THE return of the Bhopal tragedy to the headlines especially in Indian media is no surprise. As someone who lived in Bhopal for a few years just after the gas tragedy, it hurts me more that anyone else. The only change is that the latest fuss is made over the “light punishment” meted out to those seven people “responsible for the tragedy,” the great escape of the much wanted white man, the need to extradite and punish the “mass murderer” to render justice to the victims.
Verbal lashing on the television with virtually everyone saying that justice is not done to the people and so on. All this noise is being made despite the fact that justice in India is delivered very late as courts here often take decades or even generations to pronounce judgments. Even in the so-called “fast track courts” it takes years for the final judgment to be pronounced. Add a few more years for the sentence to be executed and when this happens there are celebrations all around, hailing the Indian judicial system! Why it is that the recent Bhopal judgment has caused such a furor? Everyone seems to go with the gallery, baying for the blood of 90-year-old Warren Anderson who was the then CEO of now defunct Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). The sentencing of seven Indian employees to two years in prison after more that 25 years of tragedy caused by the UCC is being ridiculed to no end. We need to understand that industrial accidents have happened in the past and will continue to happen with or without people like Anderson at the helm. If any thing, Anderson should be appreciated for showing courage to be in India immediately after the accident and later doing all he could despite failures of the local administration on every front from organizing medical aid to disbursement of money during the years that passed by. India did not even provide emotional support of any kind to the victims. Today the focus seems to be more on the individuals who escaped and the “foreign company” rather than the painstakingly slow judicial system and corrupt and inefficient administration.
As far as compensation to victims of the tragedy is concerned, the case was settled “out of court.” There is no point in demanding extra money. Some middlemen in Bhopal must be licking their lips over possibility of more compensation by drawing parallels with the recent devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The claims against the British energy major BP Plc. for the lives lost off the Louisiana coast could be mind-boggling sum by Indian standards. The prospect has made some people raise the racial case in India. It is not American life versus Indian life as made out by a few commentators. India accepted the settlement over the disaster that happened 25 years ago. The worst part is the demand made in some circles that Dow Chemicals, which has taken over Union Carbide, bear the liabilities to the tune of billions of rupees for clearing the ground of the toxic material. Why not make them pay higher compensation to victims, say a few activists. The company is vilified for its predecessor’s fault. These kinds of demands only make India a laughing stock at the international level.
The CEO or senior executives of the multinationals are easy targets especially if they are whites and Americans. The chairman and managing director (CMD) of Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (IPCL — then a public sector organization but now part of Reliance Industries) remained unpunished for the deaths of 30 odd people when the gas cracker burst at Nagothane near Mumbai in November 1990. Again four people were killed at the same complex in June 2008. Did any one ask Mukesh Ambani — the CEO of the Reliance Industries — to be punished? Did we demand jailing of the CMD of Indian Oil (IOC) for fire tragedies in the past? Whether one heads a foreign company or Indian, CEOs cannot be held responsible for industrial disasters or even for accidents like the Mangalore plane crash.
At best the CEO of a company or the minister may offer to resign. He or she may even be asked to leave, citing “moral responsibility” which means little to victims. The CEOs should be judged on the basis of what they do after such disasters. I worked for 15 years in the hydrocarbon industry and would like to warn that safety is everyone’s responsibility — the companies which operate these units, the people who reside around such dangerous plants and the local administration. Everyone must know what to do in case of accidents and gas leakages.
No company on earth can give 100 percent safety guarantee regarding its operations. If some companies do, you believe them at your peril. The situation is far more complicated especially in chemical industries that play with fire and sometimes with human lives
As far as compensation to victims of the tragedy is concerned, the case was settled “out of court.” There is no point in demanding extra money. Some middlemen in Bhopal must be licking their lips over possibility of more compensation by drawing parallels with the recent devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The claims against the British energy major BP Plc. for the lives lost off the Louisiana coast could be mind-boggling sum by Indian standards. The prospect has made some people raise the racial case in India. It is not American life versus Indian life as made out by a few commentators. India accepted the settlement over the disaster that happened 25 years ago. The worst part is the demand made in some circles that Dow Chemicals, which has taken over Union Carbide, bear the liabilities to the tune of billions of rupees for clearing the ground of the toxic material. Why not make them pay higher compensation to victims, say a few activists. The company is vilified for its predecessor’s fault. These kinds of demands only make India a laughing stock at the international level.
The CEO or senior executives of the multinationals are easy targets especially if they are whites and Americans. The chairman and managing director (CMD) of Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (IPCL — then a public sector organization but now part of Reliance Industries) remained unpunished for the deaths of 30 odd people when the gas cracker burst at Nagothane near Mumbai in November 1990. Again four people were killed at the same complex in June 2008. Did any one ask Mukesh Ambani — the CEO of the Reliance Industries — to be punished? Did we demand jailing of the CMD of Indian Oil (IOC) for fire tragedies in the past? Whether one heads a foreign company or Indian, CEOs cannot be held responsible for industrial disasters or even for accidents like the Mangalore plane crash.
At best the CEO of a company or the minister may offer to resign. He or she may even be asked to leave, citing “moral responsibility” which means little to victims. The CEOs should be judged on the basis of what they do after such disasters. I worked for 15 years in the hydrocarbon industry and would like to warn that safety is everyone’s responsibility — the companies which operate these units, the people who reside around such dangerous plants and the local administration. Everyone must know what to do in case of accidents and gas leakages.
No company on earth can give 100 percent safety guarantee regarding its operations. If some companies do, you believe them at your peril. The situation is far more complicated especially in chemical industries that play with fire and sometimes with human lives
