7th June was a day full of angst for most Indians. Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohan P Tiwari convicted former Union Carbide India Chairman, Keshub Mahindra and seven others in the Bhopal gas tragedy case. The Bhopal Court awarded them a maximum of two years imprisonment, 23 years after the trial began. All eight persons applied for bail and were granted relief immediately.
Sounds almost like a joke if you were to tell anyone that 15000 people died in what was perhaps the worst industrial disaster in the world. Even more so when one hears that 89 year old Warren Anderson, the then chairman of Union Carbide Corporation of USA went scot free. Anderson lives in the United States and is still an absconder in our country.
Wait, the joke is not over yet. What if you were told that Anderson was released after being arrested. There's more, he was then put on a Madhya Pradesh Govt. plane and flown to Delhi. As dead bodies were piling up in Bhopal, Anderson was sipping tea with President Giani Zail Singh at Raisina Hill, before heading back to home sweet home.
This is a story that most knew, yet all the drama around it had long been forgotten. But Monday's verdict has once again shaken the very depths of everyone's conscience. The then Chief Minister of MP, Arjun Singh and then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were at a rally in the state when Anderson's release was ordered. What is pretty clear from the above facts that it would not have been possible for Anderson to leave the country without taking the Centre into confidence.
Rajiv Gandhi also held the External Affairs portfolio at that time. So whether or not we like it, we will have to admit that Rajiv Gandhi knew what was happening. Many believe that the then President of the United States, Ronald Reagan himself spoke to Rajiv Gandhi and ensured Anderson's safe exit. Rajiv was made to believe that Anderson would come back later when legal proceedings against him would start. And that if Anderson was kept in Bhopal, it was very much possible that he could be lynched by the public. The state govt would not be able to control the public anger, all directed at one person. Rajiv was relatively new in politics and took the Americans at face value. So out went Anderson and 25 years later, the focus is back on 'who let Anderson go'.
The current Chief Minister of MP, Shivraj Singh Chouhan has now written to Arjun Singh asking him who let Anderson off the hook. That raises two questions. Is Chouhan another Rip Van Winkle that he wakes up to a fact after 25 years ? The other question is more serious. What will we achieve by extraditing Anderson to India ?
What is more important for the victims of the tragedy. To see an old man being punished by the Courts, that itself could take many many more years. Probably Anderson would no more be there by then. Or do we create pressure on the Company involved through our Govt., to provide compensation to the victims and their families. If you ask the people who have lived through the horror, the overwhelming response would come for compensation first. You need to live and survive to be able to see that the perpetrators are brought to book.
So UPA-II hurriedly reconstitutes the Group of Ministers on Bhopal Gas Tragedy. This time Hime Minister P Chidambaram is made the head of the GoM replacing Arjun Singh. It also has another senior Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh Kamalnath in the group. Now we need to go back a few years to understand why these two names on the GoM have more than what meets the eye.
US giant, Dow Chemicals that bought Union Carbide in 2001 was trying hard to enter India's promising petrochemicals market in 2007. As any smart business house would do, Dow wanted to get rid of the clause which warrants that they have to pay Rs 100 crores for cleaning up the 1984 gas leak site and contaminated ground water before they can do any business in India. They wanted to get rid of the liabilities of Union Carbide that they had bought knowing fully well about the notice served to them by the Fertilizers and Chemical Ministry for the same.
Led by the Tatas, Dow reached out to the Indian Government. That instead of asking them to pay Rs 100 crore damages, Tata along with some other private sector corporates would set up a fund to clean the site in Bhopal. What this meant was the Indian Government would be making an out of court settlement to the dispute. It also led many to believe that this could also absolve Dow Chemicals of their liability to provide compensation to those victims affected by the groundwater in Bhopal. A clean chit to Dow to forget the gory past and make money in one of India's lucrative business sectors.
And who were the people pushing for Dow in India ? Tata's letter requesting Dow's entry was endorsed by the likes of P Chidambaram, Kamalnath, Abhishek Singhvi and Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Their consent was sent to the PMO to allow Dow to do business in India without clearing its liabilities of Bhopal ! And the Prime Minister has made the same person the head of the GoM who is already of the view that Dow's liabilities should be waived off.
Rajiv Gandhi did allow Anderson to fly out of India. But what was his mental frame of mind then. He had just lost his mother a month ago, he was new to politics and was busy campaigning twenty hours a day across the country during the General Elections when the disaster happened. No one knew then that it would turn into India's biggest tragedy. He is not absolved of the crime, but Im sure he would have stood up and owned responsibility. He is no more with us, but he was a man who didnt feel shy to admit that he was human. And to err is natural for humans.
But what is one to make of these senior, powerful, erudite personalities of the Congress party. Chidambaram and Kamalnath have been ministers for almost fifteen years, while Abhishek Singhvi is the party's mouthpiece in daily press briefings. They knew the full extent of Bhopal Gas Tragedy, they knew that compensation has been poor for the victims. They knew that a lot more still needs to be done to improve the conditions near the gas leak site. Yet, they agreed that Dow can be absolved of its liabilities.
So how does this reflect on UPA-II ? Is it a memory loss for the PMO that they cant seem to remember of events and letters written by important players in the Govt. just three years back ? Or is it true that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh really does bend over backwards to please the United States all the time ? Both scenarios do not look good for a Prime Minister who has always been high on integrity. And its time he responded to the situation the way we expect him to do.
Sounds almost like a joke if you were to tell anyone that 15000 people died in what was perhaps the worst industrial disaster in the world. Even more so when one hears that 89 year old Warren Anderson, the then chairman of Union Carbide Corporation of USA went scot free. Anderson lives in the United States and is still an absconder in our country.
Wait, the joke is not over yet. What if you were told that Anderson was released after being arrested. There's more, he was then put on a Madhya Pradesh Govt. plane and flown to Delhi. As dead bodies were piling up in Bhopal, Anderson was sipping tea with President Giani Zail Singh at Raisina Hill, before heading back to home sweet home.
This is a story that most knew, yet all the drama around it had long been forgotten. But Monday's verdict has once again shaken the very depths of everyone's conscience. The then Chief Minister of MP, Arjun Singh and then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were at a rally in the state when Anderson's release was ordered. What is pretty clear from the above facts that it would not have been possible for Anderson to leave the country without taking the Centre into confidence.
Rajiv Gandhi also held the External Affairs portfolio at that time. So whether or not we like it, we will have to admit that Rajiv Gandhi knew what was happening. Many believe that the then President of the United States, Ronald Reagan himself spoke to Rajiv Gandhi and ensured Anderson's safe exit. Rajiv was made to believe that Anderson would come back later when legal proceedings against him would start. And that if Anderson was kept in Bhopal, it was very much possible that he could be lynched by the public. The state govt would not be able to control the public anger, all directed at one person. Rajiv was relatively new in politics and took the Americans at face value. So out went Anderson and 25 years later, the focus is back on 'who let Anderson go'.
The current Chief Minister of MP, Shivraj Singh Chouhan has now written to Arjun Singh asking him who let Anderson off the hook. That raises two questions. Is Chouhan another Rip Van Winkle that he wakes up to a fact after 25 years ? The other question is more serious. What will we achieve by extraditing Anderson to India ?
What is more important for the victims of the tragedy. To see an old man being punished by the Courts, that itself could take many many more years. Probably Anderson would no more be there by then. Or do we create pressure on the Company involved through our Govt., to provide compensation to the victims and their families. If you ask the people who have lived through the horror, the overwhelming response would come for compensation first. You need to live and survive to be able to see that the perpetrators are brought to book.
So UPA-II hurriedly reconstitutes the Group of Ministers on Bhopal Gas Tragedy. This time Hime Minister P Chidambaram is made the head of the GoM replacing Arjun Singh. It also has another senior Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh Kamalnath in the group. Now we need to go back a few years to understand why these two names on the GoM have more than what meets the eye.
US giant, Dow Chemicals that bought Union Carbide in 2001 was trying hard to enter India's promising petrochemicals market in 2007. As any smart business house would do, Dow wanted to get rid of the clause which warrants that they have to pay Rs 100 crores for cleaning up the 1984 gas leak site and contaminated ground water before they can do any business in India. They wanted to get rid of the liabilities of Union Carbide that they had bought knowing fully well about the notice served to them by the Fertilizers and Chemical Ministry for the same.
Led by the Tatas, Dow reached out to the Indian Government. That instead of asking them to pay Rs 100 crore damages, Tata along with some other private sector corporates would set up a fund to clean the site in Bhopal. What this meant was the Indian Government would be making an out of court settlement to the dispute. It also led many to believe that this could also absolve Dow Chemicals of their liability to provide compensation to those victims affected by the groundwater in Bhopal. A clean chit to Dow to forget the gory past and make money in one of India's lucrative business sectors.
And who were the people pushing for Dow in India ? Tata's letter requesting Dow's entry was endorsed by the likes of P Chidambaram, Kamalnath, Abhishek Singhvi and Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Their consent was sent to the PMO to allow Dow to do business in India without clearing its liabilities of Bhopal ! And the Prime Minister has made the same person the head of the GoM who is already of the view that Dow's liabilities should be waived off.
Rajiv Gandhi did allow Anderson to fly out of India. But what was his mental frame of mind then. He had just lost his mother a month ago, he was new to politics and was busy campaigning twenty hours a day across the country during the General Elections when the disaster happened. No one knew then that it would turn into India's biggest tragedy. He is not absolved of the crime, but Im sure he would have stood up and owned responsibility. He is no more with us, but he was a man who didnt feel shy to admit that he was human. And to err is natural for humans.
But what is one to make of these senior, powerful, erudite personalities of the Congress party. Chidambaram and Kamalnath have been ministers for almost fifteen years, while Abhishek Singhvi is the party's mouthpiece in daily press briefings. They knew the full extent of Bhopal Gas Tragedy, they knew that compensation has been poor for the victims. They knew that a lot more still needs to be done to improve the conditions near the gas leak site. Yet, they agreed that Dow can be absolved of its liabilities.
So how does this reflect on UPA-II ? Is it a memory loss for the PMO that they cant seem to remember of events and letters written by important players in the Govt. just three years back ? Or is it true that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh really does bend over backwards to please the United States all the time ? Both scenarios do not look good for a Prime Minister who has always been high on integrity. And its time he responded to the situation the way we expect him to do.
