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TechnoratiVictims of the Bhopal disaster are still campaiging for justice. Their suffering is emblematic of the struggle faced by huge numbers of Indians
At the end of January I was dining with an old friend, now one of India's top policemen. Intelligence, counter-terrorism, external threats, internal security, he'd done it all. He knew of my work with the Bhopal gas survivors, whom I'd accused successive Indian governments of betraying.
"Betrayal? Isn't that rather a strong word?"
"Well, what would you call selling out the Bhopalis for a pittance? Canning all medical studies into the effects of the gas? Letting Union Carbide leave Bhopal without cleaning its factory? Turning a blind eye while toxic waste leaks and poisons the local water supply? Ignoring a supreme court of India order to provide clean water? Beating up women and children who dared to ask why nothing had been done? Doing business with Dow Chemical while its wholly-owned subsidiary Carbide refuses to appear in court to face criminal charges? Conspiring to get Dow off the Bhopal hook in return for $1bn? All this while people are still sick, while hundreds of children are being born deformed? What part of this cannot be called betrayal?"
As we spoke, my Bhopali friends were preparing to walk 500 miles to Delhi for the second time in three years. After the last march they had sat for a fortnight on hunger strike before the government deigned to talk to them. The politicians had made plenty of promises but kept none, so the Bhopalis were about to walk again.
"Indra, Indra," replied my friend, when I was finally done. "Don't tell me you are really so naive. Politics isn't about social justice. It is about power."
It didn't used to be. Not entirely. Long marches and hunger strikes were the weapons of Mahatma Gandhi. His portraits still hang in Indian embassies, where his politics are nowadays an embarrassment.
Modern India is everything Gandhi loathed: a society of ephemera that worships money, cheap celebrity and expensive foreign goods. The poor have been abandoned, their memory obliterated by a deluge of commercials for share issues and cars. It is "anti-progress" (and thus unpatriotic) to mention the thousands driven from their homes by huge dams, the 150,000 farmers who have committed suicide over the last decade, the 100,000 members of ethnic communities forcibly displaced by mining and steel corporations in a savage unreported war in the forests of central India. These poor have no share in India's new wealth, no voice and no powerful friends. When they get in the way of progress they can expect to be jailed, tortured, gang-raped or murdered. They are the victims of what Arundhati Roy has called "the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India - the secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country."
Politicians may grit their teeth when Roy speaks (in Gujarat they organised a wholesale burning of The God of Small Things) but for the moment she and other prominent dissenters are protected by their fame. For how much longer? In the central Indian war zone, filing a news story could land you in jail. Or worse. A police phone call was intercepted. "If any journalists come to report," the district's senior officer was heard to say, "get them killed."
In my novel, Animal's People, a character asks: "When grief and pain turn to anger, when our rage is as useless as our tears, when those in power become blind, deaf and dumb in our presence, and the world's forgotten us, what then should we do? Must we put away anger, choke back our bitterness, and be patient, in the hope that justice will one day win? We have already been waiting 20 years. And when the government that is supposed to protect us manipulates the law against us, of what use then is the law? Must we still obey it, while our opponents twist it to whatever they please? It's no longer anger but despair that whispers, if the law is useless, does it matter if we go outside it? What else is left?"
Indra Sinha is an author. He spent fifteen years working with the survivors of the Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
17 Comments so far
Show Allabuelito - did you write that poem? It should be published, somewhere.
abuelito, you've said it all in your amazing poem...
we seem helpless, hopeless,we fear reprisal, we all are accomplices in this as we don't have the courage to stand up to these companies...we continue to buy their products...we pretend we are Christians...we care nothing for these people because we do not see them and it is their problem...we believe our governments when they tell us that people who are helping or reporting on these truths (ie environmental groups) are terrorists...
we think aliens, Jesus, etc..will save us...in other words ...we do not accept responsibility for any of the horrors that are inflicted on any being ....we are collectively insane.
abuelito, you've said it all in your amazing poem...
we seem helpless, hopeless,we fear reprisal, we all are accomplices in this as we don't have the courage to stand up to these companies...we continue to buy their products...we pretend we are Christians...we care nothing for these people because we do not see them and it is their problem...we believe our governments when they tell us that people who are helping or reporting on these truths (ie environmental groups) are terrorists...
we think aliens, Jesus, etc..will save us...in other words ...we do not accept responsibility for any of the horrors that are inflicted on any being ....we are collectively insane.
survivor's poem
torture me
aim a blowtorch at my eyes
pour acid down my throat
strip the tissue from my lungs
drown me in my own blood
choke my baby to death in front
of me,force me to watch
her struggles as she dies-
cripple my children, let pain
be their daily and only playmate-
spare me nothing
ruin my health so ican no longer
work or feed my family=
watch us starve- see my children
drinking water at night
to fill their hungry bellies
then poison our drinking water
never warn us of the danger
cause monsters to be born among us
make us curse god
stunt our living children's growth
say it's nothing to do with you
don't ever say sorry
for twenty years ignore our cries
teach me that my rage is
as useless as my tears
prove to me beyond all doubt
there;s no justice in this world
for you are a big american corporation
and i am a woman of bhopal
"Everybody knows
that the war is over
Everybody knows
that the good guys lost
that's how it goes
and that's what
everybody knows"
----Leonard Cohen---
LUCKY LEFTY, my sometimes eloquent but oh, so cynical chap... that is NOT my understanding of karma. Yes, some does replay when souls do not GET it, i.e. the lessons; but my understanding of karma is not that souls OKAY their torture... it's that this human world is often a brutal place, and here it is that we must learn compassion. Sometimes the only way that happens is through pain, by wearing the shoe that confines... and in that pain, recognizng OTHER as our brother/sister, a part of the human fabric which taken in sum reflects Creative (what many call God) forces.
Justice on a human scale is not mutually exclusive to karma. The American designers of this nation's governing structure were very enlightened souls who recognized many elements of a higher blueprint and sought to reflect in how affairs would be governed here on earth. That greed, (love of money - root of all evil) has prevailed in our times is a tragic possible inevitability because too many people in high placed positions sold out at once. There are always those with wealth who try to do good, let's take Soros as an example or Carnegie. Some understand that building a society makes the world a better place.
Just as matter can neither be created nor destroyed, that which is the "matter" of the human soul likewise is inviolate. We carry, as soul memory imprints, the "story" of what we endured in each lifetime, and I believe its unresolved themes regenerate in the blueprint (astrological chart) that represents what will unfold in the life being lived (again). It does take courage, strength of character, the capacity to forgive (which EVERY spiritual master teachers as a basic axiom), humor (in the face of the tragedies that appear inevitable within the context of human life), and usually at least one talent to grow past one's past. Each of us is responsible yes, but there is also the shared tapestry to which each is a strand... everyone projects their level of consciousness. Thus in my view, as a teacher-writer, to make a better world, the need exists to raise consciousness. Materialism, militarism and racism as ML King related, are the great sins... it's tough to rise above the first 2 when media is in the hands of those who would encourage the revival of all that tears mankind asunder. THAT is the battle now underway. But souls who cleave to light cannot give up the vision of what is possible for mankind. It always begins with the idea, or ideal... I know you care, and that's why your comments reflect such a vast amount of pain. You really do feel the horror of what so many are now experiencing, thus you are full of compassion. A good thing.
Siouxrose April 10th, 2008 10:31 pm BLESS THE BEASTS: "Karma is not restricted to ONE lifetime. It all does get even'd out in the great circle return of things. That is Cosmic Law."
With all due respect, you may keep the Cosmic Law. It is a tangled web of theology in which all are TOTALLY responsible on the level of Self for everything they do and all that happens to them, by agreement with all involved parties at the level of Self (read outside of any conscious awareness). Therefore, as a consequence, the 6 month old infant accepted the rape, torture, and dismemberment by the psychotic because the infant chose that for themselves. The psychotic was successful in the event. Everybody agreed. Nobody was a victim. No crime. No punishment. Do it again next time and change roles. It is the inescapable trap of the logic of the belief. It is a description of a nightmare world and we're doing pretty good on that score all by ourselves. Keep the Cosmic Law.
Give me the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and a Justice Department committed to the spirit as well as the letter of the Law. And maybe we could have a political class that wasn't purchased in wholesale lots by the Richfilth and the Corporations. And while we're at it, how about restoring the Roosevelt Legacy taxation, support for unions, a social safety net, and corporate regulation with steel teeth.
Belief in Cosmic Law is like belief in Hope. It has no nutritional value and is no substitute for a Plan.
Next we get the exhortation to Faith.
General Strike, General Strike, General Strike
Peace.
BLESS THE BEASTS: Karma is not restricted to ONE lifetime. It all does get even'd out in the great circle return of things. That is Cosmic Law.
DEEPA: Excellent post. What bothers me much about Monsanto and its legacy of profit by poisoning large numbers of civilians, is that it's a major player in bio-tech. Trusting such a company to protect the health of citizens when its profits have been directly made from investing in ways to render natural habitats entirely toxic is like sending your kids to camp with a known pediophile.
This profit thing is so out of proportion to all the things that matter. I see it as: "money's valuelessness when WORTH is lost."
I used to believe in karma, but if these evil scumbags are STILL doing business in India, there is no justice in the world.
Bhopal, Diego Garcia, NoGunRi - the list is endless. This is what the Democrats and Republicans have done and will continue to do until we throw ALL of them out of office. Predatory Capitalism is killing people all around the globe.
"The 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India, was a terrible tragedy that understandably continues to evoke strong emotions even 23 years later. In the wake of the release, Union Carbide Corporation worked diligently to provide immediate and continuing aid to the victims and set up a process to resolve their claims. All the claims arising out of the release were settled 18 years ago at the explicit direction of and with the approval of the Supreme Court of India." This is a part of the statement of Union Carbide Corporation regrding Bhopal Gas Tragedy (http://www.bhopal.com/ucs.htm).
This statement is misleading because the Corporation hasn't settled its payment to the victims; the company hasn't cleaned the vicinity of the accident or the place of the factory. This is still causing health problems to the public. Neither the Union Carbide Corportion, nor its parent body Dow Chemicals is responding to the problems it has created in Bhopal. However, Dow Chemicals is bringing pressure through American government on the Indian government to allow it into India again. Even though the Indian government has caved in, there is a resistance from the activists and the victims.
During the Vietnam War the US war planes sprayed about 18 million gallons of Agent Orange (a poisonous chemical toxin) on the land of Vietnam. As a consequence of this, over 3 million Vietnamese are disabled. The victims are suing over three dozen US chemical companies that have supplied this poisonous chemical. The list of companies being sued includes Dow Chemical (parent company of the Union Carbide, which is responsible for Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India) and Monsanto.
These are the companies that have the support of governments, both Indian and American. Isn't it an irony that the companies that "kill" common people are supported by the governments that are elected by the common people. Instead of representing the "victims", these governments support the killing-spree of these companies.
SO WE ELECT GOVERNMENTS NOT TO PROTECT US BUT TO EXTERMINATE US!!!!!
It's the same everywhere... the Rich get rich on the backs of the poor and then when the poor need something in return, they are slaughtered... it's not just India... it's everywhere. The rich have a sickness called Greed... which causes them to become inhuman monsters... The corporations are just a vehicle for this sickness.
Further proof, if any were needed, of the way in which corporations save themselves over the expense of everyone else. The people of Bhopal had the misfortune, on top of every thing else, of being poor, and living in a world where poverty equals powerlessness.
Indian baby born with two faces..
Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:14:46
The child apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. All of Lali's facial features are duplicated with the exception of her ears, she has two. Lali's parents say she feeds through one mouth and sucks her thumb with the other, otherwise "She is just like any other child".
trippin, why do we expect the wealthy politicians we elect to office to understand and champion working class woes? No doubt 'free trade' has been good for corporate profits in the short run, but is proving unsustainable for the long haul. This is primarily because it has lowered the adjusted inflation wage of the average worker. For awhile this was offset by the availability of easy credit, though that too is quickly drying up, and more and more people are struggling to make ends meet. That means there's little left over for non-essentials, cheap or not.
With a few exceptions, the vast majority of rich candidates are out of touch with the day to day struggles of the average Jill or Joe. Also quite telling is that any party, such as the Green Party, gets almost no media coverage, and is therefore almost completely off the radar.
Ultimately, then, we can expect more of the same: talk about solutions, while continuing business as usual. That's why I have doubts whether electing Hillary or Obama will make a big difference. Neither will meaningfully challenge their corporate masters--how can they?
My apologies to the readers at CD. Made some booboos above as you can see. If the webmaster wishes to get rid of the junk, feel free, my bad. Normally placing a post is rather simple. I thought.
Sincerely,
Isn't Mark Penn, Clinton's disgraced campaign strategist cutting free trade deals with Colombia behind our back, also the PR firm representing Union Carbide / DuPont Bhophal?
I had heard that someplace and am curious to know. I know he's PR hustler for Blackwater for sure...
Yet another reason to go with the party machine candidate, eh, Governor Rendell? After all, you made sure that coal-fired plant got ushered in by your own hand the very day before new, more stringent emissions regulations would have been put on your campaign donor... so your track record in these matters doesn't exactly put a shine to your endorsement of Clinton...