Amidst Injustice and Apathy, Earth Day Greetings from Delhi, India

As part of the ‘International Earth Day’ week being celebrated here at EcoWorldly, there were a lot of E-Day events and happenings from Delhi, India that I wanted to share with the readers. I wanted to talk about the screening of the documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ at the American Center here in Delhi followed by a dicussion that shifted from Clean Development Mechanism (and the lack thereof) to the pollution in the city and/or the various tree plantation drives that took place in large number of schools here. More than that, I wanted to vividly illustrate the real time ‘eco’tourism being carried out at the Mandakini Magpie Bird Watcher’s Camp in the Himalayas as an excellent tool for biodiversity conservation. But then, there was something that caught my eye this afternoon.

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More than two decades ago, in the early hours of 3rd December 1984, tonnes of a toxic gas Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal, killing 3,800 people on the spot and injuring thousands more. Declared as one of the worst chemical disaster in history by Greenpeace, the incident left hundreds of thousands suffering from chronic exposure. Contaminated groundwater around the plant area still continues to affect people with various diseases.

What is to be noted here is that the Union Carbide plant, which was lying shut back then was a sitting volcano. And this fact had been reported by local groups working in the area about an year before the disaster struck. What is also to be noted here is that almost all of the safety measures that would have avoided the fatal incident by neutralizing the toxic gases had been shut down as a measure of cost cutting.

Today, twenty four years after the incident took place, the toxic mess that was released into the surrounding environment still remains. Some say that the people who died on that very day were fortunate. For the people who were exposed to the toxic gases and survived, led a life worse than death. Union Carbide - declared absconding by the Government of India has been taken over by DOW Chemicals. It has now returned to India under that brand and is planting more time bombs like Bhopal in different parts of the country. Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide in India during the time that the Bhopal Gas Tragedy took place, and who was flown out of India days before being declared absconding, lives happily in his house at Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York.

And various Departments of the Government of India are now inviting and facilitating the entry of Dow Chemicals (also referred to by some as Carbide Chemicals) into the Indian market. While it took a petition to stop Dow Chemicals from being able to recruit engineers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), people wondered what would it take to stop the Government from being involved with Dow.

A few weeks back, over 50 people took a month long Bhopal to Delhi march or Padyatra of 800 km to come to Delhi and urge the Prime Minister to deliver justice. Five of these are children and more people are joining them in their campaign, which is based out of Jantar Mantar - a structure now famous as a protest site. School children, famous writers, eminent personalities, political leaders have all visited the protest and the movement has gained momentum. But will justice be delivered. Someone said justice delayed is justice denied. In my opinion, justice delayed this long is actually a crime in itself.

Now why did I not talk about the tree plantations of which I was an integral part, or the discussion at the American Center where I, along with Dr. Matthew Sandelands (Second Secretary, Environment, US Embassy, New Delhi) and Dr. M.A. Khalid (Dy. Director and Associate Professor at the Institute of Global Warming and Ecological Studies) was the panel member. And not even about the Bird Watcher’s Camp in the Himalayas which was my source of environmental data generation during my Masters dissertation. Well, because as fate would have it, I am myself a victim of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Barely a few months old then, I am told if we had delayed in moving out of the house even by 10 minutes, we would have faced the same fate as many others. It’s scary, I know.

The marchers have submitted a letter to the Prime Minister of India with 20 questions. These include queries like what measures have been taken to ensure medical care to victims of the tragedy and why the government has not taken any steps to prosecute Union Carbide? They now await a response.

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