Sathyu’s Introduction to Bhopal for Young People
Companies find a way to market poisons
About 50 years ago, a few large corporations pushed forward a claim that if farmers used synthetic chemicals as fertilizers they could increase food production and if they used chemicals as pesticides they could protect their crops from being damaged by different insects. The fact is that these chemical corporations had been producing deadly gases and other chemicals for use in the world wars and once the war ended they had no market for these chemicals; so they began a war against insects who they called pests.
The Green Revolution
Cunning as they were, these corporations called this kind of agriculture using chemicals – the ‘Green Revolution’. They claimed that the Green Revolution would guarantee that there was enough food for everyone in the world and no one had to go hungry. Because the promise to abolish hunger was so attractive and more because these corporations were/ and are so powerful (some of them had more money than what several countries put together had) they could push governments to accept the Green Revolution as the national policy on agriculture.
Of course now, over 50 years later, we know that the Green Revolution did not provide food to the hungry. (The real reason people go hungry is not because there isn’t enough food but because they do not have enough money to buy food.) We also know that the Green Revolution actually caused massive damage to the land and water because of the use of poisonous chemicals, and uprooted millions of people because big dams had to be built to supply water to the farms that were part of the Green Revolution. The only people who benefitted from the Green Revolution were the big chemical and other corporations whose wealth grew tremendously as more and more farmers were conned (by their own government’s propaganda) into buying more and more chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
Union Carbide comes to Bhopal
Union Carbide (UCC) built its pesticide factory in Bhopal while the Green Revolution was at its peak. The people managing the corporation thought that because farmers in Madhya Pradesh grew cotton and other crops that ‘needed’ a lot of pesticides they could do good business here. The Indian Government also helped UCC set up its factory because government officials were conned into believing that pesticides were good for farming and more so because many of the officials received favours from the corporation – their sons, daughters, nephews and nieces were given well paying jobs in the company.
Double standards of safety
Union Carbide already had a pesticide factory running in a small town in the USA called Institute in West Virginia. When they built the factory in Bhopal, instead of building a factory similar to the factory at Institute, they made many changes. They cut down on the safety systems, used ordinary steel in place of stainless steel, and installed very large tanks for storing the chemical, methyl isocyanate (MIC), so that they needed only a few tanks for storage. All this was done to make the Bhopal factory cost way cheaper (about $8 million cheaper) than the Institute factory. Obviously, it also made the factory in Bhopal rather unsafe. When the factory started running more cost-cutting was done by the management. A refrigeration plant that kept the methyl msocyanate in the tank at zero degrees centigrade was shut down to save about $70 a day. Also, half the people working in the factory were laid off, which meant there were fewer people keeping an eye on safety.
Profit before people
The effect of all this cost cutting soon began to show. Many workers were exposed to dangerous gases and had to be hospitalised, and in December 1981 one Mr Ashraf was killed when he was exposed to phosgene. The managers of the Bhopal factory sent the reports of injury and deaths of workers to the headquarters of the Union Carbide Corporation in Danbury, Connecticut. In May 1982, the top officials from Danbury sent a team of engineers to Bhopal to see what was wrong in the Bhopal factory. This team found that there were at least 30 areas in the factory where a major disaster could occur. Eleven of the hazardous areas were in the part of the factory where the very poisonous chemical methyl isocyanate was produced and stored. However, the bosses of Union Carbide Corporation did nothing about these hazards and made sure that no one in the Bhopal factory found out about the report that the engineers from Charleston had prepared. Repeated complaints by workers about the dangerous working conditions were ignored by the management.
A disaster waiting to happen
On December 2nd, 1984 a few workers were told to clean the pipes that carried the deadly MIC. The cleaning was being done by a high pressure jet of water. Because of the unsafe condition of the factory a lot of the water went inside the tank that contained MIC. This water started reacting with the MIC which made it hotter and made the reaction happen even faster. Soon there was so much heat and so much pressure inside the tank that the valve on the tank broke and about 40 tons of MIC gas leaked from the factory from a pipe about 100 feet tall. It was a few minutes past midnight when the leak started.
There was a gentle wind blowing towards the south which was where most people lived. The factory bosses could have sounded the siren to warn people about the gas leak, they could have told people to put a wet cloth over their noses to protect themselves, they could have advised people to run in the direction opposite to that of the wind. They did none of these and just went on denying that the deadly gas clouds had leaked from their factory. Because it was a very cold night, the clouds came down and moved close to the ground towards the centre of the city.
Poison Clouds over Bhopal
Most people living close the factory were very poor people. Their houses were made of mud and they had thatched roofs. When the poisonous gases leaked from the factory almost everybody in the neighbourhood communities was asleep and had no notion that they were surrounded by the gas cloud and that the gas was actually entering their houses through the rooves and holes in the walls. People got up coughing, choking, and their eyes burning. Most people thought that someone had set fire to a warehouse full of red chilli peppers. Not knowing any better many people ran out of their house screaming in pain as well as to warn others. Others opened their doors to find out about the commotion outside and clouds of deadly gas entered their houses.
The dead
As people ran in the direction of the gas they inhaled more and more of the poison and fell down dead. Many children holding on to their parents got wrenched off as they joined the fleeing crowds. Many women lost their unborn children as they ran. Thousands of animals including goats, cows and buffaloes that were tethered to posts died painful deaths. The deadly gas clouds went into the prison where the prisoners could not run away. Many people were killed on duty at the railway station. It is estimated that more than 8000 people died in the three days immediately after the disaster.
And the living
Well over half a million people were exposed. Those exposed had swollen eyes and they were gasping for breath. Medical research showed that once people inhaled the poisonous gases, the poisons went into their blood and as the blood circulated in the body, the poisons in it caused damage to different parts of the body. Breathlessness, cough, diminished eyesight, lack of appetite, numbness in the limbs, fatigue, pain all over the body – these were some of the problems people had.
Peoples’ immune systems were badly affected so they became more prone to tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. Over 100, 000 people remain ill, many without respite for the last 26 years. Research carried out by us at Sambhavna Trust Clinic shows that even the children who were in their mother’s womb at the time of the disaster or those born even two years later were shorter, thinner, lighter and had smaller heads compared to children born to parents who were not exposed to the poisonous gases.
The cycle of illness-work-illness
Seven out of ten women and men who were exposed to Union Carbide’s poisonous gases that night did hard physical labour (digging holes in the ground with axes, carrying loads on their heads, pushing handcarts, cutting wood and other work) to earn enough for their food, shelter and bare necessities. Most worked on daily wages and did not get any leave at work if they fell sick. Illness caused by the poisonous gases made workers sick which meant that they lost their wages. Often people force themselves to go to work despite illness because otherwise they and their family would starve. Thus their illness grows and many die untimely deaths. More than 15,000 people have died untimely deaths in the years following the disaster and the death toll continues to rise.
Union Carbide still poisons Bhopal
The pesticide factory that leaked the poisonous gases on that terrible night was shut down soon after. But the factory continues to poison the land and the groundwater and the people living in its neighbourhood. In the 14 years that the factory produced pesticides, it also produced thousands of tons of waste, much of which is also poisonous. Documents from the corporation’s records show that Carbide’s bosses knew that the soil and groundwater around the factory would be poisoned because of pesticide production. These records also show that in 1989 – five years after the disaster – when Union Carbide’s scientists drew samples of water from under the ground in and around the factory, they found that all the fish they kept in the water (diluted several times over) died in a short while. But the scientists and the bosses of the corporation did not give this information to people who were already settled there and drawing groundwater through handpumps. What the corporation did, was to dismantle the factory, sell out whatever could be sold, and just upped and left.
Born disabled
Samples of groundwater have been tested by both government officials and non government organisations such as Greenpeace and found to contain high levels of chemicals that cause cancers and birth defects and damage the brain, lung, liver, kidneys and other organs. In fact the breastmilk of mothers living in communities close to Union Carbide’s abandoned factory has been found to contain dangerous chemicals in high concentrations. Because of the chemicals in their mother’s bodies, many children are born with cleft lips and missing palates. Many are born with damaged brains and need constant looking after. Thousands of people who have drunk the poisoned water for 15 years or longer have rashes and sores on their skins, suffer stomachache and giddiness and breathing problems and quite a few have cancers.
Union Carbide’s response
The bosses in the USA were shocked to hear about the disaster, which is weird because they knew two years previously that it was a disaster waiting to happen. However, their shock was not due to the death and misery in Bhopal, they were worried about two things: that they would have to pay a lot of money as compensation and that their image would be spoiled meaning they would not be able to do business as before.
When the news of the disaster in Bhopal reached UCC, the first people that the top bosses of Union Carbide contacted were people in the public relations (PR) business. These PR people coached UCC bosses in how to answer questions asked by journalists and lawyers. They also advised them on how to avoid paying compensation or get away by paying as little as possible.
In talking to journalists and others, Union Carbide’s bosses said that what happened in Bhopal was just an accident that they could not have known about, that the safety systems in the Bhopal factory were of the same standard as the factory in USA and that the health problems of most people would soon go away. The corporation’s lawyers said that the American company and its bosses could not be held responsible because the Bhopal factory was run by Indian people and that lawyers will ask for proof from each of the half million person who are demanding compensation, proof that their ill health is because of the gas exposure.
Today, in 2011, Union Carbide’s bosses who should be facing trial for causing death and illness among hundreds of thousands of people are still absconding from Indian courts. They have paid just $500 as compensation to people who have had to spend much more than that on just paying medical bills. And to the families of the people who died because of the disaster the corporation’s bosses gave $2000. One of the most awful things that the corporation continues to do is clamp down on medical information about the poisonous gases, that only the corporation has. Had they passed on this information it would have been easier for doctors in Bhopal to take care of people and for people to take precautions about health problems that could happen in future or in the next generation.
Dow Chemical takes over Union Carbide
In 2001, another US corporation, The Dow Chemical Company took over Union Carbide Corporation. Dow and Union Carbide have long been in the same business. Both produced poisonous gases for killing people in the two world wars and both were part of the project that led to dropping atom bombs on Japan. Between 1962 and 1971 Dow Chemical supplied a chemical called Agent Orange that causes cancers, birth defects and injuries to liver, kidney and other problems, to the US Army for spraying over large areas of Vietnam. Today, in 2011, there are over 100,000 children in Vietnam who are born disabled because of the spray of Agent Orange.
Until 2000, Dow sold a pesticide in the USA called Dursban; it was very popular. But then the US Environmental Protection Agency found that Dursban was causing serious harm to the brains of growing children and the corporation had to withdraw it from the market. In the same year, Dow started the production and selling of Dursban in India in a big way and continues to do so.
Dow Chemical follows this policy of double standards in other issues too. In Texas, USA a number of workers of Union Carbide had suffered injuries because the corporate bosses had been negligent and Union Carbide was ordered by the court to pay compensation. After Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide, it was Dow Chemical that paid the compensation to the workers as the owner of Union Carbide. But when it comes to cleaning up the thousands of tons of poisonous waste from Bhopal or to pay compensation for the health damages because of the contaminated ground water, Dow Chemical says all this happened before they purchased Union Carbide so they will not accept responsibility. Of course this is contrary to what the laws in USA and India say on such matters.
The Indian Government’s response
Instead of helping the people of Bhopal, the Indian Government put more energy and effort into downplaying the disaster. Top officials in the state government asked truck drivers to carry large numbers of dead bodies and dump them in the river and inside forests. The government passed a law by which it appointed itself the only legal representative of the victims and asked for $3.3 billion from Union Carbide. However, they later agreed to settle with the corporation for just 470 million dollars, about one-seventh of that amount.
The government set up a number of hospitals but did not care about the fact that there were no proper doctors, medicines or equipment in these hospitals for providing safe and effective treatment. Today, in 2011, people are thoughtlessly given antibiotics, steroids, psychotropic and other potentially harmful medicines. Likewise the Indian Government spent millions of rupees (from the taxes people all over the country paid) on building worksheds where gas-exposed people could be employed in safe and not so physically demanding jobs. However, government officials showed little interest in providing alternative employment and hardly any one was givena job. In May 2004, the state government was ordered by the Supreme Court of India to supply safe water to the communities next to the Union Carbide factory but still today some people there are forced to drink contaminated water from handpumps. The main reason that the government, irrespective of the political party in power, has been negligent towards the Bhopal people is that majority of the victims are poor people who do not have a say in the way the government is run.
Campaign for justice and dignity
The people poisoned by Union Carbide and Dow Chemical have fought and continue to fight a tough battle to regain their dignity and get justice. Their dignity was taken away by their being sick and unable to work and be forced to drink contaminated water. Justice has so far been denied to them as none of the corporate bosses whose negligence caused the disaster have been punished, and the corporations are still refusing to clean up the poisonous waste or pay for the care of children born with disabilities due to the contaminated water. The Bhopalis believe that if Union Carbide Corporation and its bosses go unpunished after the massacre in Bhopal it will encourage other corporations to be negligent about safety.
The poisoned people of Bhopal have fought relentlessly for the last 26 years. They have gone on fasts for as long as 22 days, walked thrice from Bhopal to New Delhi (a distance of about 500 miles), gone to jail and have been arrested and beaten for taking part in demonstrations against the corporations and the government. In 2008 they held a five-month long agitation (that included children chaining themselves to the fence of the house of the Indian Prime Minister) and the government agreed to set up an Empowered Commission for longterm medical care and rehabilitation and to make Dow Chemical pay for the clean up in Bhopal – this has not happened yet. Also, the Bhopal people and their supporters have stopped Dow Chemical from starting any of their poisonous activities in India. Our organisation, the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, is part of this struggle and we help the Bhopal survivors organisations in fighting court battles, speaking to the media and gathering support from people elsewhere in India and abroad.
Exploring and creating possibilities
Since 1995 we have been involved with Sambhavna which means ‘possibility’ in Hindi, the language most Bhopalis speak. We provide free medical care to more than 35,000 people who are registered with us at the Sambhavna Trust Clinic. People are treated with modern medicines as well as with herbs, massage and medicinal sauna, and through training in Yoga. Doctors and others at Sambhavna have developed safe, simple, inexpensive and effective remedies for many of the problems of the poisoned people.
It is one of the many ironies of the disaster that the illnesses of over half a million people in Bhopal have become a windfall for corporations that manufacture medicines which are but another wing of the chemical corporations. In a general way this is happening all over the world where increasingly people are falling sick due to environmental pollution. By successfully using herbs and drug free treatments like Yoga, we at Sambhavna are showing a way to escape this circle of poison. We grow more than 100 kinds of medicinal plants in our herb garden where we do not use any chemicals at all.
We also do a lot of health education and training in the affected communities and through these enable interested people in the community to take care of their own health problems, grow herbal gardens and take precautions against diseases. We do medical research to find out about the long-term health problems caused by Union Carbide and Dow Chemical as well as to find the best means for dealing with these problems. The clinic does not take money from corporations or corporate charities or big funding agencies; it runs on donations sent by over 15,000 individuals, many of whom are children. In fact the salary of one of our doctors (one who treats with herbs) is paid for by children of Reed School in Cobham near London.
