It can’t get any worse: The punishment in the Union Carbide case is no more that that of a hit and run.
By Inder Malhotra
If you think that nothing more horrifying than the Bhopal gas tragedy of December 1984 can be imagined, think again. The cruel joke inflicted 26 years later, on not only the families of more than 20,000 people killed and nearly half a million disabled, to say nothing of children born with congenital defects, but on the entire nation is in some respects worse. Of the 12 original accused only eight Indians have been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment – and immediately bailed out to enable them to appeal against the laughable verdict. Not a word was said about the prime accused, Warren Anderson, the then CEO of Union Carbide, the guilty mass murder who is merrily strutting in his luxury home in New York’s posh suburbs. He was first declared a fugitive and then coolly forgotten. In all fairness, the Bhopal magistrate who delivered the ridiculous verdict cannot be blamed. He was bound by the Supreme Court’s 1996 judgement diluting the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder to mere “negligence”. The measly sentence he awarded was the maximum he could.
For, this is what the Indian Penal Code, enacted by the British in 1861, says. Fifteen governments of independent India have never felt the need to update this and other 19th century British laws. That, however, is less important than former Chief Justice AM Ahmadi’s apologia for the Supreme Court’s shoddy judgement downplaying of the crime. He headed the two-man bench that gave the diluting verdict. He was then only a justice and became chief justice later. In defence of the verdict Ahmadi said on TV that if his judgement was that bad, why didn’t anyone object to it? He was startled however when activists trying to help the victims of the monumental tragedy pointed out that they had filed a review petition that Ahmadi (as CJI) had rejected out of hand without allowing the petitioners a say. This was not all. Another former CJI, RS Pathak, now no more, allegedly facilitated the compromise between the US firm and the Indian government that reduced the compensation to the ruined victims to $ 480 million from $ 3 billion. Does this enhance the prestige and dignity of the highest Indian judiciary?
Even this pales into insignificance, however, compared with other chilling revelations that have followed the disgraceful judgement at Bhopal. The collector of Bhopal at that time has stated emphatically that within hours of Anderson’s arrest, he was ordered by the then chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh to release him, take him to the airport from where the prime accused flew to Delhi and then to New York never again to show his face in India. Since then there has been an avalanche of disclosures practically establishing that it was the then chief minister of the state, Arjun Singh, who peremptorily order the release of Anderson. Among those who have stated this are retired officers who were told to do as ordered. The pilot who gave the UC CEO a ride in the state government’s plane says exactly the same thing. Yet in the midst of this chorus about his culpability, Arjun Singh continues to be strangely silent. He says he would speak at the “appropriate time” though he has confided to a Hindi journalist that charges against him are “untrue”. A senior Congress leader, Digvijay Singh, who was a minister in Arjun Singh’s Cabinet in 1984 and later his successor, has put the cat among the pigeons for he has declared that the state government had no role in Anderson’s release which took place under the Centre’s direction and probably “under American pressure.” Since this is a direct hit on Rajiv Gandhi many Congressmen are baying for his blood. (It is this that would make the passage of the Nuclear Liability Bill even more difficult than it would otherwise have been. Anyway, this has to be discussed separately.)
One comic relief in the overwhelming tragedy is that Arjun Singh was heading the Central Group of Ministers on Bhopal even a year after he had ceased to be a minister. It was only after the nationwide outrage that the Prime Minister reconstituted the GoM, which is now headed by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram. The inclusion of road transport minister Kamal Nath has already led to a huge outcry. Activists are producing documentary evidence that he has consistently lobbied for Dow Chemicals that took over Union Carbide. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi must know that the GoM would be useless if its credibility is eroded. Another Congress leader, Abhishek Singhvi, is the lawyer for Dow Jones, which aggravated the situation.
It is in this context that few take seriously Law Minister Veerappa Moily’s brave announcement that the case in relation to Anderson “is not over.” Why wasn’t this ensured before the Bhopal judgement? And what can the minister do after American officials have tersely announced that the case is over as far as they are concerned? In any case, they do not want to even discuss “extradition.” As for Moily’s promise of a new and stricter law “within six months,” it cannot have retrospective effect.
Today the Congress and the United Progressive Alliance led by it happen to be the target of trenchant and deserved criticism. BJP spokespersons are having a field day attacking them. But would the saffron party explain what action it took to get the chief American accused extradited to India or expedite the course of justice? The record of the Vajpayee government has been no better than that of its predecessors and successors.
Even more reprehensibly, Madhya Pradesh’s BJP government has done precious little for the rehabilitation and welfare of countless sufferers in the state’s capital. The huge toxic waste of 1984 is lying all round the disused Union Carbide factory. The poison is seeping into underground water reserves with catastrophic consequences. The much- pampered Dow Chemicals haughtily says that it has taken over only the assets of the old company, not its liabilities. Nobody at the Centre or in the state is willing to do anything about it. Let us face it: Bhopal is a shame for the whole of India, which includes all of us.