Mounting Public Revulsion

As we go to press, the Union Cabinet is learnt to have accepted the recommendations of the Group of Ministers set up by the UPA Government to revisit the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy and suggest means to help the victims after more than 25 years.

It was proposed by several persons, including Opposition politicians, that the GoM’s action plan should be placed before an all-party committee as well as organisations striving secure justice for the Bhopal victims for the past quarter of a century and streamlined on the basis of the views expressed at the meet. However, the government did not pay heed to this sane advice and chose in its wisdom to accept the GoM’s report in full.

The events of the last few days, that is, ever since the June 7 Bhopal District Court judgment, aptly described as a “judicial tragedy” in wide sections of the media (including this journal), have been witness to a veritable mass outrage which was seldom seen in the past. It is in the wake of this mass outrage that the Union Government decided to set up the GoM to assuage the feelings of the people.

The decision to examine the issue of filing a curative petition in the Supreme Court to explore the possibility of reviewing the out-of court settlement, arrived at between the Government of India and Union Carbide in 1989, in the light of the evidence gathered in the intervening period, is doubtless welcome. So are the decisions to (i) make fresh efforts to secure the extradition of the then UC chief, Warren Anderson, (ii) file a second curative petition to reverse the dilution of the charges against the accused. The compensation paid to the victims under the agreement between the Government of India and Union Carbide in 1989 was by all counts meagre. So the government has decided to enhance the quantum of compensation and, as has been opined in The Pioneer, it would be unfair to grudge the victims the enhanced pay-outs since “that’s the least that can be done to lessen the burden of their misery and ameliorate the suffering inflicted on them by Union Carbide”. Nonetheless, ...it is morally, if not also legally, wrong to make India’s over-burdened tax-payers carry the can for an offence committed by a greedy American multinational corporation known for unethical business practices. The Congress will no doubt claim credit for the enhanced compensation, but the bill for the largesse will be paid by the people of India and not those responsible for the shocking mass-murder. This is neither just nor fair, but a farce that will only serve to compound the appalling miscarriage of justice.

Thus three concrete measures have been proposed: (a) the polluter must pay (as is now so vociferously being articulated by US President Barack Obama in his tirade against British Petroleum); (b) Parliament must pass a resolution to scrap this $ 470 million ‘settlement’ between Union Carbide and the Government of India; (c) all efforts should be made to force Dow Chemicals, the present owners of Union Carbide, to shoulder the liabilities of 1984. Simultaneously it has also been highlighted that only the genuine victims should benefit from the increased compensation package.

What is shocking is the contrast between Obama’s strongly-worded attack on British Petroleum for the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and our leaders’ pusillanimous approach while dealing with Union Carbide and now Dow Chemicals for the 1984 tragedy. Is it absence of spine or lack of indepen-dence? Perhaps a combination of both. Whatever it is, there is public revulsion at such behaviour on the part of those leaders running the government at the Centre. And this revulsion is on the rise. This is the most positive development in recent times as it is symptomatic of the people’s determination to ensure that the real culprits of the 1984 disaster don’t get away scot-free.

Beyond the abominable ‘honour’ killings in the Capital guided by the attitude of the khap panchayats, the impact of the Sino-Pakistan nuclear deal on Indian security and national interest, the growing rift between the JD(U) and BJP constituting the ruling coalition in Bihar, it is this mounting public revulsion which has added a new dimension to the Indian political scene on the eve of the thirtyfifth anniversary of the proclamation of the infamous Emergency.

June 24 S.C.