Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Rehabilitation

After 26 years of inaction, the government has shown some intent to apply balm on the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. But spare a thought why it took 26 years to get into ACTIVE mode? Why is it doing this now? Why it could not be done earlier? And, also what is the real issue to be addressed in this whole INTELLECTUAL debate?

Media must take some credit for government minimum effort to own its responsibility towards its own citizens who are in abundance and who can not be washed out by a single Bhopal like man made disaster. In 1984, we lost 20,000 odd brethren but we still have more than 1200 million people a part of which can be asked to pay price for someone else's fault. And, then again may wait for another quarter of a century to get public attention- provided media remained as powerful then as it is today.

Whatever, I don't want to digress from the very fundamental question of rehabilitation of the victims- direct (the then living people who braved the poisonous leakage of the gas on the fateful night of December, 1984) and indirect, who born maimed after that unfortunate incident and still those who are forced to gulp toxic water being supplied to their houses. In my sense of term rehabilitation includes the issue of compensation and fixing accountability of those who caused or allowed to be caused an industrial disaster of this scale. Those officers who failed to inform the hapless masses of Bhopal that a wet cloth or handkerchief could save hundreds of lives just by covering their nostrils and faces by it.

First, fixing responsibility. Who was responsible for the disaster. The Bhopal court has come out with its verdict. No comment on that. The court acted as law and prosecutors guided it. Is Warren Anderson responsible for the disaster? No, because he was not operating the gas chamber. Yes, not because he caused the leakage but because he allowed such leniency in ensuring safety that the leakage occurred. If you are dealing in cobra, you can not afford to take your eyes off it when it is aiming at you. Arguments are endless.

Second, compensation. Victims had already got their share with the approval of the honourable supreme court. But, the amount was paltry. And, this looks a mockery made out of people's lives when we consider that the court agreed for 470 million dollars (as insurance sum plus interests) when the government put the figure of dead at 3,787. Was the apex court of the land cheated?

Now the group of ministers acting on the direction of the Prime Minister has recommended a few slabs of compensation with Rs 10Lakh for every dead person. What a way to compensate after 26 years! Government would end up giving crores of rupees to the victims and the families of the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. But will the Dow Chemicals, the inheritor of Union Carbide's assets and its successor pay this sum. It seems highly unlikely.

So, from where the government will arrange this sum? Will the taxpayers of the country will bear the burden- essentially thrust upon them by an MNC? The countrymen will be more than happy to pay their money to their Bhopal brethren but should they? Should Indian lives be so cheap that an MNC or its superpower boss in the USA can be absolved of everything that happened on the soil of India? Why?

Finally, rehabilitation. How to rehabilitate- mentally, physically, socially, economically, judicially? How can a child born maimed after the tragedy be rehabilitated? Can the government ever rehabilitate the souls of the victims?

Think it over. Attempts be made that lives are not lost the way it did in Bhopal roughly two months after Indira Gandhi was assassinated.