Twenty years of relentless struggle

AS media teams plan their coverage of the 20th anniversary of Bhopal gas disaster on 3 December 2004, an obvious question is already being asked – is there anything new to report? Well there is. It is the tacit admission of the Indian Supreme Court in October 2004 that the magnitude of the disaster was five times greater than what it thought it was when it brokered the ‘infamous’ out of court settlement between the Indian government and Union Carbide in February 1989.

The 1989 Bhopal Settlement was based on the assumption that only 3000 people died and about 102,000 sustained injuries due to the poisonous gases that leaked from the Union Carbide owned pesticide plant in Bhopal on 3 December 1984. However, in its order of 26 October 2004, almost 20 years later, the court has ordered the disbursement of the remaining over Rs 1500 crore rupees from the settlement amount on a pro rata basis to all the 572,173 gas victims who had already been awarded compensation. The court has also given its seal of approval to the figure of 15,248 deaths, reported by the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department.

This is a glorious victory for the thousands of ailing and diseased victims who have refused to let up pressure on the concerned parties – the Union Carbide, Dow Chemical, the Madhya Pradesh government and the central government all these years – while keeping the Supreme Court of India, the Bhopal courts and the courts in the US engaged with a barrage of petitions. If Union Carbide thought that it had escaped its culpability by selling its assets to Dow Chemical, the victims have refused to let it off the hook. Dow Chemical’s plea that it had no responsibility since the incident occurred when the assets did not belong to it has been challenged on the streets and in the courts.

The respective governments who had hoped that the incident would die away after the shabby settlement, with the victims getting tired and fatigued, underestimated the resilience of the poor and ill victims – they have refused to be cast into the dustbin of history. For those who have witnessed the struggles, been friends and supporters of the victims and their organizations, the experience is as empowering as it is inspiring. The victory is, however, somewhat muted since even after accepting that the magnitude of the disaster was so overwhelming, the nature of compensation disbursement hasn’t been altered. It remains unscientific and unconnected to the degree of disability.

The track record of victims organizations is somewhat less glorious. The 20 years have seen many leaders and stalwarts come and go with their organizations. Along with the few who have sustained with a degree of honesty and commitment, others have been opportunistic, fly-by-night type, breathing fire and venom one day and gone the next. The earliest main organizations, the Bhopal Zahreeli Gas Kand Sangharsh Morcha and the Bhopal Relief and Rehabilitation Committee lasted two years each at the most. Led by middle class NGO persons who actually never lived in Bhopal, they constantly quarrelled with each other over territory and who was more radical. In the end, the external leaders vanished to New Delhi, and one of the local leaders joined the Congress party, the party in power in Madhya Pradesh against whom the victims were fighting!

Within the first year, two other victims organizations came up, which have more truly sustained the fight till now. They are the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS) and the Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha (GPNPBSM), along with the Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh. The names of these organizations are fascinating on two counts – the stress on women and entrepreneurship. Rejecting charity, they have fought for the rights of the victims, criminal liability of the Union Carbide and other officials, while foregrounding women victims. They sprang up from struggles to acquire work places for women to earn their livelihood, pension for widows and ageing gas-affected women, and proper compensation. The members of these organizations are mostly women, though strangely, their conveners are men.

But the sight of thousands of poor women, many burqa clad, demonstrating on the streets of Bhopal and New Delhi, in front of the Parliament and the Supreme Court, is now part of movement folklore. They have received unstinted support from the Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahyog Samiti (BGPSSS), a coalition of over 20 country-wide voluntary organizations of scientists, lawyers, teachers, artists, journalists, workers, women, students and youth that was formed in 1989.

Though these movements are truly grassroots, I believe that has also been their weakness. The victims fight is ultimately located around the science and technology of the killer plant, complex medical technicalities, legal labyrinths, corporate laws and rules which are way beyond their abilities to grasp. Nearly all of them, including their conveners, cannot even tackle the English language. For this reason they have always had to rely on professional help in these areas. A Madhya Pradesh based NGO with an office in Bhopal, Eklavya, positioned itself as one such support organization, particularly for the BGPMUS. Acutely aware of the need for continued support of this kind, I was one of the persons that helped found the Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA) to supplement whatever help Eklavya was able to provide, but had to opt out of it after a few years.

The advent of foreign money too upset such arrangements. A typical ‘bleeding heart’ charity advertisement in the Guardian, London, quite contrary to the assertion of rights that the victims were fighting for, brought in an enormous amount of money, which was galvanized by individuals within the BGIA to set up a separate Sambhavna Trust for medical research, effectively severing ties with the victim’s movements. This changed the character of BGIA, deprived the movements of English speaking middle class support at the local level, and gradually made them less visible in the English speaking international media. A space essential to sustain such complex struggles was, in effect, more or less appropriated by individuals supported from outside the country and their foreign counterparts like the Greenpeace and Corpwatch. BGPSSS, hampered because its active members do not live in Bhopal, has been the main source of professional help to the victims organizations for a long time now.

This has obviously led to a lot of bickering, charges and counter charges, and personal attacks, no different from movement politics all over the world. But the victims will to struggle has not been diminished by these inter-organisational conflicts. Even though their condition has gradually worsened, deep anger at the injustices they have lived under, rather than being extinguished, has been smouldering and flaming from time to time.

It is with a view to bring back some of these grassroots voices to the English speaking public that these interviews with some of the key protagonists of the victims fight were undertaken. Abdul Jabbar is the convener of BGPMUS and Hamida bi, Shantidevi and Anita its activists. Namdeo is the chairperson of GPNPBSM and Rampyari its activist.

 

Q: When was your organization formed and what kind of struggles has it gone through?

Jabbar: BGPMUS was formed after the first anniversary of the gas disaster, towards the end of 1985. Our objective was to go beyond what earlier organizations like the Bhopal Gas Kand Sangharsh Morcha (BGKSM) were involved in. The government had opened a number of sewing centres for livelihood generation, but these were closed down within a year of their opening. BGPMUS was actually formed to demand their reopening. In the name of rehabilitation, the government had limited its role to distributing cereals, milk etc. We were of the view that the free distribution of cereals and milk would not last long, and that it was a ploy to muzzle the anger people felt. Such free distribution was inculcating a beggar’s mentality amongst the victims, as also producing a depression in them that they were no longer fit to earn their own livelihood.

Our demand, therefore, was that the victims be provided with wage-based livelihoods, ensuring that the work was within their impaired physical abilities. Our fight was therefore for rights as against charity, and our slogan – ‘Yes to Work, No to Charity’. When the early sewing centres closed down, a mere 300 women worked in them. But after our initial struggle, when they were reopened in July 1987, this figure crossed 2300. This was at best a small victory since we reckoned about 50,000 persons were in need of disability based work. We intensified our struggle, and as a consequence, a special industrial area was set up at Govindpura that would provide direct work to 10,000 people and indirect work to the same number. Because of the pressure of BGPMUS, an industrial training institute was also set up at the same place. Each of them cost rupees eight crore. We had to go to the Supreme Court once again in order to fix the wages according to the degree of disability.

It has been a two-pronged struggle – on the streets and in the courts – so that victims get relief and receive compensation, that corruption is eliminated, that there is economic and social rehabilitation, and access to health services is ensured for those injured by the gas. As a result, the super speciality Kamala Nehru Hospital has been set up, and the Indira Gandhi Hospital has come up especially for the medical care of women. In addition six hospitals and nine dispensaries in Bhopal have separate units for the medical care of gas victims. As a consequence of our legal challenge in the Supreme Court to the out of court settlement of 1989, the court ordered the setting up of the Bhopal Memorial Trust and Research Centre (BMRC), considered amongst the finest medical facilities in the country.

Namdeo: The Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha (GPNPBSM) came into being in March 1985. It was set up mostly for the social and economic rehabilitation of women who became widows due to the gas disaster. We have struggled for these 20 years on issues related to compensation, medical care and environmental impacts, and are determined to continue our fight in future.

 

Q: What role did others play in having the BMRC set up?

Jabbar: I am not miserly and would like to acknowledge all those who helped with honesty, but I can’t endorse those who wish to take credit dishonestly. It is on record that BGPMUS was the prominent party in challenging the out of court settlement. It is our movement that challenged the court right in its face for the out of court settlement. In its judgment of October 1991 the court has devoted eleven pages in criticizing the BGPMUS! We were the first to protest openly in front of the court. Over 5000 victims travelled to Delhi and stalled the Parliament proceedings for three days. This was repeated a number of times.

 

Q: What have been the shortcomings in the distribution of compensation, and what is its present status?

Jabbar: Compensation is a joke. It was supposed to be linked to the extent of injury, but that never happened. Victims, irrespective of their degree of injury, were awarded a one time pro rata amount, which was called compensation. The extent of disease has been aggravating with time. For example, someone who had pain in the chest earlier has been diagnosed with cancer of the lungs now. When such a person was being awarded compensation, it was recorded that his lungs have shrunk, which was not considered an injury. So he was paid a paltry amount of around Rs 30,000. But now that he has cancer of the lungs, there is no compensation for that. There should have been an open-ended process whereby, with the aggravation of injury, a person should have had the right to seek further compensation. Such an open option was never considered.

Around 99% victims were given a flat one-time compensation of Rs 25,000. About 5% victims received from 30,000 to 100,000 rupees. As for the dead, they were to receive from one to five lakh rupees, but nearly 99.9% were compensated with one lakh only.

The recent court order of October 2004 has finally vindicated the stand we took way back in February 1989, when we contested the death and injury figures that the court had computed then – 3000 dead and 1,02,000 injured. Now the court has accepted that the figures are 15248 dead and 5,72,000 injured, which is five times the original estimates. Our demand therefore is that the Government of India and Union Carbide must enhance the out of court settled amount of Rs 715 crore by five times.

 

Q: Which were the parties involved in the settlement? Did your organization have a role?

Jabbar: The Government of India and Union Carbide, brokered by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. As for us… well we challenged the settlement! No one from the victims organizations was consulted, that is why petitions challenging the settlement had to be heard in the court for over two years.

 

Q: What about the social issues – what has been done, and further needs to be done?

Hamida bi: It was BGPMUS that got the women victims on to the streets. They slowly realized that they had to fight themselves against the harm done by the gas leakage. I joined the organization five months after it was formed, after learning the truth that we had to fight ourselves and not depend on others. It was a matter of our lives – doctors used to tell us that the effects could transmit to the third generation. We went from home to home, making people aware, doing surveys and so on. The survey revealed an enormous amount of information, including about the physical defects of the newborn. I was witness to the scenes of the night of December 2, including the sight of many corpses. My own children were badly distressed, but I was able to save them. My entire neighbourhood fled, and I am obviously a victim. I had to search for my daughter and husband, which took me to the Hamidia Hospital where thousands of corpses were piled up. I even had to go to the mortuary. The sight of death played on my emotions. My husband, a driver, lost the use of his hands. With little children, we needed a bread earner, so I joined the sewing centre. I used to be veiled, wearing a burqa.

 

Q: Do you feel a sense of empowerment by what you did and are doing?

Hamida bi: Well, I certainly came out of the veil! I received training. Those who just stayed behind in homes gradually convinced themselves that they would never get better, it affected their psyche. My state of anxiety subsided as I worked. People struggled on the streets and learned from each other. Gradually we felt empowered enough that if policemen confronted us, the women, we would engage them in heated debates.

 

Q: How many women joined?

Hamida bi: In the beginning around 2500… they are still members, but some have died over the years. The health of some others became worse… their breathing became very painful. Some neighbourhoods were uprooted, and the displaced people had to go far off. It was too expensive for them to travel. For the first eight years we had daily meetings, now it is weekly. Around eight to nine hundred women come to these weekly meetings… the struggle continues. We run the ‘Swabhiman’ centre for sewing, tailoring, toy making… I am its chairperson and have trained many women. Our training is for six months and we give a diploma to the trainee at the end. We have trained nearly 4000 girls till now.

 

Q: What are the major problems of women victims?

Shantidevi: It is being a woman! They have serious problems [gynaecological] which makes their life miserable after marriage. My granddaughter’s husband and child perished in the disaster. We spent nearly a lakh of rupees on her remarriage, but she is of no use any more [which can mean that her fertility is impaired].

Rampyari: Women must receive adequate compensation. Our medical care is inadequate; the treatment we get from the hospitals is ineffective. My daughter and granddaughter died from the disaster. Amongst other ailments, I suffer from cancer, with little relief from the medical treatment. Women suffer from stomach ailments, swellings in hand and feet, dizziness and lack of appetite. Hospitals don’t give us free medicines; they only write prescriptions that we have to obtain from the market, for which we have no money. I am of firm opinion that the compensation must go mostly to women. To that end we will continue our fight till we get justice.

 

Q: Many women are deserted after marriage and many can’t marry at all – what is the organization doing about it?

Shantidevi: Just meeting and sharing with other women is empowering, which we do at our organizational meetings. We go to houses and localities where girls have problems – about marriages and so on. We talk to their kin, and try to work out solutions. We talk to prospective in-laws, explain to them that they can’t reject a gas-affected girl. What if the girl was healthy at marriage and became ill later, wouldn’t they find her medical care? So they need to take similar responsibility now. I tell you, women are particularly affected, traumatized, which renders them speechless, with hearing loss and with difficulties in locomotion. Childbirth can be very traumatic. Many, including my own daughter, prefer to abort.

Namdeo: Many gas-affected girls have joined our organization. They have serious psychosocial problems, and their families too live in deep anxiety. The moment prospective grooms and their families get to know that the girl is gas-affected, they back out. Mostly, they come from very poor families with no support mechanisms. They must be supported socially, and by the government too. Our organization does as much as we can.

 

Q: If women have suffered more than men, shouldn’t they receive higher compensation?

Anita: I think men are suffering too. As for women… those with breast cancer lose one or both breasts, and their in-laws reject them. If their lungs or eyes are impaired, it means their entire life is impaired. Such girls cannot get married. Once we identify them with our surveys, we help them get treatment, for which we have to struggle with the doctors and to obtain medicines. If someone’s child dies, we participate in her sorrow. Her sorrow is ours. Cancer is very extensive, that is why people are dying in many homes – men and women.

Namdeo: Even the Supreme Court has decreed that widows, ailing and old women should get higher compensation than the pro rata amount. That norms have not been worked out to implement the court’s decree is a grave injustice to them. Worse still, if a man dies, his compensation is not given to the widow alone; it is divided among his wife and children. So if a man had five children, the compensation is divided into six parts, and only one part goes to the widow. This is completely wrong – how will the widow support herself in old age? We have taken up this issue at all levels, that the widow should be the sole beneficiary.

 

Q: What have been the government and non-government efforts to cope with the health problems of women?

Jabbar: Because of the inadequacy in medical treatment we had to finally petition the Human Rights Commission in 1996, and the Supreme Court in 1998. As a consequence, very recently in September 2004, the Supreme Court constituted two committees which include specialist doctors, the Director General of the Indian Council for Medical Research, the Director Medical Education, among others. It was only after the judgment of the Supreme Court in 1998 that the super-speciality Kamala Nehru and Indira Gandhi Hospitals were set up. We consider this as a great victory for our organization and gas victims in general, more significant then the compensation. We are putting pressure that the two committees help put into practice research-based health care, and begin research regarding the possible impact on coming generations. The major health problems, apart from gynaecological, are high incidence of tuberculosis, lung and breast cancers, very painful breathing and related to eyesight. It has also been reported that there are chromosomal changes in the children born of gas victims. All these require long-term research based approaches.

 

Q: Why aren’t the victims for whom many medical facilities have been opened able to get proper treatment at these facilities?

Namdeo: They are inadequately equipped, even the so-called super-speciality ones. The other major reason is an absence of monitoring mechanism for the victims. There are no monitoring committees, either at the government level or even at the Bhopal Memorial Trust that has representatives from the victims organizations as members. A lot of money has gone into the construction of imposing hospital buildings, but the medicines and treatment the victims get are the same as 20 years back. The treatment is symptomatic. We have been clamouring for entire body checkups, with a medical book for each victim that contains his or her entire medical record. This would ensure continuity in treatment even if the victim has left Bhopal. Victims have to depend on the market for medicines, since these are mostly unavailable at these designated facilities. The number of doctors employed is inadequate. Our demand is that genetic diseases that are transmitted over generations should also be treated at these hospitals.

 

Q: What about environmental impacts?

Jabbar: We have been active regarding the cleaning up of the Bhopal lakes. But the greatest worry is from the contamination from the closed Union Carbide plant, now under Dow Chemical. There are about 8000 metric tones of chemicals in the abandoned Union Carbide plant that are leaching underground. Their traces are to be found till four kilometres south of the plant. There are about 100 hand pumps and tube wells for drinking water in this area whose waters have been contaminated. Since there is no alternative, people have to drink such contaminated water. These aquifers have been contaminated since 1990, and confirmation for this came from tests in Boston laboratories in 1995.

 

Q: Did not Greenpeace initiate a clean up process in 2002. Can that not be the basis for launching a contamination free action plan?

Jabbar: We had filed a petition in a US court in 1999 for this and the court had made Dow Chemical a party to this petition. If the court rules favourably on this, not only will Dow have to do the clean up, but also compensate the affected people. This is an important issue, and we consider the action of Greenpeace positively. There is, however, a problem. International organizations have a tendency to act independently; they rarely seek partnership with local movements, and more or less control the framing of issues. This disempowers local movements, renders them helpless and does a lot of harm. In this case it was fine for Greenpeace to take samples and have them examined in London. But to present it to the media for their sole publicity was jarring, since we in fact did most of the work here, which they incidentally separately acknowledged in 1999.

Namdeo: We too are a party to this petition in the US court. Union Carbide and Dow Chemical must jointly undertake the clean up task. The Government of India too must go to the court to achieve that.

 

Q: International agencies make their entry through links with local organizations. They perhaps do not have a clear picture about the credibility of local organizations. For example, Greenpeace works closely with a particular organization in Bhopal. Why couldn’t other local movements link up with them?

Jabbar: For a start, that particular organization is far from being a movement of gas victims. Two persons don’t constitute a movement – if they did we could put together over 10,000 organizations for the gas victims! Another organization, Sambhavna Trust, linked to Greenpeace works as a small medical research centre. My overall experience is that Greenpeace seems much too caught up in media driven dramatics. Does removing ten drums of chemicals that they did in 2002 amount to a clean up? The amount of money they have spent since 1999 on media publicity could perhaps have ensured a total clean up of the area by now!

 

Q: There are so many NGOs working for the gas victims. Have there been attempts for common actions and programmes amongst them?

Jabbar: That there are many NGOs working for gas victims is factually incorrect, and BGPMUS is not an NGO but a pressure group. In my view there are basically three organizations working for the gas victims. They are: BGPMUS, Bhopal Gas Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha led by Balkrishen Namdeo and the Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Samiti. Our struggles are very similar – to press criminal charges against Union Carbide, obtain clean drinking water and proper medical care and proper compensation. That there is more than one movement for this is not a problem; why should that be the monopoly of any single organisation?

Namdeo: The trouble is that some of the victims organizations work hand in glove with the government, because they have representatives in committees formed by the government. Others that receive funds from abroad are donor driven – they are in fact diluting and harming the struggle because of being funds-driven. Then there are some who act as brokers during election times, to mislead the voters. We have ideological differences with most of such groups; therefore, unity with them is not possible.

 

Q: What is wrong being member of government committees? Shouldn’t that help in influencing government policies?

Namdeo: They have been ineffective in these committees. Members get divided on issues in these committees and the gas victim members are marginalized and isolated, since most of the members are from the government. That is why they have failed to address the environmental and other issues. They have not even been able to get a proper memorial installed for the victims in these 20 years!

 

Q: Why has the award to Rashida Bi and Champa Devi (the Right Livelihood Award) been controversial?

Jabbar: I hesitate to comment on this. We are fighting multinationals here, and Levis jeans, a company associated with this award, is a ‘sweatshop’ multinational. Accepting such an award sounds a bit strange.

 

Q: Now that the Supreme Court has ordered that the remaining amount from the settlement should also be distributed as compensation, how do you expect the distribution to be done, given that many people have moved away or have died?

Jabbar: I wish to reiterate that the distribution of Rs 25,000 on a pro rata basis should not be called compensation. Each death at the World Trade Centre after 9/11 was compensated with 1.6 million dollars, that is eight crore rupees. All that is happening here is that a few crumbs are being thrown around. And its distribution will be a nightmare. Addresses have changed, old papers and identity papers will have to be located and dusted in order to access these crumbs. I expect a huge amount of corruption as a consequence. The authorities should apologize for giving so little so late. If they have any sensitivity, they should go from house to house for distribution, rather than drag the victims through the indignity of endless bureaucratic procedures in the courts.

 

Q: What are you planning to do on this 20th anniversary?

Jabbar: For us December 3 is like any other day of the 365 days of a year, as far as demands go. Yes, December 3 is a day of remembrance… we haven’t chalked out any special programme as yet. All we can hope and reiterate on that day is that such a catastrophe should never be repeated anywhere in the world.

Namdeo: We want those who are criminally responsible for the disaster – Warren Anderson and others – to be tried in Bhopal courts. They should be extradited from the US. All chemicals rotting in the plant must be removed, and people who have to drink water contaminated with these chemicals should get clean drinking water. Widows must receive life long pension and coming generations must get proper medical care. This is what our struggle is all about. Accordingly, we have a two day programme for the coming anniversary. On December 2, we will burn effigies of Dow Chemical and there will be an exhibition. We shall invite our friendly organizations for these events. On December 3, we shall organize a ceremony as a mark of respect for the dead and affected at Neelam Park and then march in a rally to the factory, where we will burn an effigy of Warren Anderson. We will also take a pledge to intensify our fight against Union Carbide, Dow Chemical, the Madhya Pradesh government and the central government.

Vinod Raina with Raju Kumar

 

* Raju Kumar, a Bhopal based journalist helped conduct the interviews. The interviews were taped in two sittings, one with BGPMUS and the other with GPNPGSM. Ajay and Dinesh helped in transcription and typing in Hindi. Vinod Raina is responsible for the translation from Hindi, editing and opinions in the introduction.