EXPLAINED: What is Bhopal gas tragedy? Why was more compensation demanded by Indian govt?

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It was a frightening night 38 winters ago, when Bhopal, a central Indian city located approximately 850 km south of national capital New Delhi, suffered one of the most catastrophic industrial disasters the world has ever seen. Thousands were smothered to a painful-yet-quiet death from a massive toxic gas leak while the remaining victims, some crippled and others battling diseases, continue to knock on the doors of the judiciary, seeking justice.

On Tuesday (March 14), the Supreme Court of India dismissed a curative petition filed in 2010 by the Union government seeking higher compensation for the victims. The Indian government, in the petition, had sought compensation to the tune of nearly one billion dollars (Rs 7,844 crore). However, the top court rejected the demand saying too much time had lapsed since the accident and that it will be opening a 'pandora's box'.

"We are unsatisfied with the Union of India for not furnishing any rationale for raking up this issue after two decades. Settlement can be set aside only on the ground of fraud. No ground of fraud has been pleaded by the Union of India," observed the five-judge bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.

Read more: India's top court rejects plea on increased compensation for 1984 industrial disaster victims

Nearly four decades later, the industrial disaster continues to make news with the victims and the government demanding more compensation.

But what had happened on that night and thereafter? WION explains.

The fateful night

On December 2, 1984, noxious methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas started leaking from a pesticide manufacturing facility run by Union Carbide (India) Ltd. (UCIL), a subsidiary of US-based Union Carbide Corporation (UCC).

Over 40 tonnes of the gas escaped into the air in the dead of the night, killing more than 3,800 people within days.

However, it was to be the starting, as severe health problems were to befall the survivors, with many of them saying it was a fate worse than death.

UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) had released a report in 2019 where it stated that the leaked poisonous gas affected more than 600,000 inhabitants, in and around the Union Carbide plant.

It added Bhopal disaster to the list of nine major industrial accidents to have transpired since 1919. The list includes the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power disaster and the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The aftermath of the disaster

The immediate consensus was that it was a man-made disaster. Multiple investigations later proved that the accident was a fatal concoction of lack of safety rules and training of the workers who were unaware of the dangers of the gas. Reportedly, the MIC gas was being handled without adequate safety measuresin place.

A case was filed against Union Carbide and its chairman Warren Anderson became the prime accused. Anderson was arrested when he visited India but was shortly let out on bail.

Courts in Bhopal issued non-bailable warrants against Anderson twice — in 1992 and 2009. However, owing to Anderson's connections, he never appeared before an Indian court and died a free man in September 2014.

According toDNA, in 2015, India's former external affairs minister late Sushma Swarajhad alleged that Anderson escaped India under a quid-pro-quo deal brokered by the then prime ministerRajiv Gandhi who wanted to secure freedom for his childhood friend jailed in the USA for 35 years.

The Indian government filed a $3 billion claim in the New York district court, seeking compensation from UCC. In 1988, Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state at the time, batted for an increased payout for the victims, if an out-of-the-court settlement was reached.

The compensation and curative petition

However, Rajiv Gandhi did not pay much consideration to the proposition, and in February 1989, the SC ordered a settlement. It asked UCC to pay $470 million to the government of India as the full compensation.

The survivors of the tragedy did not accept the verdict and continued to show their displeasure. Some reports claim that so far, each victim has received less than one-fifth of the allotted sum.

Consequently, over two decades after the settlement was reached, the UPA government in 2010 challenged the unjust settlement and sought an additional sum of $1 billion. This time around, American giant Dow Chemical had become the defendant as it had assumed control of UCC in 1999.

ALSO WATCH |Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Victims, their kin seek adequate compensation from government

An avoidable disaster

Akin to most man-made disasters, Bhopal gas tragedy could have been avoided. The eventual leak of the gas was preceded by multiple foreshadowing incidents. Journalist Rajkumar Keswani, who died in 2021, is known as the man who had predicted the disaster, a year before it took place.

He published a series of investigative articles titled “Jwalamukhi ke muhane baitha Bhopal” (Bhopal sitting on the crater of a volcano) and “Na samjhoge to aakhir mit hi jaoge” (If you don’t understand, you shall be wiped out) — compiled after nine months of investigation that warned of the impending disaster.

What added insult to injury for the victims was the fact that UCC continued to sell its products in India even after the disaster, all the while evading criminal trials.

According to internal company records accessed by The Reporters’ Collective (TRC) for Al Jazeera, three years after the gas leak, UCC set up a chemical trading firm named Visa Petrochemicals Private Limited, based in Mumbai, and sold its products for the next 14 years.

The company operated under the nose of the Indian government and it wasn't until 2002, a year after UCC was bought by Dow that the product sale stopped.

Read more: Bhopal gas tragedy: Tainted company continued to sell products discreetly in India, says report

The Supreme Court’s Tuesdayverdict has come as a setback for the government and the victims of the tragedy and it is unclear if it will be challenged.

(With inputs from agencies)

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