The nation was just coming out of Diwali celebration for the year when suddenly a news broke out in the media. Warren Anderson, Chariman of Union Carbide Corporation died in a nursing home in Florida. TOI, country's largest English daily, didn't spare the opportunity to express the anger of the nation in it's headlines mentioning him as Bhopal's Tormentor. Though the official date of his death is somewhere in September, the family did not announce his death for reasons only known to them. The news surfaced only after the New York Times noticed his obituary in a small Connecticut newspaper called Vero Beach and then confirmed from the public records in order to release it to the world.
Warren Anderson's desk was said to have rested a paperweight with the Chinese proverb, ''Leader is best when people barely know he exists." Well he did implement that in his real life. After the Bhopal Gas tragedy that killed 15000+ Indians and still counting, Anderson did everything possible to ensure people knew he barely existed, disappearing from public view and living in hiding for nearly 30 years to escape New Delhi's feeble effort to bring him to justice. Normally after a person's death people pay their final respects to the departing soul. But in case of Anderson, the general sentiment on social media as news of his death surfaced was that he would rot in hell after being meted justice at the hands of his maker. This sentiment was the result of his company making Bhopal a land of dead in the fateful year of 1984.
I came across many rumours and half stories about the biggest industrial disaster. Not until I read Five Past Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro I could actually fathom the gravity of the tragedy and it's repercussion on the generations to come. It gave a detail account of the rise of Union Carbide Corporation in India.
The factory was built in 1969 to produce a pesticide named Sevin. It was one it's kind product in those times in India as no other manufacturers attempted in doing so because of the huge production cost. In technical terms its production process followed by the company was as follows: Methylamine reacted with Phosgene to form Methyl Isocyante(MIC), which was an intermediate product. MIC was further treated with 1-Naphthol to form the final product Sevin or Carbaryl which was it's brand name.
Storing MIC in huge quantity meant holding a nuclear bomb in the factory premises. This was the reason why another chemical giant Bayer kept itself away from using MIC initially. The Bhopal factory was not well equipped to handle the gas created by the sudden addition of water to the MIC tank. Also MIC was kept at 20 degrees Celsius, not the 4.5 degrees advised by the manual. Hence when water was released in the MIC tanks the plant was not at all equipped to handle such a disaster and the gas went out in the atmosphere through the factory chimney. The toxic effect of the compound, when around 42,000 kilograms of MIC and other gases were released from the underground reservoirs of UCIL, was so massive that it killed thousands of people at a time and many more in the years to come. Lakhs of people suffered temporary disablement. The extent of cruelty was so huge that some people in and around the factory premises who slept in the night after a hard days work with hope for a new sunrise, never woke up. The pile of dead bodies was so much that made things difficult for the people to recognise the dead. The author explained one such incident which sent a chill down my spine. Two women, one hindu and other muslim, where fighting over a dead body. Both of them were claiming that the body was of their husband. The dispute grew louder that finally third person interfered and asked to strip the body naked from below to decide to whom the body belonged.
Four days after the incident Anderson came to India and was immediately arrested by the Bhopal police. However our country couldn't dare to prosecute him and was released immediately. The impact which the gas leak had on the countrymen, this was also that much painful that the person responsible for so many deaths was allowed to walk away free. The USA, which considers itself as messenger of peace and justice, gave full protection to Anderson and was never allowed to be extradited in order to bring him to justice. Sometimes I get a thought, what consequence would Anderson have faced had the same incident happened in American soil. Even our country merely declared him a fugitive and kept the status quo of other transactions with the USA as it is. Why didn't India take a tough stand against the US in order to isolate them in international community. Had an Indian committed such a crime in America, would India have saved the person from the impact of International law? The USA gave rigorous imprisonment to Rajat Gupta for a financial scam which did not result in any loss of life. But the world's biggest industrial disaster was not important in the eyes of US laws.
It has remained debatable that who from our machinery supported Anderson due to which he lived a comfortable life for 3 decades after the disaster while in Bhopal the count of dead went on increasing. The then PM Rajiv Gandhi was also in the list of names which were rumored to have helped Anderson to flee the country. When Osama Bin Laden attacked the US in September 2001, they invaded Afghanistan to search the culprit. But when, around same amount of people died in the industrial disaster in India due to an American the same US shielded him by all possible means till his natural death.
After the death news of Anderson flashed on Indian media, people in Bhopal came together near the Union Carbide factory premises to give their last respects to the owner in their own way. A huge picture of Anderson was kept on display and people came in queue and spat on that picture one after another.
PS: Many blamed Rajiv Gandhi to have assisted Anderson. I am actually happy, like he explained the anti sikh riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination, that he didn't say something like, 'When a big company leaks......'
-SR
Warren Anderson's desk was said to have rested a paperweight with the Chinese proverb, ''Leader is best when people barely know he exists." Well he did implement that in his real life. After the Bhopal Gas tragedy that killed 15000+ Indians and still counting, Anderson did everything possible to ensure people knew he barely existed, disappearing from public view and living in hiding for nearly 30 years to escape New Delhi's feeble effort to bring him to justice. Normally after a person's death people pay their final respects to the departing soul. But in case of Anderson, the general sentiment on social media as news of his death surfaced was that he would rot in hell after being meted justice at the hands of his maker. This sentiment was the result of his company making Bhopal a land of dead in the fateful year of 1984.
I came across many rumours and half stories about the biggest industrial disaster. Not until I read Five Past Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro I could actually fathom the gravity of the tragedy and it's repercussion on the generations to come. It gave a detail account of the rise of Union Carbide Corporation in India.
The factory was built in 1969 to produce a pesticide named Sevin. It was one it's kind product in those times in India as no other manufacturers attempted in doing so because of the huge production cost. In technical terms its production process followed by the company was as follows: Methylamine reacted with Phosgene to form Methyl Isocyante(MIC), which was an intermediate product. MIC was further treated with 1-Naphthol to form the final product Sevin or Carbaryl which was it's brand name.
Storing MIC in huge quantity meant holding a nuclear bomb in the factory premises. This was the reason why another chemical giant Bayer kept itself away from using MIC initially. The Bhopal factory was not well equipped to handle the gas created by the sudden addition of water to the MIC tank. Also MIC was kept at 20 degrees Celsius, not the 4.5 degrees advised by the manual. Hence when water was released in the MIC tanks the plant was not at all equipped to handle such a disaster and the gas went out in the atmosphere through the factory chimney. The toxic effect of the compound, when around 42,000 kilograms of MIC and other gases were released from the underground reservoirs of UCIL, was so massive that it killed thousands of people at a time and many more in the years to come. Lakhs of people suffered temporary disablement. The extent of cruelty was so huge that some people in and around the factory premises who slept in the night after a hard days work with hope for a new sunrise, never woke up. The pile of dead bodies was so much that made things difficult for the people to recognise the dead. The author explained one such incident which sent a chill down my spine. Two women, one hindu and other muslim, where fighting over a dead body. Both of them were claiming that the body was of their husband. The dispute grew louder that finally third person interfered and asked to strip the body naked from below to decide to whom the body belonged.
Four days after the incident Anderson came to India and was immediately arrested by the Bhopal police. However our country couldn't dare to prosecute him and was released immediately. The impact which the gas leak had on the countrymen, this was also that much painful that the person responsible for so many deaths was allowed to walk away free. The USA, which considers itself as messenger of peace and justice, gave full protection to Anderson and was never allowed to be extradited in order to bring him to justice. Sometimes I get a thought, what consequence would Anderson have faced had the same incident happened in American soil. Even our country merely declared him a fugitive and kept the status quo of other transactions with the USA as it is. Why didn't India take a tough stand against the US in order to isolate them in international community. Had an Indian committed such a crime in America, would India have saved the person from the impact of International law? The USA gave rigorous imprisonment to Rajat Gupta for a financial scam which did not result in any loss of life. But the world's biggest industrial disaster was not important in the eyes of US laws.
It has remained debatable that who from our machinery supported Anderson due to which he lived a comfortable life for 3 decades after the disaster while in Bhopal the count of dead went on increasing. The then PM Rajiv Gandhi was also in the list of names which were rumored to have helped Anderson to flee the country. When Osama Bin Laden attacked the US in September 2001, they invaded Afghanistan to search the culprit. But when, around same amount of people died in the industrial disaster in India due to an American the same US shielded him by all possible means till his natural death.
After the death news of Anderson flashed on Indian media, people in Bhopal came together near the Union Carbide factory premises to give their last respects to the owner in their own way. A huge picture of Anderson was kept on display and people came in queue and spat on that picture one after another.
PS: Many blamed Rajiv Gandhi to have assisted Anderson. I am actually happy, like he explained the anti sikh riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination, that he didn't say something like, 'When a big company leaks......'
-SR
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