For many of the survivors of the dark early morning hours of Dec. 3, 1984, in Bhopal, dawn has yet to break 26 years later. Bhopal, a city in central India once famous for its lakes and old mosques, has since become infamous for being the site of the world's worst industrial disaster.
The cloud of poisonous gas that leaked from a pesticide plant owned by the chemical giant Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) still looms largely over the city. The 40 tons of methyl isocynate that overnight would cause the deaths of over 3,000 people still lives in Bhopal as poison in the water that the city residents drink and in the air that they breathe. An estimated 17,000 more people have since died from the aftereffects, and scores die each month from the exposure to the waste from the factory's site that even after 26 years has not been cleaned up.
In a way, the toxic waste in Bhopal is symbolic of the "vision" that Lawrence Summers outlined in his infamous memo in 1991 as the chief economist at the World Bank. Summers claimed responsibility for the memo, stating: "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the less developed countries?" Summers suggested that "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable, and we should face up to that." He would later say that he was being sarcastic. Few buy this.
So, the question arises: Who should clean up Bhopal? Successive governments, UCC and its current owner The Dow Chemical Company have shrugged off responsibility for the cleanup as well as the compensation and rehabilitation. Investigations into the leak led to the conclusion that it happened due to the intentional negligence of safety at the plant by UCC, which had used low−quality construction materials, compromised on vital safety measures and adopted hazardous operating procedures. As such, the residents of Bhopal did not realize what was coming until they woke up choking on the black gas that had filled their house, many of them dying in their sleep.
Shortly after the disaster, UCC abandoned its factory, leaving hundreds of tons of toxic waste on the site. After a long litigation battle between the government of India and UCC, a settlement was reached in 1989 under which UCC paid approximately $550 to each victim. That amount was to pay for a lifetime's worth of treatment costs for each individual, even for those who were chronically ill and needed surgeries and expensive medication. The settlement brought despair to the people of Bhopal who continued their struggle for justice.
In 2001, Dow Chemical bought UCC for $11.6 billion. It immediately distanced itself from the Bhopal disaster. Dow's argument was that since the disaster happened before it took over UCC, it wasn't its problem. Not only did Dow shrug off its moral responsibility to the case as the new owner, it also chose to ignore one of the basic principles of mergers and acquisitions: When you take over a company's assets, you also take over its liabilities.
More than anything, Bhopal was UCC's debt, a debt that it had failed to pay. In a press conference in 2002, when asked about Dow's responsibility to Bhopal, a spokesperson remarked that the $500 paid by UCC in 1989 to each victim "is plenty good for an Indian." Dow would later pay the family of Joshua Herb, a child in the United States who became brain−injured after being exposed to its pesticide Dursban, $10 million in an out−of−court settlement. The double standard is quite evident.
Financial liabilities aside, the culprits responsible for the negligence that led to the disaster, including Warren Anderson, the CEO of UCC during the gas disaster, have gotten away scot−free. Anderson is now reported to be living in the Hamptons despite the international warrant against him for culpable homicide. Earlier this year, an Indian court convicted some of the guilty to a two−year prison term while letting others go. This unjust verdict brought the issue back to the limelight. Following public outcry, the government was forced to increase its compensation to the affected as well as promise to take up the issue of Dow's liability. The noise didn't go down well in Washington. To a question about the Bhopal issue, a White House spokesperson remarked, "Bhopal is a closed chapter."
Unfortunately, even after almost nine years since it took over UCC and despite all the appeals and protests, Dow Chemical refuses to accept its responsibility to clean up Bhopal, let alone pay the appropriate compensation. So, what now? How do we as students come into the picture?
Unfortunately, academia is one of the best ways to create a good reputation. In a recent article in Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors, the vice president for research of University of South Alabama talks about how, post−oil spill, BP approached his university with a huge research proposal that would bring in a lot of grant funding to the university. What ensued was a total catastrophe — the research proposal was actually a sly attempt by BP to engage professors in unethical research that would help BP escape liabilities from disasters like the Gulf oil spill.
This is a lesson for all of us in academia, including students. From research grants to student competitions for sustainability, companies like these operate in their own interests. And it is up to us as their prospective researchers and employees to distinguish between right and wrong.
As students, we are also empowered to raise our voices for justice, like justice for the people of Bhopal. And that's exactly what a group of students from Tufts, part of the Association for India's Development, did on Friday, Dec. 3. Joining hands with the Boston Coalition for Justice in Bhopal, they raised the slogan "Justice for Bhopal is Justice for All."
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Shayan Purkayastha is a junior majoring in computer science engineering.
