June 2010 
Year 16    No.152
Focus


Crime compunded

If the Bhopal gas victims received a pittance as compensation, blame lies on the Union government

BY ND JAYAPRAKASH

The inhabitants of the city of Bhopal became victim of the world’s worst chemical disaster when on the night of 02/03 December 1984 a huge toxic plume engulfed about two-thirds of the city for over two hours before it dissipated. The highly poisonous gases had leaked because of exothermic reactions that took place in an underground storage tank, which contained about 41 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC), an extremely volatile and noxious chemical.

The said storage tank had been installed at the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), a subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) – a US multinational company that held 50.9 per cent of shares of UCIL at the time of the disaster. (At the time of installation of the Bhopal plant, UCC had owned about 64 per cent of UCIL’s shares).

The immediate human death toll, according to official figures, was around 2,500. It was also officially acknowledged that residents of 36 of the 56 municipal wards of Bhopal, i.e., approximately about 6,00,000 of the city’s total population of nearly 9,00,000, had suffered injuries in varying degree. It is estimated that the death toll has since gone above 20,000. The impact of the disaster on flora and fauna in the affected area was equally staggering.

Since the gas leak occurred at around mid-night, most residents in the said 36 gas-affected wards of Bhopal were at home, which – depending on one’s earning capacity – consisted of pucca or kutchcha structures. Many families who stayed in kutchcha structures near the UCIL plant, which was at the northern end of the city, perished en masse in their sleep because the toxic gases entered the porous structures in concentrated form without any difficulty. Others, who were suddenly woken up from their sleep due to intense irritation in their nostrils caused by the inhalation of the toxic gases, began to flee in panic to the southern side of the city, which also happened to be direction in which the toxic cloud was being blown by a gentle breeze.

Residents of pucca structures, who were woken up by the commotion outside their homes, too began to run towards the southern side of the city. In the process, all those who thought they were fleeing to safety inhaled more of the toxic gases. Those who remained inside pucca structures were comparatively less affected because entry of the toxic gases into their homes was a slow process in the cold winter night when windows and doors of such structures would mostly remain tightly shut. All those who owned or had access to vehicles – cycles, tongas, three-wheeler, lorries, minibuses, cars, etc. – used those modes of transport to move away from the plant site.

In this context, the yeomen service rendered by the army unit that was then stationed at Bhopal needs special mention. A unit of the Sikh Regiment, which was at the Bhopal Cantonment that was situated on the western side close to the UCIL plant but in an area that remained unaffected by the disaster, voluntarily rushed to the rescue of the victims. Brigadier NK Mayne, who was commander of the said army unit and who was informed of the commotion that was going on near the cantonment, rushed to the spot to assess the situation. After determining that people from the affected areas have to be evacuated at the earliest, he commandeered all the available army vehicles from the cantonment area and personally led the evacuation process.

While thousands of lives were saved through such voluntary effort, the tragic part is that in the process, Brigadier Mayne and many of his jawans too inhaled the toxic gases and had to be hospitalised. Brigadier Mayne’s wife, Dr Asha Mayne, who was a medical doctor and who too had volunteered to provide medical help to the victims, was serving other victims while her husband was being treated elsewhere. The impact of the exposure to the toxic gases was such that Brigadier Mayne was continuously in and out of hospitals before becoming yet another victim of the disaster five years later. There is almost no news about the fate of his jawans who had been similarly exposed. They are among the numerous unsung heroes, who had volunteered to help the victims.

Hamidia Hospital, which was the biggest hospital in Bhopal at that time, was situated about 3 kms away on the south-western side of the UCIL plant. Due to the severe burning sensation in the eyes and nostrils and uncontrollable cough and tears, Hamidia Hospital was the spot where most victims rushed to seek medical help. Doctors, medical students, and nurses at the hospital tried to provide whatever symptomatic relief they could to the gas victims in the absence of the appropriate antidote to MIC poisoning, which UCC failed to disclose.

Subsequently, some concerned medical doctors suggested that sodium thiosulphate could be an effective antidote against cyanide poisoning. However, as soon as the process of administering sodium thiosulphate injections to be victims began, a pro-UCC lobby began a vicious campaign to stop the process and the government succumbed to their pressure. UCC was intent on disproving that exposure to MIC could have resulted in cyanide poisoning and they succeeded in their mission. Due to the raging controversy, the larger issue of evolving a proper protocol for treating the victims got sidelined.

The untimely loss of near and dear ones, especially loss of the sole earning member in the family, and reduced capacity to do manual labour had forced thousands of families to seek immediate relief from the government. The government, on its part, offered Rs.10,000 to the next of kin of those who were officially proclaimed as dead and free rations to about 1,00,000 families. However, provision of free rations to the said victims was summarily discontinued after one year of the disaster.

Between 1986 and 1990, the victims hardly received any other help from the government. Even the Bhopal Settlement of 14/15 February 1989, which was supposedly intended to provide immediate relief to the gas victims, was of no help to the hapless victims since the government had not processed all the claims and had not identified all the potential beneficiaries. Therefore, it was only after the VP Singh government assumed office that the victims were offered Rs. 200 per person per month as interim relief to all the residents in the 36 gas-affected wards. The decision benefited over 5,00,000 victims. Such interim relief continued for over six years (until 1996). The manner in which the gas-victims led their lives without interim relief or compensation may well be imagined.

What was equally intriguing was the manner in which the magnitude of the disaster was quantified. The government could have easily identified all the gas victims if it had allowed the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to complete the house-to-house survey that it had coordinated with the help of over 500 student and teacher volunteers from several schools of social work across the country. The state government abruptly discontinued the said survey that began in January 1985 and had completed 25,000 detailed house hold surveys in the first two months. Forcing each victim to file separate claim and then adjudicating the same before claim courts became an unnecessary and tedious process. Finally, over 10,00,000 claims were filed although the total population in Bhopal at the time of the disaster was only around 9,00,000 and out of whom only around two-thirds had been directly exposed to the toxic gases.

Although at the time of the settlement the state government had processed only a fraction of the total 5,97,908 claims that had been filed until then, the central government misled the court into believing that the total number of gas affected was only about 1,05,000 (including 3,000 fatal cases). The court disclosed these figures after the Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (BGPSSS) and Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS) and others pointed out that the Settlement Order had not mentioned the number of beneficiaries, who were to share the settlement amount of $470 million (as opposed to the original claim of $3 billion).

The fact was that there was absolutely no basis for the central government to come to the arbitrary conclusion that the total number of gas affected was only about 105,000. In fact, the charge sheet filed by the CBI before the chief judicial magistrate Bhopal on December 1, 1987 showed that the number of affected persons was more than 5,00,000. Thus, there is irrefutable evidence that the central government had indeed misled the court regarding the size of the casualty figures.

Nevertheless, the truth could not be suppressed for long. The adjudication process went on from 1992 to 2006, with the Claim Courts ultimately determining that the total number of gas-affected were 5,74,367. As a result, the compensation amount of 470 million US dollars (Rs. 713 crore at the 1989 exchange rate) was spread thin and disbursed to 5,74,367 gas-victims, a figure that was over five times the number 1,05,000 on which the settlement was based. Thus, on an average, each victim was awarded the paltry amount of Rs.12,414 at the 1989 value of the rupee vis-à-vis the US dollar. The highly unjust manner in which compensation was awarded was evident on the face of it.

A fact that subsequently came to the notice of BGPSSS and BGPMUS was that the unjust Settlement took place on 14/15 February 1989, immediately after the US government had granted permission to the CBI on February 14, 1989 to carry out investigations at UCC’s Institute Plant, which was located in West Virginia, USA. Such permission was granted after the chief judicial magistrate (CJM), Bhopal, had issued a Letter Rogatory (Letter of Request) to the US government to permit the CBI to carry out the necessary investigations in the US. The purpose of the investigations was to verify whether or not UCC had installed sub-standard safety equipments at its Bhopal plant as compared to the superior safety systems that UCC had installed at its Institute plant and also to collect the relevant documents.

The Delhi Science Forum’s Report which was released just two weeks after the disaster was the first to point out that the disaster was most likely caused due to the adoption of duel safety standards by UCC. The report submitted by the Varadarajan Committee, which was set up by the government of India to determine the technical causes of the disaster, fully affirms the finding of the Delhi Science Forum (DSF).

The settlement pre-empted the CBI from carrying out necessary investigations in the US because one of the conditions of the court-assisted settlement was the quashing of all the present and future criminal cases against UCC, UCIL and all the concerned officials of these companies. The criminal cases were revived by the Supreme Court vide order dated October 3, 1991, while disposing of the review and revision petitions filed by BGPMUS, BGPSSS and others.

The fact remains that the Claim Courts, as stated above, have subsequently determined that the total number of victims were actually 5,74,367. However, the settlement sum of 470 million US dollars (Rs. 713 crore at the 1989 exchange value), which was to be disbursed among 1,05,000 gas-victims, was not enhanced proportionately. Instead, the same was spread thin and disbursed among the said 5,74,367 gas-victims, which effectively meant that the compensation amount that each gas-victim on an average was awarded was less than one-fifth of the amount that he/she should have received even as per the terms of the Settlement.

To rectify this gross injustice, the BGPMUS and the BGPSSS have been waging a determined struggle since 2004. After traversing one full circle –from the Supreme Court to the court of the welfare commissioner, Bhopal, to the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur and back to the Supreme Court during the last six years – the matter has been finally admitted for hearing by the Supreme Court on April 24, 2010. We are now hopeful that the Supreme Court will finally give due consideration to the wealth of facts that BGPMUS and BGPSSS have placed before the court in this regard and give a reasoned judgement.

The failure to properly monitor the long term impact of the toxic gases on the health of the gas victims is a matter for which the state government and the ICMR have to be taken to task. Despite repeated pleas by victim-groups, no serious efforts were made to maintain proper health records of gas-victims. There are enough indications to show that exposure to MIC and its derivatives have had grave impact on eyes, lungs, nervous systems, gastro-intestinal systems etc. of the gas-exposed. In spite of such observations, in 1994 itself the ICMR disbanded almost all the 20-odd medical research projects that it had initiated in 1985.

Due to consistent pressure from victim-groups and on the intervention of the Supreme Court, ICMR had promised to restart the research work. However, the fact remains that those promises have not yet materialized. Social rehabilitation is another area that has been grossly neglected. Environmental clean up of the contaminated soil and ground water and around the former Bhopal plant is the other unattended issue. 

Pursuing the criminal cases against the absconding accused, ensuring their prosecution and extracting punitive fines from the Dow Chemical Company, the present owner of accused No.10, Union Carbide Corporation, USA, and disbursing the same to the victims is the only way to ensure justice for them.

(ND Jayaprakash is a member of the Delhi Science Forum & Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti; Contact: [email protected].)


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