Adventures of the Mind & Body: Remember, Remember, the 3rd of December

(An abridged version of this post appears in a letter published in Indiana Daily Student on 7th Dec, 2006)

1 Mississippi, bam! 2 Mississippi, bam! 3 Mississippi, bam, bam! That is how fast people fell and bled to death, 22 years back at Bhopal, India in the worst industrial accident in the world. Deadly methyl iso-cyanide (MIC) gas leaked from Union Carbide's factory and spread silently through the densely packed city of Bhopal in the dawn of December 3rd, 1984. Children, pregnant women, frail seniors, and healthy men - over 5000 in all - die the first day. 20,000 more succumb since then and 150,000 remain affected. MIC should be credited for being non-discriminatory and taking all in its wake.

The same cannot be said of Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemical. Their approach to the catastrophe smacks of environmental racism. Failing safety measures in the factory lead to the accident and Carbide was held accountable. But the settlement reached with the Indian government was well before the full effects of the gas was known and effectively paid $500 to each victim - several times lesser than what was spent to clean up each seal in the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska during the same period. To top it off, Carbide scampered out of the country without so much as cleaning up the tons of chemicals left at the factory. There lies the second tragedy. These toxic concoctions have polluted the ground water over 22 years and, combined with the exposure to gas, resulted in birth deformities in children born in that region. Talk about a ticking time bomb in the heart of a city!

The survivors of Bhopal have shown immense patience and resilience in fighting for their rights. Their non-violent protests against the top chemical company in the world and the largest democracy in the world are doubtless an inspiration from the teachings of Gandhi. Their demands off Dow Chemical are few and just: clean up the site, provide medical care to the affected, provide livelihood to the disabled, and stand trial. That 25,000 should die and not a single person stand trial is a blot on the democratic nations of India and United States. Dow thinks nothing of either shielding Union Carbide from the international arrest warrant pending against it nor wringing it hands and doing nothing as people continue to die from its poison. One can only hope that Gandhi and Martin Luther King are still relevant in this age.

Dow Chemical has a woefully inadequate fig leaf to cover their negligence. Their settlement did not cover future deaths. They did not cleanup the site. They are absconders from the law. And their history of environmental trespass is unmatched - Agent Orange, breast implants, and dioxin poisoning, to name a few. Whatever fig leaf that remains is blown away by Amnesty international's 104 page report of 2002 that does a complete review of the realities at ground zero and finds Dow Chemical unassailably accountable. 18 congressmen, the European Union, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, city governments in San Francisco, Seattle, and Cambridge, and the 150,000 survivors cannot all be wrong.

As the Bhopali's persist in their fight for justice, they serve as a poignant reminder that we, the people, need to be vigilant for transgressions by corporations and lawmakers if Bhopal is not to be repeated. We can but take a moment to remember the victims and apply whatever pressure we can on Dow Chemical to do the right thing.

Remember, remember, the 3rd of December,
MIC, negligence, and rot,
I see of no need why Dow Chemical's greed,
Should ever be forgot.

- Adapted from a rhyme on Guy Fawkes -