Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Jan 4, 2025

Letter to the readers, Mainstream, Jan 4, 2025

In what is known to the world as one of the worst industrial disasters —on December 3, 1984, the leak of toxic gas methyl isocyanate at Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, killed some 5000 thousand and rendered some 300, 000 permanently sick requiring long-term medical treatment. Children with birth defects continue to be born in the neighbourhoods of Bhopal. Soil and groundwater have been contaminated in the city and its rural hinterland. An estimated one million tons of soil at the vast factory grounds remain contaminated. The abandoned factory site containing over 300 tons of highly toxic waste that sat there for four decades has just been removed finally on the orders of a court. Tireless efforts of environmentalists, and committed health and social workers groups in Bhopal led to many court cases and public campaigns to bring to book the officials and demand justice and medical care for the victims’ families. These efforts led to the unusual mobilisation of victim’s families into self-help organisations. It is these efforts that have finally led indifferent and incompetent officials to act in a piecemeal manner to remove some of the toxic waste from the factory premises. The entire factory premises in Bhopal should have long been a containment zone and need to be entirely de-contaminated. Activists have expressed concern over the lack of an overarching strategy and systems to deal with toxic waste, pollution and decontamination. One would have expected that decades after such a grave accident would have led the state and society to be trained and equipped with a culture of safety, but alas the country continues to record a high level of accidents in its factories, workplaces, building fires, pollution in its groundwater, rivers and you name it; a culture of negligence rules, lack of safety inspections and missing precautions is the norm. Our governments have failed us on the pollution front with the rolling back of industrial safety & environmental regulations. Civil society efforts are valuable to challenge power and to demand accountability from elected officials for greater environmental safety; While rules and regulations matter, they do not socially equip society to face longer-term health damage. Social and public health campaigners in Bhopal who have stood with victims’ families over the past forty years trying to show ways to educate people to stand collectively in solidarity in the face of adversity, need to be honoured and accorded social recognition.

January 4, 2025 —HK