Justice eludes Union Carbide’s victims
Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily has aptly described a recent lower court judgement on the Union Carbide disaster as an example of “justice buried” and rightly reiterated need for fast-tracking such cases and ensuring proper investigation. But if Mr Moily had been half as sincere as he pretends to be, he would have also said that the party to which he belongs, the Congress, was in power in Madhya Pradesh when deadly methyl isocyanate leaked from Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal 26 years ago and the then Chief Minister Arjun Singh, did everything possible to scuttle a fair inquiry in order to prevent company officials from being held guilty. Let us not forget that Warren Anderson, then chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, the parent American company of Union Carbide India Ltd, who visited Bhopal after the world’s worst industrial disaster that killed more than 15,000 people, was nominally ‘arrested’, taken to his company’s guest house so that he did not suffer any inconvenience, granted bail after six hours, and then put on a Government plane to fly out of the city and subsequently India to the safe confines of the US. All this was supervised and arranged for by Arjun Singh with the full knowledge of the Union Government then headed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Worse, the State Government’s response, as also that of the Centre, to the tragedy was so utterly ill-planned and uncaring that the resultant chaos became an excuse for officials to get a full and proper tally of those killed and injured. As with most such incidents that involve India’s hapless masses, especially the poor, the post-disaster records leave much to be desired, not least because they indicate the mindset of those in power and their factotums in the bureaucracy.
Of course it’s a travesty that officials of Union Carbide should have got away with a rap on their knuckles — for that is what the recent judgement amounts to — but that is only one part of the heart-rending story of those who died on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, the thousands who never woke up from their sleep after inhaling the noxious gas that had leaked from the Union Carbide factory and the thousands more who died a slow, agonising death over the following days, weeks, months, years. The other part should enrage us as much as the judgement delivered by the lower court 23 years after trial began: The abysmal failure of the state to ensure speedy and fair justice, more so in a case involving mass murder by another name. The seven men held guilty of a far lesser crime and not the one that was committed on that horrific winter night 26 years ago have already secured bail and will no doubt appeal against the lower court’s verdict in the High Court. From there the case will move to the Supreme Court. It could take another decade, two decades or even more for the farce to come to an end.
Would it then really matter if any of the accused were punished or let off? Would justice be done to the men, women and children who died gasping for breath? Would the loss of 15,000 lives be compensated in a fair and just manner? More importantly, does the Government attach any value to the lives of the citizens of this nation? And, have any lessons been learned from the Union Carbide disaster? These are questions whose answers are known to all, including Moily.
Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily has aptly described a recent lower court judgement on the Union Carbide disaster as an example of “justice buried” and rightly reiterated need for fast-tracking such cases and ensuring proper investigation. But if Mr Moily had been half as sincere as he pretends to be, he would have also said that the party to which he belongs, the Congress, was in power in Madhya Pradesh when deadly methyl isocyanate leaked from Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal 26 years ago and the then Chief Minister Arjun Singh, did everything possible to scuttle a fair inquiry in order to prevent company officials from being held guilty. Let us not forget that Warren Anderson, then chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, the parent American company of Union Carbide India Ltd, who visited Bhopal after the world’s worst industrial disaster that killed more than 15,000 people, was nominally ‘arrested’, taken to his company’s guest house so that he did not suffer any inconvenience, granted bail after six hours, and then put on a Government plane to fly out of the city and subsequently India to the safe confines of the US. All this was supervised and arranged for by Arjun Singh with the full knowledge of the Union Government then headed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Worse, the State Government’s response, as also that of the Centre, to the tragedy was so utterly ill-planned and uncaring that the resultant chaos became an excuse for officials to get a full and proper tally of those killed and injured. As with most such incidents that involve India’s hapless masses, especially the poor, the post-disaster records leave much to be desired, not least because they indicate the mindset of those in power and their factotums in the bureaucracy.
Of course it’s a travesty that officials of Union Carbide should have got away with a rap on their knuckles — for that is what the recent judgement amounts to — but that is only one part of the heart-rending story of those who died on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, the thousands who never woke up from their sleep after inhaling the noxious gas that had leaked from the Union Carbide factory and the thousands more who died a slow, agonising death over the following days, weeks, months, years. The other part should enrage us as much as the judgement delivered by the lower court 23 years after trial began: The abysmal failure of the state to ensure speedy and fair justice, more so in a case involving mass murder by another name. The seven men held guilty of a far lesser crime and not the one that was committed on that horrific winter night 26 years ago have already secured bail and will no doubt appeal against the lower court’s verdict in the High Court. From there the case will move to the Supreme Court. It could take another decade, two decades or even more for the farce to come to an end.
Would it then really matter if any of the accused were punished or let off? Would justice be done to the men, women and children who died gasping for breath? Would the loss of 15,000 lives be compensated in a fair and just manner? More importantly, does the Government attach any value to the lives of the citizens of this nation? And, have any lessons been learned from the Union Carbide disaster? These are questions whose answers are known to all, including Moily.
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