Our NGOs and social activists championing the cause of Bhopal victims or working for the green world should give up their hypocrisy, opines SOROOR AHMED
Twenty-five years and a half later what Bhopal exposed is our collective hypocrisy. It is not just a case of too lenient a punishment given by a single judge, but the failure of the entire system. Our Parliament, Judiciary, Executive – both political and permanent – and of course the Press all let us down.
And now we are all enacting a drama titled The Bail-out of Warren Anderson.
The media barons – not just young reporters and sub-editors – think that the readers or the audience are the greatest fools, therefore, should be bombarded with all the old stuffs just to dramatise the situation and earn some fast buck through advertisements. So whatever is appearing in the Press is a sort of re-mix of a quarter century old songs, of course tragic ones. All what is appearing about Anderson is nothing new.
Everyone who matters – and old enough – is aware that he was ushered back into his own country with full state honour by the Indian state.
We all know that we are not going to get the 89-year old Anderson. For a moment, suppose that he is extradited by the United States. What are we going to do with him? After all what have we done to the remaining eight Indian officials – one in fact died in the prolonged legal battle. Two years imprisonment and then bail. If Anderson is being demanded for this much then we must be generous enough to pardon him!
The issue is just not the accidental leak of poisonous gas, but how is it that an industry of such a nature got established in the densely populated part of Bhopal. Why did the government not force the industry to shift from the place?
India is a unique country where industries are situated in the heart of many cities while schools in the suburbs. Or if that is not the case the population is allowed to grow around the industries, which actually were in outskirts.
In many of our cities schools are set up 10-20 or even more kilometres away from the population because most of the private institutes are opened by businessmen who get cheap farm land in the outskirts of the town. Therefore, children are made to travel more than a couple of hours daily inhaling all sorts of gases on way and back.
In contrast, industries are situated in the heart of towns because the government lacks vision and planning. Not to speak of Warren Anderson or anyone else, we cannot influence or force our own industrialists to shift their bases outside, nor can we prevent the growth of population near the industries. The nexus between the ruling class – not just politicians – the industrialists and the land mafia plays a key role in accidents like the one which took place in Bhopal.
What we all need to tell the people frankly is: Yes we cannot bring Anderson because he was the boss of an MNC. No, even our own industrialists are above the law. And that Bhopal is just a small price for the ‘development’ of the country.
After all government after government – be it the UPA or NDA – is signing deal after deal for setting up all sorts of polluting plants by MNCs in India as they now want to keep the environment of their own countries clean.
And it is the same media barons and judiciary – not to speak of just the politicians and bureaucrats – who are also championing the cause of the steel, iron ship-breaking industries. We are being befooled by the argument that it would provide so many thousands jobs, not knowing that these industries are rendering millions others sick and pushing them to slow death. Good riddance then; after all our population would decline by such deaths. But then not before spending thousands of rupees on their medicine and treatment.
If this is ‘development’ and its price then we all must sacrifice for the greater cause of the nation. The only rider is that all of us – politicians, judges, bureaucrats and media barons – should shift their bungalows and plush apartments to the vicinity of these industries and face the pleasant gases every now and then.
We must stop shedding tears on the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, which fixes the maximum amount of liability in case of a nuclear accident at paltry Rs 500 crore to be paid by the operator of the nuclear plant. The legislation makes the operator exclusively liable in case of an accident, but there is no mention of the suppliers’ liability.
Even our NGOs and social activists championing the cause of Bhopal victims or working for the green world should give up their hypocrisy. Many of them, not all, use lead lifestyle and contribute as much to polluting the atmosphere yet when it comes to making speeches or taking to streets they would be the first to go for it.
True, the poisonous gas leaked in Bhopal when India had a new, inexperienced and till then unelected Prime Minister and the country was in the election mode. It took place in the night of December 2-3, 1984 – just a month after Rajiv Gandhi was named Prime Minister of the country following the assassination of his mother and then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi by her own Sikh guard on October 31, 1984. The parliamentary election was going on and the country was least prepared for such a horrible man-made carnage.
Yet one thing should be kept in mind that we were in the Soviet camp then and opposed to the United States’ design in the world. In spite of that the American influence proved so influential. Today when the Soviet Union does not exist and India is wholly in the US camp the amount of pressure the lone Super Power can put on us in any given circumstances can only be imagined.