, TNN | Dec 3, 2014, 06.17AM IST
inShare
Bhopal gas tragedy
After 17 years, on July 25, 2001, SC ordered that I-cards be issued to gas victims, and permanent cards given to those who need lifelong medical aid.
NEW DELHI: Can a state government neglect repeated Supreme Court orders for over 13 years? Can a central government petition gather dust in SC, unheard even once for nearly four years? Such bizarre episodes are just the most recent ones in the never-ending saga of Bhopal gas disaster victims and their search for justice.
After 17 years, on July 25, 2001, SC ordered that I-cards be issued to gas victims, and permanent cards given to those who need lifelong medical aid. It ordered that medical records be computerized and booklets containing medical history be given to victims.This'd ensure proper treatment to all victims. The court repeated the order on May 2, 2006, July 17, 2007, November 15, 2007 and August 9, 2012.
A court-appointed monitoring committee made the same recommendations on June 10, 2005, Oct 31, 2005, July 12, 2006, Dec 20, 2006, Aug 7, 2007 and May 27, 2008. An advisory committee said the same.
READ ALSO: It's time to fix the future — No more Bhopals
This should be sufficient pressure on the MP government to fulfill a basic responsibility. But the reality is shocking. A report submitted by the monitoring panel this June says: "So far as computerization is concerned.......the same isn't satisfactory and isn't patient-centric, it doesn't appear useful in affording history of treatment of patients when they approach doctors". This mean no medical history is available on the digital database. "Issuance of health booklets to patients is inadequate," the monitoring committee says. The socalled booklets contain name, father's name, address, but no medical information. Thirty years after the disaster, over 5.5 lakh survivors suffer from ailments and disability and are susceptible to diseases.The Indian Council of Medical Research's recent survey of affected people says morbidity, that's prevalence of disease among gas victims, is "21.5% in severely exposed areas, 17.2% in moderately exposed and 18.1% in mildly exposed areas, higher than 8% morbidity in control areas."
In 2012, SC noted that 80% of specialist and 30% of doctors' posts were vacant in gasrelief hospitals. Besides hampering treatment of patients, this helps unscrupulous operators peddle treatments and spurious drugs, activists say.
Why are medical records important? The main reason is that survivors getting sympto matic and palliative treatment across hospitals and outreach centres are shunted from one place to another. Doctors don't know the medical history and only superficial treatment is given, activists say.
Another issue linked to the health booklets and digitization is that it'd clearly identify the nature of disability suffered by each victim and determine their numbers. This'd be essential for further compensation payments, as are expected, and as the Centre has sought in a 2010 petition in SC. This curative petition seeks to amend the 1986 SC-supervised settlement between the Centre and Union Carbide that led to a paltry compensation. The story of this petition is another of those legal riddles that forms part of the Bhopal bhool-bhullaiya. Even after filing of the petition four years ago, not one hearing has been held. Dates are fixed and cancelled. Sometimes months pass by with no date fixed, says N D Jaiprakash, an activist involved in Bhopal cases for the three decades.
WHO ENGINEERED BHOPAL GAS LEAK AND MANAGED ITS IMPACT?
NavenduMahodayaNavenduMahodaya / 4 yrs ago / 2
http://creative.sulekha.com/who-engineered-bhopal-gas-leak-and-managed-its-impact_475028_blog
Ever wondered, 'Why Bhopal Gas Leak of 1984 still hurts? Why it still haunts every Indian with a mind and soul?'
Because: It reminds us of our inability to function as a Nation. It reminds us of our inability to be true Indians. It reminds us of our inability to take a stand where it is needed.
I have worked in a plant of a Multinational Company and have closely observed working of several MNCs in the field of Light & Heavy Engineering, Banking and Chemical including hazardous industries. The kind of safety and precautionary practices pursued by them are so exhaustive that they have Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for situations like War, Civil War and Enemy Occupation along with workers' strike and organized and occasional thefts. Further, these SOPs are reviewed every quarter or six months to adjust those in light of operational and ground realities. It is hard to believe that a MNC like Union Carbide would over look safety and allow rusted valves and fittings to be there in place. It is equally unpalatable that their local partners Mahindras, who knew the very nature of enterprise, would instruct to cut corners in Maintenance Budgets so that such a folly may take place. Further, it appears next to impossible that industrial workers, particularly those employed in the maintenance section would indulge in malpractices that may lead to such disaster. The workers' first concern would be their own safety as in case of a disaster they would be first to face the dire consequences and certain death.
Therefore it appears certain that those faulty fittings and valves were placed there by design for the specific purpose of sabotage. And who could have gained any worthwhile mileage from such sabotage.
To understand who could be behind such sabotage, let us delve further towards the genesis of events and the strategy that was at work. The gas that killed so many, so ruthlessly, and so efficiently, was actually being manufactured for America's Chemical Weapons Program. Who was the buyer in the front is irrelevant. The destination was American Government or its agency or arm like Pentagon or some other such outfit.
What Bhopal Disaster has effectively done for America? It is some what similar to what two atom bomb explosions in Japan did towards the end of WWII. The message is loud and clear- "Do not mess around with us. We have deadly chemical weapons waiting to be unleashed." It happened in 1984 and in that era the world had just finished many rounds of talks to stop the spread of Atomic Weapons. And in such an era it would be impossible to test new weapons of mass destruction, yet power can only be felt by viewers when it is adequately demonstrated.
It is also reported on TV Channels that Chairman of Union Carbide was not traceable in USA. Could he be cooling his heals under a comfortable Identity Change Program of an American Agency? After all, didn't he serve their national interest of intimidating world about new American prowess about chemical weapons?
Now focus attention on American Government and its different agencies and extended arms. The work Government of America can not get done by its officially authorized armed forces is entrusted to its different agencies. Now an agency like CIA in not exactly in charity business. It does not fight hunger is different continents. It is in business of creating influence & paths that are not possible to be created by legitimate and civilized means. It creates situations in which American Government's policies and practices may be applauded by all and sundry. In past it alleged to have killed difficult leaders, and head of states only to make room for acceptance of American Foreign Policy. It is well known that Osama Bin Laden was once aligned to this or one such agency; who then lost control of this dreaded man. CIA has resources of all kinds in most capitals of the world. It is rumored that once when Pakistan was considering use of Atomic Weapon against India, that attempt was stopped before an order could be effectively released from the meeting where it was under consideration.
The landing of Warren Anderson in Bhopal and his flight back to America has signatures of a CIA operational efficiency. If the pulling of levers involved black mail and/or threatening and/or bribing of functionaries of Government of India & Madhya Pradesh and/or Politicians; it could not have been handled by Warren Anderson or his Management Team alone. He or any functionary of Union Carbide or any one in Keshub Mahindra's Empire in India would not have adequate resources and possess classified & clandestine information needed to tilt the scales in favor of Warren Anderson's exit (read escape). It would have to come from an agency like CIA, who had such a vast stake in the whole Gas Leak at Bhopal. They could not let an alley like Warren Anderson stranded in jail at Bhopal. After all he provided the very platform for conducting a genocide that would terrorize the world about American Power of Chemical Destruction. Just imagine, now American spies could threaten any one across the world by saying 'How a small vial of MIC, strategically leaked could finish off an American Enemy!' You may find it funny, yet such tactics work with people who are under severe stress.
Let us now focus on the current debate in Indian media as to who engineered Warren Anderson's escape? Actually CIA, but who was the accomplice is difficult to say. When an agency like CIA pulls the strings, it does it for results and not for a press statement. So, it is hard to believe that only a single person, politician or officer would have been contacted to act. They would have created an environment of Warren Anderson's release (read escape). That environment would include that India as a nation must look forward to American Investment in future; signal India would send to rest of the world about being a primitive banana republic; let courts do their job and let justice prevail, and didn't Warren Anderson sign before a magistrate to respond to the warrants of court; and finally politicians have an obligation towards the party to make available or find funds to fight future elections etc. etc. And it would have to be an environment in which a young and newly elected Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi would appear exercising an apparently fair judgment. That environment would also include tilting of Rajiv Gandhi's decision in favor of Warren Anderson's release or escape.
Who would have tilted Rajiv Gandhi's stance of neutrality or aggression? Those who read prominent magazines of that era would recall a report that Arun Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi were neighbors in the capital. A path existed between two bungalows. And Rajiv Gandhi would frequently walk down to Arun Nehru's House to have a chat over a cup of tea. Rajiv was very fond of that family. And who is Arun Nehru? A cousin of Rajiv Gandhi and a claimant of Motilal Nehru's lineage and the rest. Before joining politics at young age of 37, Arun Nehru was the President of the Jenson and Nicholson group of companies. He, in fact, was one of the first young corporate wizards to have climbed such heights. His rise is also attributable to then current Indian Industrial Policy Environment where many MNCs ( perhaps, including Jenson & Nicholson) were forced to dilute their equity and hence control to Indian Public. In such an environment an Executive who was close to the ruling family was sure to climb up the corporate ladder, which he did. And his apparent ability to get things done was enough to invite him into politics and help the young cousin. Did this invitation materialize as a result of string pulling then who could have pulled those strings? None of the Congress Party Mandarins would do so as they would not like to have another member of Nehru – Gandhi family on the exclusive turf of inner circle. Such strings, if pulled, would have to be pulled by an intelligence agency of a foreign power like America, Britain or Russia as the situation amounted to create an environment conducive to Arun Nehru's entry into politics at highest level.
By the way, Dr. Subramaniam Swami came to a Television Channel last night and very emphatically stated that Rajiv Gandhi was an innocent (read naive) young man and those who were advising him should have advised him correctly. This is a very revealing statement. It gives rise to speculation that Rajiv Gandhi then was incapable of exercising good judgment. If that was so then why was he at all chosen to be a Prime Minister? To be a Prime Target and be killed in the manner he got killed? And help whom in process? Also, when Dr. Swami is calling attention of the nation to Rajiv Gandhi's advisors, whom is he referring to? Is he referring to Arun Nehru or Arjun Singh or Pranab Mukherjee or Narasimha Rao or some aviation Captain or another family friend or member of Nehru – Gandhi Clan? Or some civil servant? Or an intelligence officer? Or most of them around Rajiv Gandhi? Or the environment created by CIA?
It appears that a massive fraud was played with Indian Public, particularly public of Bhopal to establish America's Power of Destruction. It was similar to Air Shows conducted to solicit orders for aircrafts. If the purpose was to solicit orders for Chemical Weapons then there are no words to express the nature of this deceit. If it was to terrorize the world about American Power of Destruction, then too, it is beyond words to describe the incident.
One thing is sure, it wasn't an accident. It was a case of deliberate sabotage. The pictures of Union Carbide plant you see on Television show very well kept and cared for vessels and pipelines. Materials used in such hazardous conditions have different kind of specifications (specs) associated with it. They have to be procured from authorized manufacturers and never from trade channels. Therefore it is difficult to digest that such a large plant would not have enough inventory of crucial valves and fittings and responsible people would sleep over own death prospects and allow the valves and fittings to rot and get rusted and to let a leak develop as a result. It is a text book case of sabotage. And who would engineer such an act of sabotage? An agency like CIA who had the motivation to do it; who had a cause to pursue; and who had and has all the muscle and resources to manage its impact!
Therefore those who believe that justice is yet to be done in this episode of Gas Leak at Bhopal must aim to make American Government a party to the case and seek to reopen it. There is enough precedence to warrant such a development. Haven't we seen members of Hitler's Government found and punished after many decades of WWII? Again CIA was the agency who did most of the hunting. It is time they were paid back in their own currency.
Author: Navendu Mahodaya
http://www.thebhopalpost.com/index.php/2010/07/what-a-fall/
Posted by rkeswani on Jul 1, 2010
in Bhopal Gas Tragedy, News, Special | 23 comments
What a fall!
By Raajkumar Keswani
He is an "Angel' who fell in Bhopal 25 years back, without any realisation about his fall. He hounded all those who talked about his fall, till the realisation dawned upon him 25 years later.
One of our leading jurists, Fali S.Nariman, regrets his decision of accepting the Union Carbide brief in Bhopal gas disaster case of 1984. He sounds candid enough to acknowledge that he had no 'foreknowledge' of everything of the case while accepting the civil liability case. He said in a recent interview to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN; "I'm a fallen angel in Bhopal episode.'
How this statement suddenly brings back a few disturbing images of the past, when the angel in question was playing the devil's drummer in the Bhopal district court.
It was May 6, 1987. District judge M.W.Deo, was in the chair, hearing the 3 billion dollar civil suit filed by the Government of India against Union Carbide. It was a business, like any other day till the group of Union Carbide Corporation lawyers made an unexpected move. The Lead counsel for Union Carbide Corporation, USA, Fali S. Nariman dropped a bomb by moving an application before the judge.
It asked the judge '…to rescue himself from further participation in the case and disassociate himself from the case'. He said 'that pending disposal of their application, …no further directions be given nor proceedings taken before his hounor judge Deo.'
The judge, aghast with an expression of hurt on his face, however, informed the defence lawyer Fali S.Nariman, in a firm tone that it was for the first time that he was hearing about such an application. He said '…if a party thinks the judge is biased it should approach the higher court for transfer of the case to some other court.'
Sticking to his guns Nariman launched another blunt attack on the judge. 'We want to give you first opportunity of disassociating yourself from the case.'
The judge, however did not allow himself to get bullied by this arrogant carbide move. He went ahead with the case after advising the defence lawyer to move the higher court.
This is what this 'Fallen Angel' did in those years of Carbide case. A case, he had no foreknowledge of all facts while accepting the brief. Once he had the full knowledge, he adopted an aggressive posture to defend his client, who refused to pay the proper compensation to the victims of Bhopal but never did refuse to compensate its lawyers 'properly.'
I do remember Fali Nariman landing in Bhopal as Carbide's lead senior advocate and appearing in the district court with his equally expensive lawyer colleagues with a sense of pride on their faces. I, as a reporter covering the Bhopal gas case, have been a witness to the impact of the presence of these imminent lawyers from legal skies.
Everyone in the court campus was quite attentive and focused towards the court room of the District Judge. Everyone, amazingly, was trying to behave out of his or her character to match the manners of the visiting legal eagles from metros. They were the faces hitherto heard and seen on the front pages of the newspapers.
Visitors too were all aware about the value and impact of their presence on the scene. They did not disappoint their watchers either. They did talk from their high pedestal even while defending the red handed Carbide.
They, Fali S.Nariman, along with Bomi Zaiwala , Anil Deewan and half a dozen other lawyers, without any doubt were well prepared, equipped and charged vis-Ã -vis the victim's side represented by the Government of India. Initially, there was some glare on this side too with Attorney-General K.Parasaran participating in the case. However, his presence would not deflect the Carbide lawyers from displaying their contempt during the hearing of the case.
Journalists covering the case still reminisce about the attitude of these high profile lawyers in general and Fali in particular. The lawyer, with a great background of being a human rights activist, who quit Additional Solicitor General's job to protest the imposition of the Emergency in June 1975, was on the wrong side of the issue this time.
'Champion of the Human Rights' till the other day, unfortunately, chose to side with the perpetrators of the genocide in Bhopal.
Judge Deo remained the main target for Carbide lobby and Fali was the firing machine for the purpose. The reason of the ire was Judge Deo's passing an order for an interim relief package of Rs. 350 crores for the victims. The judge was impressed the plea of the victim's organizations that there was an urgent need to help the survivors of the disaster.
UCC did create a situation of a legal chaos in the case. Their delaying tactics at every level forced the Madhya Pradesh High Court to intervene. The court asked in a suo moto order in November 1987 why it should not try the case in place of the Bhopal district court 'to avoid any delaying tactics' of the UCC.
But that was not to be. Since master of the game was playing the captain of the Carbide lawyers team. The captain, Fali Nariman, regrets it today. But as my friend Bharat Desai asks: 'Fali, after 25 years, what's the Nariman Point?
And to close, I would borrow from Fali Narimans recently published autobiography 'Before Memory Fades'. In a chapter dealing with Bhopal episode he talks of the criticism and controversies he had to face in the wake of accepting the Carbide case. He quotes Oliver Cromwell to speak for him at the beginning of the chapter, who had commissioned his portrait by a leading artist of his times:
"Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it."
I hope, he would pay me for painting him the way he desired. However, let me be candid about my fees: 'Fali Baba, I won't accept any fees with red finger prints of Union Carbide. Yes, there is a way to compensate me and rest of the Bhopal gas victims. Give up on the past and stand up for us. It will give you some solace too.'
http://waterfriend.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/bhopal-gas-leak-was-deliberate/
BHOPAL GAS LEAK WAS DELIBERATE
Posted on June 8, 2010 by waterfriend
In many ways, the gas leak from an American Company in Bhopal, on 2-12-1984, is worse than the oil spill in the Mexican gulf.
I feel that the gas leak was a deliberate attempt to see how deadly the gas is. Of course, I cannot substantiate it.
Even today, people are still suffering. The place has not been decontaminated.
What is most shocking is that all Governments at the Centre have been soft to the killers, because America is involved. Has any one condemned the bombing of Hiroshima? Was it not a weapon of mass destruction? Why was not America termed a terrorist state?
The innocent people of Bhopal are considered as worms; Anderson is still enjoying his freedom in America.
Is it not slavish mentality towards American masters?
Why was it located in the city? It was all preplanned. To know how effective this chemical bomb is. May be part of the chemical warfare being planned during cold war before the collapse of communism in Russia.
There should be an enquiry similar to the enquiry about the Iraq war, beig conducted in Britain. The committee must include not only retired judges, but also expert chemists humanists and Members of Parliament.
The role played by Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be scrutinised.
http://orissamatters.com/2010/08/03/2802-not-the-case-adjudicated-upon/
Bhopal Was A Testing of Chemical Weapon, Not the Case Adjudicated Upon
Posted on August 3, 2010 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Anger of the Country over Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate ending adjudication against a pack of the Union Carbide functionaries with the lightest possible punishment while making the same further shallow by grant of instant and the easiest bails to them, has already melted into helpless agony, as it is clear that the American agents in power will never allow justice to emerge.
I have reason to suspect that Bhopal was a case of testing of a mass-killing chemical weapon by an American company namely Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). But the case before the Bhopal CJM was not filed against the said company for this offense. To save the real culprits and to please the Americans and to cheat the Indians, the case instituted was designed to say that negligence of Indian collaborators of the American company had led to mass destruction as the poisonous gas suddenly gushed out could have done nothing but that. The result is as was expected.
Exactly as in the guise of improvement in energy sector, the Congress led Government of Manmohan Singh has pushed India into accepting American nuclear waste and reactors oblivious of how dangerous are they to masses of India, in the guise of improvement in agriculture sector, Union Carbide of USA was allowed to transport into and later produce extremely lethal and explosive Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) in its factory in the center of India at Bhopal of Madhya Pradesh to develop Sevin, a pesticide touted to kill pests in the crop fields. But, in reality, as we saw after the midnight of December 2, 1984, it killed thousands and maimed lakhs of Indians; because it was meant to test how far it may cause mass destruction when used as a chemical weapon. The roles of Arjun Singh, then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and Rajiv Gandhi, then the Prime Minister of India in the catena of this catastrophe are not yet unveiled; because, the pro-Americans having been in power since then, the Law has never been directed to this end.
Chemical Weapon
These two Indian leaders had ensured that the arrest of Warren Anderson, chief of UCC by Bhopal Police after his arrival to estimate the impact of explosion, was ignored and he was safely transported back to USA. Anderson on reaching back on his soil had told the UCC board that for them there was nothing to worry; because, whosoever could protect their interest was in relevant positions in India. The light punishment awarded to the pack of Carbide personnel with Anderson staying beyond reach of the Court indicates that even the prosecution was not pursued in right earnest. No wonder, there was no prosecution against test of mass-killing chemical weapon on Indian masses in Bhopal and the culprits have not brought to books.
In a different context I had discussed this issue in my column in Orissa's most celebrated daily broadsheet 'Sambad' in 1995. The same is available in my book 'Singhabalokana' (Bharata Bharati, Gajapati Nagar, Sutahat, Cuttack) for the public. That analysis has become more relevant now when instant bail was granted to whosoever of the pack of Bhopal culprits were adjudged abysmally guilty and with Arjun Singh signaling that he had worked under pressure from above to set free Anderson. As I look at the documents I had used therein, I am inclined to further stress that Bhopal catastrophe was not caused by accidental leak of MIC gas, but was caused by deliberate testing of MIC as a chemical war weapon.
Indicative Itself is Operation Faith
After helping Anderson fly back to USA, Arjun Singh had tried to convince the countrymen that the Carbide factory at Bhopal was absolutely safe and for the explosion, there was no fault with the factory or the Americans.
In what was named "Operation Faith" meant to say the world that India has faith in UCC, he declared to stay inside the factory and in fact stayed there when it reopened on December 16, 1984 on the 13th day of the killer leak.
In describing the day, under the caption 'Clouds of Uncertainty' in 'Time', in its December 24, 1984 edition, Peter Stolar, Dean Brelis and Pico Iyer had reported,
"The Union Carbide pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal looked as if it were being prepared for a war. All day long, giant Indian Air Force MI-8 helicopters swooped down into the area, while special Indian Army units trained in chemical warfare were airlifted to the local airport and positioned within the 72-acre compound".
Were the government not sure of the chemical weapon aspect, "special Army units trained in chemical warfare" would not have been "airlifted" to the factory site, as the report says.
It is remarkable that during the so-called 'Operation Faith', Director General of CSIR Dr. S. Vardarajan with his team was to physically have a scientific estimation of the operation. But his absence was ensured by keeping him in dark about the date and time of the reopening of the factory and resume of its operation. Instead of the scientists of CSIR, a loyal group of UCC technicians conducted the so-called operation and declared that there was no fault with the factory, paving way for the Americans to say that the leak was caused not because of fault with the Americans but because of subterfuge or negligence by the Indian operators. Absence of Dr. Varadarajan and his team on Dec. 16, 1984 was not accidental. It was engineered to keep the Indian team away from the spot on that critical occasion, because that was needed to safeguard American interest.
Deliberate
Americans had deliberately created the condition to escape responsibility after the gas leak. They had deputed a team of chemical engineers from USA to be sure of the condition of the factory. The team in 1982 had reported, "The surroundings of the site is being strewn with oily old drums, used piping, pools of used oil and chemical waste that were likely to cause fire." No remedial steps were taken, though, on the other hand, the last American working in the plant was called back by the mother plant in America. And Arjun Singh was used to promote slums near the factory so that innumerable poor Indians were available for use as guinea pigs for the test of the American chemical weapon. We will return to this.
Congress Collaboration
The Congress Government in power seems to have collaborated with the American design for carrying out its nefarious program from the 1970s. In 1973, the year when India had to sign the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) instrument, it had to allow UCIL to sign a Design Transfer Agreement with UCC tactfully omitting the manufacturing process technology to use the same as a sure way to escape responsibility if the hidden agenda of the chemical / biological weapon testing in future really clicks.
Before that UCC had been sure of the lethal potency of MIC through its experience obtained from leak of the killer gas on 28 different occasions in its factory at W. Virginia. All these leaks were marginal and chemical weapons having high profit prospects, testing of MIC's mass-killing capacity was requiring a massive leak. To UCC such a testing on American soil was not advantageous. Hence, Bhopal was chosen.
Bhopal experienced the killing capability of the gas as and when the conspirators so desired.
In 1981 December, plant operator Md. Asruff breathed his last and two other workmen were seriously affected under impact of a minor leakage. In 1982, comparatively more volume of MIC was released which not only severely affected four of the workers inside the factory, but also affected slum dwellers outside the factory that complained of profuse burning of eyes, suffocation and motor disorder. It was, as circumstantial sequences lead me apprehend, a deliberate act to study as to how much gas leakage for how long time may affect the people outside the factory.
These were small leakages resulting in marginal casualties. But every leakage was causing harm.
Whosoever of the workers of the factory raised the issue of safety was intimidated and victimized even as the Factory Laws Implementation Authorities of MP were kept away from enforcing safety measures.
The Communist Party in the MP Assembly raised the issue and stressed on shifting the factory off the heart of the city. Arjun Singh through his Labor Minister T.S.Viyogi rejected the Communist plea and asserted that the factory was not a stone to throw away from its site. There was no reason to panic as to him the factory was absolutely safe. "Neither now nor ever there is any threat to human life from the factory", he had asserted.
Journalist R. Keswani brought series of articles and exposed the falsity of the government's assertions. He along with his family was tortured by the government.
Even though a three member team of industrial safety experts deputed by the UCC to assess the safety aspect of the Bhopal plant had not hesitated to mention in their report that the "surroundings of the site was being strewn with oily old drums, used piping, pools of used oil and chemical waste that were likely to cause fire", the factory inspectorate of MP was not allowed to intervene and enforce safety measures.
"The day is not far off when Bhopal will be a dead city, when only scattered stones and debris will bear witness to its tragic end", warned the media.
Arjun Singh did not bother. On the other hand, as hinted to above, he encouraged poor people to freely built up slum huts around the factory so that MIC may be tested as a chemical weapon on maximum numbers of people.
Chemical Weapon Conclave and Thereafter
At the beginning of 1984, the UCC factory at Bhopal had hosted a seminar on "chemical and biological war research". As the Press Trust of India had then reported, many western giants engaged in chemical weapon development had participated in that seminar.
Arjun Singh as the Chief Minister was the patron of that conclave.
Immediately thereafter, he had jumped up to provide every available inch of land to whosoever wanted to have a habitation in close proximity to the carbide factory.
A new law called "Madhya Pradesh Nagariya Kshetrake Bhumihin Byakti Adhiniyam, 1984" (Act 15 of 1984) was framed and enforced with effect from 17 May 1984 wherein stipulations were made to punish with imprisonment whosoever officer hinders landless people setting up their jhuggis (slum huts) near the factory. Anybody having had his / her jhuggis since 1983 must not be evicted, the new law stressed. After this law was enforced, there was a mad rush amongst the people to set up their slum huts in the factory's nearest proximity. The then Chief of MP Development Authority, M.N.Buch had to later write,
"After this act was passed, people would put up shacks during their lunch breaks. If you can imagine, 35,000 jhuggis came up during this time. I had cleared the upper lake area because it is an important source of drinking water. He allowed 8,000 jhuggis to be built around the upper lake area alone!"
These fellows, encouraged thus to settle around the factory in dense concentration were used as guinea pigs when MIC was discharged after the midnight of December 2, 1984 to test how devastating was it when used as a chemical weapon.
The killer company was in need of poor people to test the gas on them, as, thereby, when wanted to compensate, a much smaller amount of money would suffice. Arjun Singh had ensured this.
After the midnight, when people were asleep, the killer gas was discharged. The killer gas was deliberately discharged after the midnight so that the targeted people cannot escape. Even for two long hours the warning siren was kept inoperative because of which people could not know of the spreading danger. To facilitate a secret study on impact of the killer gas, steps were taken to keep the victims away from antidotes. As for example, Bhopal doctors were denied any information from UCC that they could have used to save life. As massive numbers of people were dying, Doctors conducted autopsy tests to know the reason of deaths and determined that cyanide poisoning was the reason. So toxicologists of Hamidia Hospital insisted that sodium thiosulphate should be administered as antidote. But the UCC authorities from America rejected the Hamidia hospital proposal by saying that there was no question of cyanide poisoning and hence administration of sodium thiosulphate cannot be permitted. 10,000 persons died within 72 hours and at least 25 lakhs were subjected to slow death.
The Americans were sure that the test had succeeded. It is not possible to accept that Anderson had come to India after four days of the gas discharge to pay sympathy to the victims. He had come to see the success of his secret plan and when Bhopal police arrested him, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi or somebody most close to him to whom Arjun Singh was like a factotum, ensured that he was forthwith freed from the police clutch and sent back to USA.
Arjun Singh has declared that he had to carry out an order from above to free Anderson and to provide him with a state Plane to escape. He must be made to disclose forthwith the name of this traitor.
N.K.Singh in a 7th June 2010 report in Hindustan Times says that a mysterious phone call to Arjun Singh had "secured the sudden release of Warren Anderson".
And, he says, "Who made that phone call is one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Bhopal gas tragedy."
UPA President Sonia should now ensure that Arjun Singh, the man who prides himself as a factotum of her family, discloses the name of the person under whose telephonic orders he had forced the State police to release Anderson soon after his arrest. Otherwise the needle of suspicion would continue to point at her husband and / or herself.
The group of Ministers constituted when mass reaction to the farcical punishment awarded to the pack of seven functionaries of UC emitted alarm waves into the central administration, has tried to hoodwink the nation with a compensation package for the victims and braggadocios about bringing Anderson into trial in India. But in it, perhaps lies the real motive of the American stooges in power in this country to bury for ever the possibility of prosecution against Arjun Singh alive and Rajiv Gandhi posthumously for having collaborated with Anderson in testing the American Chemical Weapon on Indian masses at Bhopal in that post mid-night of December 2,1984.
The truth is yet to prevail. But circumstantial evidences insist that Bhopal was a testing of chemical weapon, not the case adjudicated upon.
Was Union Carbide experimenting for chemical warfare in Bhopal?
Posted by: N D Sharma on: February 4, 2014
In: Bhopal Gas 1 Comment
Dr Heeresh Chandra, one of the country's foremost forensic experts, was of the opinion that the US multinational Union Carbide Corporation (UCC)had experimented on the Indians some deadly chemical for use in a future biological warfare. Dr Chandra was involved in the investigations of post-mortem blood and tank residues. Phosgene and cyanide, the two most deadly chemicals, were also found in the blood of the victims, though these two chemicals had no business to be stored in the plant which was supposed to manufacture pesticides. (Phosgene was "effectively used as a combat gas during the First World War". It is a severe irritant to the entire respiratory tract).
Dr Heeresh Chandra's theory is supported by the findings of Swedish medical practitioner Ingrid Eckerman who was a member of the now-dissolved International Medical Commission on Bhopal (IMCB) and had been visiting Bhopal frequently in connection with her research. She says in her book, "Bhopal Saga: Causes and Consequences of the World's Largest Industrial Disaster": "according to reports seized from the Research and Development centre of the plant at Bhopal as well as documents traced from other offices of the firm, the (Union Carbide) Corporation had conducted a number of experiments on animals and plants, and was aware of the effects of MiC. It is likely that they had information not only on short-term effects, but also on medium and long-term effects".
She says in her book: "a Research and Development unit was set up in Bhopal in 1976. The centre, the biggest in Asia, had five insect-rearing laboratories and a two-hectare experimental farm for testing chemical agents. Here, new molecules were synthesised and tested. It appeared that the UCIL (Union Carbide India Limited) was conducting (from 1975) field studies using new chemical agents without getting the projects cleared by the top-level committee where all collaborative research efforts should be screened from a security angle".
She then refers to the reports about the presence of chemical warfare experts at Bhopal studying MiC's effects (after the disaster). "For example, it is known that from the Pentagon, a medical doctor was sent to collect military intelligence regarding the effects of the leaked gases. From Sweden (her own country), two doctors were sent to make a report for the National Defence Research Institute".
http://subversify.com/2010/07/02/a-different-chemical-warfare-the-bhopal-disaster/
A Different Chemical Warfare: The Bhopal Disaster
BY ADMIN – 2 JULY, 2010
POSTED IN: HISTORY, NEWS, POLITICS
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By: Bill the Butcher
I remember the afternoon of 3 December 1984. Year-end examinations were going on at school, and I'd finished taking the morning paper and was waiting for the afternoon exam to begin. I can even remember where I was; our school's old art class, built in the old British style and hung with abstract oil paintings in dark colours, which has long since been demolished to make way for a swank concrete eyesore where paper "craft" cutouts hang from the ceiling.
So this is what happened. As we were all waiting for the exam to begin, we began to hear a rumour that some kind of gas had escaped from a factory in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state in the centre of the country, and that many people had been killed. That was a year when many things had happened, was 1984; the first, and to date only, Indian citizen in space, Rakesh Sharma, went up on a Soviet Soyuz rocket; the Golden Temple, headquarters of the Sikh religion in Amritsar, had been "liberated" from Sikh "terrorists" demanding an independent state of Khalistan, and then, a few months later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was murdered by two of her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation, followed by a frenzied government-sponsored anti-Sikh pogrom across India. It was a year in which so many things happened that one's brain tended to get numbed from all the input.
Over the next few days, the newspapers and magazines and what passed for TV (only the one channel, which showed only what the government allowed it to show) overflowed with photographs of corpses; corpses lying on the streets, corpses laid out in rows on hospital lawns, corpses being buried (one famous photo was of a child's face, sightless eyes open), corpses, corpses, everywhere.
The actual story came out in bits and pieces. A toxic gas had escaped from a factory in Bhopal (1), owned by a subsidiary of the American company Union Carbide, and had killed an unknown number of people (at the time, it seemed that Bhopal must have been depopulated, such were the reports). We were all familiar with Union Carbide, since its logo appeared on the batteries we bought for our torches and transistor radios and electric clocks. Eveready, the commonest brand, was then a Union Carbide product (2). We all wondered what kind of poison in our batteries did this, because we didn't know what a multi-tentacled creature Union Carbide actually was. How could batteries kill a city?
Later, when things had settled down a little, the "official figures" (I might as well say here that official figures in India are quite properly believed by nobody since they have nothing to do with reality, especially when death tolls are concerned) spoke of some two thousand five hundred deaths, which were later expanded to four thousand. By then, though, independent sources were already talking of upwards of fifteen thousand dead, and uncounted more (today, there are five hundred thousand registered survivors of the gas leak, and the number of deaths is over twenty thousand) affected, in many cases for life.
What was the "toxic gas" responsible for this?
Back then, hardly anyone had heard of methyl isocyanate, MIC as it came to be known to one and all. MIC was a chemical used in the manufacture of pesticides sold under the brand names Sevin and Temic, which were also (surprise!) manufactured by Union Carbide. Union Carbide had initially imported the MIC from factories in the US, but had begun manufacturing it, right there on the spot, instead, and stored it in giant underground concrete tanks.
Now MIC isn't exactly the safest of chemicals. It's prone to corrode containers, and in contact with air it breaks down to a mixture of gases including carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. It is also extremely volatile and in bulk it has to be stored at a temperature below 15 degrees Celsius and preferably at zero degrees, and at above atmospheric pressure. In fact, (vide Union Carbide's own brochure, Methyl Isocyanate, July 1976) it is not recommended to be stored in bulk; the normal practice is to store it in sealed steel drums, and not to manufacture it in larger quantities than needed (3). For the amount of pesticides actually produced by the plant at Bhopal, the amount of gas needed was between three and four tons. Yet, as attested by former employees at the plant, from June 1984, upwards of ninety tons was being stored in the tanks, and of those, no less than forty two tons were in Tank No 610. And to top it all, the tank's contents were under atmospheric pressure and at atmospheric temperature, the refrigeration facilities having been shut off as part of a cost cutting exercise.(4)
Why was so much of this highly toxic gas manufactured and stored in these underground tanks, so much in excess of requirements? An obvious answer is that since it was a highly toxic gas, manufacture had been removed from the home territory of the US and shifted to an expendable "Third World" nation where lives were cheap. And though there were safer alternatives, they were more expensive, and therefore would cut into profits.
To get back to the point: there was this highly toxic gas stored in a tank without refrigeration and without the high pressurization that would stop contaminants from entering from outside. There were also few or no safety mechanisms installed and most of those were not working properly. No evacuation plans existed, and the local administration had not been informed as to the contents of the tanks and what the toxic effects might be in case of a leak.
Sounds like a mess? I'm just getting started.
It wasn't as though there hadn't been prior leaks from the plant; employees had died previously and the leak had actually been predicted fairly accurately by a local journalist, but nobody had been interested. Now, on the night of 2 December, all the things that went wrong were about to come together.
First of all, what happened was the entry of some 500 litres of water from an installation called the Vent Gas Scrubber (meant to neutralize leaking gas) into Tank No 610. This caused an immediate exothermic reaction with tremendous increase in heat, to over 200 degrees Celsius. This increase in temperature went unnoticed because the temperature recording devices were out of order and had not been repaired. (4)
What happened after that can be told. The entire tank burst out of its underground confines and began leaking gas in tremendous quantities, starting at approximately five minutes past midnight and continuing for about 45 minutes. The gas could not be burned off because the systems to do so were (quite predictably) inoperative. Wind carried the gas over the entire locality, which was crammed with slum clusters filled with poor people.
It's not easy to remain unemotional about what happened next. Starting awake (remember it was past midnight) with burning eyes and lungs, their breath turning to fire in their throats, people stumbled in the darkness trying to flee the enemy they couldn't see, as liable to run towards a concentration of gas as away from it. Thousands collapsed and died on the streets and in the Bhopal railway station, one of the sites affected (among the dead was the elder son of an engineer killed in a leak three years earlier). The drifting gas was blown over much of the city before finally dispersing; and in its wake it left dead and hurting, everywhere. It's been estimated that three-fourths of the then 800,000 people living in the city were affected to some degree. (5)
One of the many problems rescuers faced was that they had no idea at the time what the gas was, or what it was capable of. Doctors weren't told what antidotes could be administered, so treatment was basically symptomatic and – with the hospitals swamped – often inadequate.
Four days after the incident, on 7 December, Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson flew into Bhopal along with other executives, and was arrested for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. His arrest lasted all of six hours, after which he was hurriedly granted "bail" on the orders of "someone in a high position" (more anon on this) and was flown out by special plane from Bhopal airport to New Delhi. According to the pilots, senior Madhya Pradesh police officers saluted Anderson at the airport and even offered to carry his luggage (6). He flew back to the US the same day…and, officially, has been "untraceable' ever since.
Meanwhile, as time passed, more and more people continued to succumb to the effects of the gas (5) around the now closed and sealed factory. Chemicals continued to leach into the ground and contaminate water supplies (and continue to contaminate water supplies to this day). Cases were lodged against Union Carbide demanding compensation to the tune of $3 billion for the victims. Union Carbide responded by alleging that it was either a pure and simple accident and so not their fault, or, apparently not recognizing the contradiction, that it was all due to sabotage by a disgruntled employee. The judicial authorities in Bhopal froze the 50.9% of the shares Union Carbide held in its Indian subsidiary, but the Supreme Court of India not only allowed the subsequent sale of those shares but diluted the liability of Union Carbide from $3 billion to just 15% of that amount – a paltry $470 million, and absolved Union Carbide of all responsibility for the accident (though that was later revoked after protests). The Supreme Court judge hearing the case, Justice Ahmadi, became, after retirement, chairman-for-life of a Union Carbide trust (3). Something rotten in the state of Denmark, perhaps?
Even the meagre compensation that was to be paid under the new terms was mostly not paid. The worst of Indian officialdom rapidly raised its ugly head. Centres to train survivors in alternate professions either never functioned or functioned only briefly and shut down. Those who were to get compensated for the deaths of relatives didn't just have to produce death certificates; in order to prove that the certificates weren't faked; they were supposed to produce the people who had been at the funeral, and so on. I told you this was Indian officialdom. (7)
Meanwhile, what happened to the criminal charges? After a long delay, charges of culpable homicide (causing death by actions performed while knowing they were capable of causing death, while not actually intending to cause death) were brought against eight Indian employees of Union Carbide, and of Union Carbide's Indian subsidiary; and against Warren Anderson, Union Carbide Corporation, and Union Carbide's Hong Kong based subsidiary which was the direct owner of the Indian subsidiary. Of these, the three foreign entities (Anderson, the parent Union Carbide, and the Hong Kong subsidiary) refused to appear before Indian courts – and for the others the charges were reduced from culpable homicide, for which the maximum punishment is ten years, to causing death from negligence, carrying a maximum sentence of just two years. (3,8)
In the meantime, something else happened. Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemicals in 2001 (9); and Dow promptly disclaimed all responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, saying, in effect, that if you knowingly buy stolen property, it's yours no matter what the original owner might think. This same Dow Chemicals is now eager to invest in India, and the extremely pro-US/pro-big business Congress government of India is bending over backwards to find a way of letting it do so.
On 7 July, 2010, the verdict in this case, at the lowest level of the judicial system, was finally declared (after only 26 years – these are Indian courts, my friends); the seven survivors of the eight Indians were sentenced to two years each, and then released on bail with full freedom to appeal. It caused a surprising degree of outrage among people who had virtually forgotten Bhopal; an outrage that can only be understood as a reaction against the government's policies per se, of which this was only a symptom.
What policies were those?
According to popular perception and also according to those in the know, the government does not actually want any real punishment to come to the criminals of Bhopal. It's scared that any such punishment will scare off big business investments, as will enforcing corporate accountability; so it did not pursue the case vigorously and also diluted the case against the accused as far as possible. Dow doesn't even have to pay for cleaning up the old factory site any longer; a government committee's decided that Indian firms will be asked to bid for that at Indian government expense (10). "Bending over backwards" may be a term too weak to fit.
Union Carbide's then CEO, Warren Anderson had reputedly vanished and is allegedly untraceable, though Greenpeace found him (11) with little or no effort and informed the Indian authorities as to his precise whereabouts. He is still wanted in India for culpable homicide, and despite all government efforts to let him off the hook, the case against him still stands. Remember that he was allowed to escape by special plane in 1984? Well, today, the buck is being passed around (10) over who, exactly, ordered his escape. The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh at the time was Arjun Singh, a cravenly obsequious functionary of the Congress' ruling Gandhi family. He would – could – never have taken a step without orders from Delhi, and in fact he does admit having such orders, though he refuses to state who issued him those orders. Every single objective person's suspicions then come to the then owner of the Congress Party, the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi's widow and children are now the owners of the party, and their only priority is to deflect blame from the family. Hence, desperate efforts are on to find scapegoats; efforts that have to take into account as well the need to protect Anderson at all costs. He's untraceable, they insist; he's too old; there's no proof against him; and, when all fails, "he can still be extradited to face trial." When?
It's not just the fate of Anderson or of foreign corporations; the fact is that the government is desperate to please the US at all costs, and its only (alleged) foreign policy success was the Nuclear Deal it signed with the Bush administration to sell nuclear reactors to India. The US won't sell nuclear reactors unless the government passes laws to insulate the sellers against all liability for accidents. So far, despite two efforts, it has been unable to pass this law, and the renewed public interest in Bhopal may make it more difficult still.
One of the (unelected) "Prime Minister" of India's recent statements, then, shows everyone exactly what the government's actual attitude is: "Bhopals may happen," he said, "but the country must progress."
Tell that to the gassed corpses lying on the streets.
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energizer_Holdings
3. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20100702271301000.htm
4. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20100702271300400.htm
5. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20100702271302000.htm
6. http://www.asianwindow.com/environment/how-warren-anderson-escaped-from-india/
7. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20100702271302500.htm
8. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20100702271301300.htm
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Chemical_Company#Union_Carbide_merger
10. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20100702271301600.htm
11. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/carbide-criminal-found/
Note: There is a book by Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro on the subject, It Was Five Past Midnight in Bhopal. I have read the book but chosen not to quote from it because I find it little better than pulp fiction. It provides no sources, has no references, and apparently takes every participant's unsupported word for the truth. Significantly, at least one of its heroes, SI Qureishi, was one of the men sentenced recently to two years for criminal negligence.
30 Years After The Bhopal Disaster, India Has Not Learned The Lessons Of The World's Worst Industrial Tragedy
By Aman Malik@PatrakaarPopata.malik@ibtimes.com on December 02 2014 1:36 PM
Harish Singh Yadav vividly remembers that chilly December night in Bhopal, 30 years ago. Events of that night changed his life forever, the 58-year-old said.
"We were sleeping, when suddenly my daughter woke us up. She said her eyes were burning," said Yadav, a father of two. "Soon, all of us in the family had the same sensation, as if someone was burning chilies. We all began coughing. Then, when I opened the window, I saw people running for their lives."
On Dec. 3, 1984, almost 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, leaked from a Union Carbide India Ltd. insecticide-manufacturing plant situated in the middle of Bhopal, a city in central India, and the capital of Madhya Pradesh state. The plant manufactured Carbaryl, an insecticide that was sold under the trade name "Sevin."
Within four hours that night, over half a million people would be exposed to the leak, and several thousand would not see sunrise. While, officially, the government put the immediate death toll at just under 4,000 people, unofficial estimates vary from anywhere between 8,000 to 10,000 to much higher numbers. No one knows for sure how many perished that night and in the following month and years. Scores were never identified or accounted for. It was, in any case, the deadliest industrial accident in history.
Yadav said that he, like hundreds of others in the city, has had to live with the aftereffects of the leak, which left him with chronic breathing problems and reduced vision.
"I have had to spend almost a million rupees of my own on treatment, and that is what has kept me alive," he said. That sum translates to $16,000, an enormous expenditure in India -- more than 10 times the nation's gross domestic product per capita.
"Whoever escaped the gas alive that day is now like a living dead body," said Yadav, who, in an ironic twist, now guards the decaying and eerily silent plant, spread over 60 acres.
The facility was shut down following the leak, never to be revived.
Thirty years on, the average Indian, indeed the average city resident who was not around at the time of the disaster and was fortunate enough to be not touched by it, has moved on, with precious little learned in terms of disaster management.
The accident itself has not led to any significant improvements in occupational safety standards in the country. Several experts who spoke with International Business Times said that while the Indian government set up various committees to assess the damage and recommend safeguards, the efforts amounted to little real change. Accidents are commonplace in the country's mines and factories. And across Indian industry, which is flooded with cheap immigrant labor from the country's villages, workplace hazards and workers' rights continue to remain unaddressed. The problem is compounded by a lax regulatory environment and endemic corruption, which analysts said stack the odds against people like those suffering from the Bhopal disaster.
'Negligence Led To The Disaster'
The Bhopal gas tragedy, as it came to be known, was a result of negligence followed by an attempted cover-up, say locals.
T. R. Chouhan, an engineer and a plant operator at the time who has written a book on the subject, said that the events leading up to the tragedy began almost as soon as Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Michigan-based Dow Chemical Company, decided to set up the unit about 12 years earlier. A faulty industrial design was primarily to blame, he said, adding that rising maintenance costs and mounting losses led the company to cut back on safety measures that could have averted the leak.
"The actual cause of the accident was … an unproven design," he said. "Secondly, they built this plant at a very low cost, so they used double standards in the construction material."
The plant's setting in Bhopal, close to habitation, had been opposed by Shakir Ali Khan, a Madhya Pradesh legislator, in the early 1970s, according to Abdul Jabbar Khan, a prominent activist who runs the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, a nonprofit that helps affected women. "He raised an alarm, but no one listened to him since he was a communist and was seen as opposing an American multinational company setting up shop in India," Khan said.
Chouhan said the safety equipment could only control smaller leaks and could not neutralize a leak of the magnitude that occurred that night. He claims that initially the operating and maintenance staff was trained well, but over time there was a deterioration in the quality and numbers of such staff.
When the leak occurred, the warning siren could only be heard inside the factory and not by the community, he said. "So, they got to know about the leak when the gas itself hit them. Moreover, the hospitals were not informed [about the chemicals], so there was no line of treatment or antidote," Chouhan claims.
Swaraj Puri, then the chief of police in Bhopal, said that he had never before heard of methyl isocyanate until a police forensics expert informed him of its deadly nature.
"MIC gas was never known to people in Bhopal before it was leaked. There was no antidote developed and even doctors could not read the patient's condition," said S. A. Pillai, director of the Bhopal-based Institute of Industrial Management for Safety, Health and Environment.
However, this claim is refuted by N.P. Mishra, a Bhopal-based doctor who was then the dean of the Hamidia Hospital, the city's largest, and head of the team of doctors that responded to the medical emergency that night.
"One hundred percent, we had an idea," he said, when asked if doctors knew of the leak's nature. "Antidote for every poison is not available. But we knew how to treat patients of inhalation of toxic gases. The treatment is the same for every gas, not much different," Mishra said. He said that most of the deaths that occurred that night were a result of pulmonary edema: "People drowned in their own secretions."
The massive leak that night was not the first fatal accident at the plant. In 1982, at least one plant worker had died after being exposed to phosgene gas, an intermediate chemical used in making Sevin.
Kumkum Saxena Modwel, who was then a doctor working at the plant, remembers taking the worker to the hospital where he later died. "There were lots of chemical exposures," she said. "We were very worried that with holding all these toxic chemicals, a big disaster can happen," she said.
Following this incident, Chauhan claims, several employees, including him, had expressed concerns with senior government officials, but nothing came of it. He said that after the 1982 accident, UCC made a safety survey and highlighted several problems in their report. A similar survey, he said, was done in September 1984 in West Virginia in the U.S. "That too threw up several severe problems, including contamination of the MIC storage tank. Both the reports were marked confidential. Those reports were not provided to those who were working in the plant," he said.
A scientific panel appointed by the Indian government reportedly concluded that the tank that leaked had become vulnerable more than a month before the disaster.
A UCC spokesperson, in response to a query, emailed the following statement:
"During the past 30 years, much has been written and broadcast about the tragedy and it continues to evoke strong emotions even three decades later. While Union Carbide continues to have the utmost respect and sympathy for the victims, we find that many of the issues being discussed today have already been resolved and responsibilities assigned for those that still remain."
An inquiry by the company claimed that the accident was the result of sabotage.
"The evidence showed that an employee at the Bhopal plant had deliberately introduced water into a methyl isocyanate storage tank. The result was the cloud of poisonous gas," the company's report claims. "Also in 1988, an independent study of the incident by the prestigious international engineering consulting firm of Arthur D. Little supported the analysis by the Union Carbide team," the report further said.
Investigation And Conviction
Soon after the gas leak, the criminal probe was taken over by India's federal investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which was mired in controversy as well.
In 2010, after a lengthy trial, an Indian court convicted eight people accused in the tragedy, including industrialist Keshub Mahindra. Mahindra, who was the nonexecutive chairman of Union Carbide India, and seven others were handed two-year sentences, but soon released on bail. Mahindra's office said that he would not comment on the matter.
B.R. Lall, the agency's officer in charge of the probe between 1994 and 1995, said that he had been told to "go soft" on Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson. "Communication received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking us not to pursue extradition ... he (Anderson) was the main culprit as far as we were concerned, " NDTV, a local news network, quoted Lall as saying.
Four days after the tragedy, Anderson arrived in Bhopal, and was arrested by Puri, the city police chief. The arrest was made on the orders of the former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Arjun Singh. Within hours, Anderson was released and left the country, never to return. Puri, who has reportedly been accused of helping Anderson flee, declined to comment on the incident, as it is still a matter of investigation by an inquiry commission.
"But I will say this, I wish Anderson or someone from his family was in Bhopal on the night the gas leaked. They would have realized how people suffered," Puri said.
On Sept. 29, Anderson died, never having faced trial in India.
'No Lessons Learned'
Pillai, the industrial safety expert, said that few lessons on the subject appear to have been learned in India in the last three decades.
"There are four issues in learning - one is the infrastructure of the government, second is rules and regulations, third is enforcing of the rules and regulations, fourth is the total awareness of the subject," he said. "If these four issues are taken care of, this type of disaster will not be repeated. Are we on that track or not? If you ask me, I will say no."
According to Puri, contingency plans were put in place by the police following the disaster. "Now, we have fixed protocols, we have the involvement of the community in community-based disaster management, we have a state disaster management authority, people are getting trained and oriented," he said. But, he concedes, it would still be hard for India to cope with a disaster of the magnitude of the one in Bhopal.
"The realization that it can happen is missing. We think it is going to happen to somebody else."
In 2005, India established the National Disaster Management Authority to respond to such events, but its effectiveness has been far from satisfactory. And, in the recent past, the agency has been made largely redundant.
"Wherever there has been a disaster, the army has had to be called in. So, probably (the) army is the only organization which is ready to combat disaster," said Manoj Pandey, who heads the Bhopal Memorial Hospital & Research Centre (BMHRC), set up in 2001 to serve gas victims using the sale proceeds of UCC's stake in its Indian operation. "We do require rapid response teams. Not just industrial disasters, there could be man-made disasters, biological and chemical warfare could be there. So, definitely, we require rapid response teams."
According to Pillai, one of the major impediments is that the industrial safety law, which was enacted when India was still under British government, is not stringent enough.
"People thought of amending it after the Bhopal disaster, why not before?" he asks, adding that industries in India simply do not follow safety protocols unless their customers compel them to. And, even then, they might only adhere to regulations until an official inspection, he said.
Pillai said that while India may not have learned much from its own disaster, other countries have. "All developed countries, including the U.S. have learned from Bhopal. I visited the U.K. and Japan and I have seen that they are very afraid of the Union Carbide disaster," he said.
The issue of liability is yet another point of contention in India, according to Pillai.
"Both the process and the product should be covered under the liability clause," he said. "But unfortunately, what happens in our country is that the management bargains, the insurance compromises, and ultimately liability is compromised. This should be stopped."
Long-Term Health Effects
The incriminations, investigations and convictions mean little to Madan Lal, a 70-year-old unemployed resident of J. P. Nagar, a poor residential area just across from the boundary wall of the UCC plant.
"I was a balloon seller. Since I got exposed to the gas, I cannot breathe properly. I lost my only means of livelihood that night," said Lal, who claims he lives on the generosity of his neighbors.
Lal's story is by no means unique. Almost all gas victims complain of chronic ailments, including lung, eye and renal problems. A vast majority of those who were exposed to the toxic gas that night continue to suffer long-term side effects. Apart from the nearly 600,000 people directly affected by the disaster, BMHRC also caters to another million dependents, providing them free medical care, according to Pandey.
Privately, however, hospital staff say the facility is understaffed as doctors are leaving for greener pastures. Mishra, who treated disaster victims at Hamidia, said that eight of the 13 departments in the hospital are without doctors and blames the previous Congress Party-led government for the decay.
"I had told them, hire good doctors on contract and pay them good money, but no one listened."
Several victims who have taken to activism claim that the effects of exposure to the toxic gas have been passed on to later generations. Some of them run a nonprofit, Chingari Trust, that provides special education and medical help to more than 700 children who suffer from mental health issues, which they say is directly linked to the gas leak. However, Pandey said there is no data to support this theory.
"Honestly, we don't know, because there is no empirical evidence as of today to suggest that some of the changes might have passed on," said Pandey. "So, I'll say there is an absence of evidence but there is no evidence of absence," he adds.
Mishra refutes activists' claims that there are any seriously ill survivors alive today.
"One who can live for 30 years, can he be serious? All those who were seriously ill have since died," Mishra said. "One-time exposure can cause damage only once. That damage has limited their breathing capacity. One-time exposure will not produce repeat diseases," he said.
'Inadequate Compensation'
In 1989, the Indian Supreme Court approved a compensation of $470 million from UCC, which translated to 25,000 rupees ($400) for each survivor, while the family of each person who died received 62,000 rupees. In 2010, the Indian government approved an enhanced relief package for seriously affected victims.
In 2001, UCC was acquired by Dow Chemical. On Nov. 19, IBTimes UK reported that Dow's shareholders were to "table two resolutions calling for the company's management to accept responsibility" for the Bhopal disaster and to "fully compensate victims and to pay for a full-scale clean-up of the still-contaminated area."
"The second resolution will call for Dow Chemicals to acknowledge that, rather than becoming a shareholder in UCC (which Dow's management claims), the companies became a single entity, thus combining assets and liabilities," the report added.
Meanwhile, the activists refuse to relent. "Our main fight is not for money," said Abdul Jabbar Khan.
"We want that those who suffered should get proper medical aid and the following generations should be looked after well," he said. "I cannot bear to see people in pain … I feel like being in a long, dark tunnel. I just want to see some light at the end of it," Khan said, almost in tears.
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