‘Modi govt let Bhopal gas tragedy-accused corporates escape law, liability’

Ahead of polling in the most attention-grabbing Lok Sabha seat of Bhopal, the BJP-led government at the Centre has been attacked vehemently for allowing accused in the Bhopal gas disaster escape law as well as economic and environmental liabilities.

The document has been released by International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB), which describes itself as "a coalition comprising survivors of the disaster, international volunteers, and environmental, social justice and human rights groups to hold Dow Chemical and the Indian government accountable for the ongoing chemical disaster in Bhopal".

The attack against Modi government has come from five organisations working for survivors of the disaster and those affected by resultant groundwater and soil contamination. They have also directly attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has been invoking the tragedy and the roles of Congress and late PM Rajiv Gandhi in letting off the accused in the accident during his election rallies lately. 

The lengthy document, released ahead of the polling day in Bhopal, shows how the BJP governments in the Centre as well as Madhya Pradesh neglected the issues of the survivors and affected people and allowed the corporate accused of the disaster to not only escape liabilities, but to have flourishing businesses in India.

“Curiously, while in the public memory the quite valid charge of collusion with a foreign corporation remains stuck against the Congress party, and in particular late Rajiv Gandhi, while those against BJP/NDA’s have largely slipped. Factually, for each act of collusion by the Congress government in 23 years, there is documentary evidence of the unholy corporate-government nexus that matches it during the 11 years of BJP/NDA rule (in the 34 years since the tragedy of December 2/3, 1984),” says the introduction to the document titled 'Five years of Modi and Bhopal gas disaster' . "...the BJP/NDA has actually outdone the Congress in terms of protecting the interests of the US multinationals and denying the rights to justice and a life of dignity to the survivors of the world’s worst industrial disaster,” it adds.

“Meanwhile, even as the Congress candidate in Bhopal Digvijaya Singh has mentioned some oft repeated promises for the Bhopal gas victims but ignored major issues, the BJP candidate Pragya Singh Thakur’s document has no mention whatsoever of the disaster,” Rachna Dhingra of Bhopal Group of Information and Action, one of the five organisations to have compiled the document, told THE WEEK.

The document itself is divided into two parts—one about the Indian government ‘cosying’ up to the US corporate companies liable for the tragedy and other about the apathy towards care and rehabilitation of the survivors and affected people. Each part is divided into five sub-parts—holding detailed documentary evidence and time-line of the allegations made. (The entire document is available on https://www.bhopal.net/five-years-of-modi-and-bhopal-gas-disaster/).

Allowing Union Carbide escape criminal liability forever

Among the most important point the document makes is about the possibility of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), USA, the prime accused in Bhopal gas disaster criminal case, to completely escape from criminal liability.

The document mentions that Dow Chemical Company, USA, took over the UCC, USA in February 2001, also taking over the civil, criminal and environmental liabilities of Union Carbide in Bhopal as per Indian law. Before this, in 1992, the Bhopal district court had already declared UCC as a proclaimed absconder.

Meanwhile, even as Dow Chemical kept on ignoring Bhopal court's summons for appearance in the criminal case (six times during Modi government’s tenure between November, 2014 and July, 2018), on August 31, 2017, it completed a merger of equals with DuPont Nemours, USA to form DowDuPont Incorporated. 

It announced plans to complete a three-way split of its merged businesses by June 1, 2019. According to regulatory Form 10K filings in the USA, Union Carbide, that had so far been an independent legal entity, was to be split starting from March 2019 and this process has commenced and is expected to be complete on schedule by June 1.

In February, 2018, the organisations of survivors wrote to PM Modi urging him to direct the CBI that works under him, to obtain a prohibitive writ for preventing the splitting of Union Carbide and dissipation of Union Carbide’s assets. The organisations expressed concern that through these manoeuvres, Union Carbide may cease to exist and thus escape criminal liability for the Bhopal disaster or have no assets left with it to honour the judgement of an Indian criminal court. A similar letter was sent to the Director of the CBI.

Despite this letter and consequent filing of a complaint with the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System, no action was yet taken by the PMO to stop the UCC, USA to escape from its criminal liability, the document mentions. 

Meanwhile, in September 2015, despite the disaster survivors’ plea to ensure that Dow Chemical responded to Bhopal court’s summons, PM Modi invited Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris to a special dinner and invited Dow to invested more in India, the document mentions along with a photograph of Modi and Liveris smiling and shaking hands.

Other points

The document also details out the evidence and timeline of other allegations that the governments downplayed damage caused by Union Carbide in curative petition (filed in Supreme Court) for additional compensation, dilly-dallied on assessment of environmental damage in Bhopal, and allowed Dow Chemical of the crime of bribing despite its confession.

In the section ‘neglect of victims of corporate crimes’, the document has details of the inadequate health care, no benefits to survivors/affected people from research conducted at the National Institute for Research in Environment Health, which was set up for particular purpose, misutilisation of funds meant for jobs for survivors and their children as well as houses for them and turning of Yoga centres for treatment of survivors/affected people into wedding hall and government offices.