Survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas disaster and activists take part in a protest march in New Delhi on May 13, 2008. Manan Vatsyayana / AFP / Getty

The sad truth facing the victims of the natural disasters in China and Burma is that they will soon disappear forever from the headlines and awareness of the international media, inevitably crowded out by more current and pressing stories. The same thing happened to the survivors of Bhopal, where, in December 1984, 40 tons of mostly methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas — one of the deadliest chemicals invented by man — escaped from a Union Carbide factory, immediately killing some 8,000 people, and eventually being linked to 12,000 subsequent deaths. The biggest industrial disaster ever, many times deadlier than the Chernobyl nuclear accident, made headlines around the world, but soon receded into the remote corners of public memory.

But Nafeesa Khan cannot forget the night her life became a living hell. Aged just 18 then, she was married to railways worker Jabbar Khan and expecting their first child. They lived a little over a mile away from the Union Carbide factory, where the gas leak occurred shortly after midnight on December 3, 1984. "We woke up to the sound of screaming," she recalls, "We thought we were breathing fire. There was fire in our eyes and our bellies. People were running helter-skelter, confused, and it seemed the night would never end. By the time it ended, my unborn child was dead."

Like the other survivors, Nafeesa and Jabbar were left enfeebled by exposure to the poison gas, and developed lung, skin and digestive disorders. Too weak to work, Jabbar lost his job. All of the couple's five children — who were not yet born at the time of the disaster — suffer from multiple ailments that doctors blame on their parents' exposure to MIC and other chemicals. "I'd never thought my life would turn out this way," says Nafeesa, "What hurts more is that those responsible for ruining my life have got away."

Two decades on, a criminal case charging Union Carbide and its officials with culpable homicide is still dragging on in a local court in Bhopal, because none of the accused have been available to the court. In 1985, the Indian government had filed a $3.3 billion claim in a U.S. court against Union Carbide, but eventually settled out of court for $470 million — which amounted to less than $500 for each of the 500,000 people harmed by the accident. In addition, Union Carbide never cleaned up the accident site, which continues to leech highly toxic chemicals into the soil and groundwater of the surrounding area, affecting even people born decades after the gas leak. In 2001, Dow Chemicals acquired Union Carbide, but has refused to accept any liability for Bhopal.

For Khan, the injustice continues to rankle, and she joined 50 survivors on a march to New Delhi where they have been staging a sit-in protest for nearly three months now. They are demanding that India's government ensure medical and other help to the thousands of survivors, and that legal action be taken against Dow Chemicals and Union Carbide. Earlier this month, the organization spearheading the march, the International Campaign for Justice for Bhopal (ICJB), released official documents demonstrating that India's Law Ministry shares the legal view that Dow is legally bound to accept the liabilities of Union Carbide.

The ICJB are demanding that Dow pay $1 billion to the survivors, in addition to paying for the cleanup. "But Dow has got the government eating out of its hands," says ICJB's Satinath Sarangi, claiming that a complex web of corruption and politics has been denying the Bhopal survivors of their rightful due. The ICJB claim that Dow's promise to invest $1 billion in India has won over senior ministers and officials to its side, who have been lobbying to have Dow absolved of Union Carbide's liabilities. He displays letters from the Indian ambassador to the U.S. as well as official communication from the offices of Indian officials to this effect. He also points out that Dow's counsel in a case pending in the High Court is also the spokesperson of the ruling Congress party.

Meanwhile, the controversy has slowed Dow's plans to invest in India. In January this year, construction of Dow's proposed R&D facility in Pune in the western Indian state of Maharashtra was stalled after local villagers dug up approach roads to the site. Six Indian Institutes of Technology have refused to work with Dow until it cleans up the accident site and reveals the composition of IMC — a commercial secret — so that survivors can be properly treated. Last year, Dow had to pay a $325,000 penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. for bribing Indian officials to expedite licenses for four pesticides produced by Dow — one of which, Dursban, is banned in the U.S. Action from the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation may follow. "If Dow were not afraid of the liabilities, it would've invested much more in India," says Sarangi, "The geopolitical logic of its acquisition of Union Carbide was to expand to big markets like India. And we've managed to stop it from doing that."

A dialogue between Raghu Rai’s photos and a play by Parnab Mukherjee juxtaposed to bring home the unforgettable horrors of the Bhopal gas leak and its implications

Continuing their cultural activities with social messages that dessiminate awareness among common people, city-based NGO Lokayat recently organised a play titled A dialogue between Raghu Rai’s photos of Bhopal Gas Tragedy and curated performance by Pranab Mukherjee and friends on June 19. Rai, being a great photographer, is well- known for his deep emotional and spiritual images that rely heavily on optimism. After bearing witness to the Bhopal disaster, Rai, along with several other people, saw a very different phase of Indian history - that of pain, despair and pessimism.

Mukherjee, an excellent theatre performer presented a 14-minute non-verbal play which transformed the entire backdrop to the time of the tradegy through 30 of Rai’s Bhopal pictures and by sharing emotions which attached them emotionally with the pain of the tragedy victims.

The prominent feature of the play was when Mukherjee explained about how a street play is made from scratch and put together the works of Rai into a play. He said, “The only way to feel the pain is to represent the pain and not to imitate pain.” In his performance, Mukherjee presented each movement and experienced the pain of each victim presented in Rai’s photographs - from an aborted foetus, the burial of an anonymous child, the multiple heart surgeries to the human skeletons coming out from the cemetery they were collectively buried in.

24 years after the Bhopal Gas tragedy, which killed thousands of people, the victims are yet to see the changes in their life as they are haunted by the memories of the tragic day. The whole purpose of the play was to let the people know that even though the incident happened in the past, people are still living the same tragic life the memories of which they tried to erase, but in vain. Making the message clearer, Lokayat presented 30 black and white images and each of the pictures presented more than one story of the victims. Sunil Verma, a social activist and Bhopal tragedy victim, who committed suicide two years ago, inspired Mukherjee’s play. Mukherjee said that Verma’s story summarises the whole Gas tradegy and the implications that it has had.

“I must have performed more then 20,000 autopsies so far. No relative of a gas victim can get a compensation claim for a death without my certificate and it has been a nightmarish experience especially those initial first days, when we hardly came out of the morgue,” said Dr Sathpathy, the forensic expert at the State Government Hamidia Hospital, who lived through the disastrous night.

Alka Joshi, Lokayat convener stated, “There are more than 60 of Raghu Rai’s photographs on Bhopal Tragedy. There are some which were taken two days after the tragedy, some after twenty years and we have mixed them all together today because when you look at them you can’t differentiate between them as they are all telling the same story even after so many years.”

As Gandhi once showed the world, the hunger strike is a powerful moral weapon of the weak. It took decades but it worked, where lawsuits in colonial courts or armed resistance to imperial strength might have failed. But do hunger strikes have any power today?

Indra Sinha, former ad copywriter, author of Animal's People, and most recently hunger striker, is convinced they do. The France-based writer went on a week-long fast recently in support of Bhopal gas survivors who are on hunger strike in Delhi demanding, among other things, that the government let the law take its course against Dow Chemical and Union Carbide.

Sinha recalls the immense global response to the 1981 Irish hunger strike, in which 10 prisoners died demanding that Britain treat them not as criminals but as political prisoners. "Even those who disagreed with their politics could not ignore the powerful response," he says.

Twenty-four years after the Bhopal disaster, major issues remain unresolved. Many victims weren't even born in 1984 when the Union Carbide factory-now owned by Dow Chemical-leaked 27 tonnes of lethal gas over the city. Thousands died within hours, and tens of thousands survived-many as orphans-condemned to a lifetime of health problems, some crippling, some fatal, and many passed down through generations. Thousands drink poisonous water daily, because the groundwater is contaminated from the toxic factory, which still awaits a clean-up.

Fifteen years ago, Sinha had no connection with Bhopal. Mumbai-born and Cambridge-educated, he was living in the UK, raising money for Amnesty International. "Someone in Bhopal got wind of my work. A community worker from Bhopal, Satinath Sarangi, came to see me in England in 1993. He asked if I could help the gas victims, because in 10 years, they had got no help. I had heard about the disaster, but thought it must have all been sorted out." Sarangi told him about the lack of medical care and other problems, and said he wanted to start an ayurvedic clinic in Bhopal.

Sinha says, "I thought it was inconceivable that after nine years, survivors had no medical care. Here, this sort of thing would have been dealt with right away." Using another powerful weapon-words-he created a double-page ad, and convinced The Guardian to publish it. He recalls, "It was a huge risk, but readers responded generously." And so the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal was built.

But today, survivors are still waiting for the safe water supply, promised only after they agitated in 2006. Sinha is outraged that survivors are treated like this, while the government bends over backwards to accommodate a company that assigns unequal value to Indian and American lives. He reminds you that the compensation to the victims averaged US $500 (Rs 21,400) per person-barely enough for a cup of tea a day-for a lifetime of sickness. He quotes Dow Chemical public affairs specialist Kathy Hunt as saying in 2002, "$500 is plenty good for an Indian." Contrast this, he says, the $10 million that Dow paid an American child who suffered brain damage caused by its Dursban insecticide. Dursban, banned in the US in 2000, is marketed aggressively in India. Dow has even admitted, Sinha notes, to bribing agriculture ministry officials to expedite its registration.

Sinha is hardly alone in his outrage: 287 people have fasted or are fasting-more than 20 of them indefinitely-in Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, India, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, the UK and the US. A couple of weeks ago, 16 US Congresspersons wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, urging him to bring Dow and Union Carbide to justice. The issue has drawn the attention of British and Scottish MPs, Amnesty International, and dozens of eminent writers and artists. Seventeen US-based NRI organisations have written to the prime minister, seeking urgent resolution of survivors' demands. Supporters have sent over 5,000 faxes to the prime minister's office this month alone.

Sinha sums up their demands: "The government must ensure proper medical treatment for not just gas victims, but also those suffering from the contaminated water. Secondly, the factory should be cleaned up using the world's best expertise. And thirdly, let justice take its course-stop obstructing it."

Bhopal survivors insist that Dow pays for the clean-up. Sinha points out that the law ministry has said in a private note that Dow is liable, regardless of the technicalities of its merger with Union Carbide. But at the same time, he notes, Dow is negotiating with the government to be freed of its liabilities. "I have no words strong enough for the politicians in Delhi," he says.

Sinha's passionate commitment to the cause led him to write Animal's People, shortlisted for the 2007 Booker and winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. The novel highlights the human aspect of Bhopal survivors' lives and loves. It is going to be made into a movie. Sinha says, "I've been asked to write the screenplay. I'm thrilled." TNN

NEW DELHI: Even though senior UPA ministers as well as deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia have supported absolving Dow Chemicals of any legal liability in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy case, the group of ministers on Bhopal headed by HRD minister Arjun Singh is not in favour of showing any leniency towards the chemicals giant.

Sources told TOI that while agreeing to set up a commission to address the issues of cleaning up of the gas leak site and public health, the GoM has rejected Ratan Tata's offer to lead a trust of India Inc to pay for the clean-up.

The GoM, sources said, was of the view that Tata's proposal was not merely an issue of funding the clean-up but contained an implicit condition that Dow be absolved of its liabilities. Rejecting Tata's proposal means that the legal liability of Dow shall be dealt in courts and not by an executive order as the cabinet secretary had earlier suggested in a note.

Tata had suggested in 2006 to the finance minister and Ahluwalia that he was ready to head a Rs 100 crore fund to take care of the residual pollution and contamination issues. The letter came after an interaction of Dow officials with Tata at the US-India CEO Forum.

Dow wants the Rs 100 crore notice sent to it by the Indian government as a contingent payment for cleaning up of the tragedy site to be withdrawn as a precondition to it investing in India.

While several key Congress ministers had suggested resolving the issue in favour of Dow, the government has not been able to take a clear position.

Meanwhile, even as Prithviraj Chavan, MoS in the PMO, is in touch with protesting groups, the government has failed to ensure release of 23 Bhopal activists, including 21 women, who were arrested on June 9 after a demonstration outside the PMO. Chavan told activists that the PM has decided to set up a commission and carry on with the litigation against Dow.

Though Chavan has said the issue of extradition of Union Carbide officials is yet to be decided, the GoM, sources said, was of the view that extradition of Carbide officials would not yield anything more than two decades after the leak.

''They should not have been allowed to leave India then. In that case, we could have dictated terms. There is no point in extradition now,'' a source said.

However, the GoM is yet to decide on the transfer of intellectual property of UCC that the commerce ministry had permitted despite court orders.

Their letter to Prime Minister is the latest in global support for gas victims

NEW DELHI: Sixteen U.S. Congresspersons, led by Frank Pallone Jr, have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressing support to Bhopal gas victims, and urged him to bring America-based Dow Chemical and Union Carbide to justice.

Thousands of people died and were maimed as a result of massive release of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal in December 1984. Union Carbide and Dow Chemical have since merged.

The congressional letter is the latest in international support which includes endorsements from British and Scottish members of Parliaments, Amnesty International, and more than 100 eminent writers and people in the fields of arts and culture.

The June 5 letter says: “The conduct of American corporations outside the U.S. is a long-standing concern of ours ... In this case, U.S. corporations have refused to submit to the jurisdiction of foreign [Indian] courts ... It is outrageous that the executives of Union Carbide and its successor, Dow Chemical, have yet to be brought to justice.”

Expressing support for the empowered commission proposed for survivors of the gas victims, the U.S. legislators said: “We hope that the Indian Government pursues Union Carbide and Dow Chemical for their civil and criminal liabilities in the country.”

British MP Des Turner, in a statement issued coincidentally on June 5, expressed his outrage at the continued neglect of the survivors. “It is morally totally indefensible that in a situation like this that many local communities are exposed to this toxic threat and the Dow Chemical Company continues to abrogate its responsibility for one of the greatest human tragedies in history. I shall be bringing this to the attention of the Indian High Commission.”

An Early Day Motion tabled in the British Parliament, in support of Mr. Turner’s campaign, was endorsed by 68 MPs, including himself.

Meanwhile, 60 organisations, including 17 U.S.-based NRI organisations, sent a letter to the Prime Minister, and a copy to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, seeking urgent resolution of the demands of the survivors.

“International pressure will escalate. People are outraged at the government’s insensitivity in handling the Bhopal survivors’ demands, and will find ways of expressing their opposition to its lackadaisical attitude,” said Aquene Freechild, a U.S.-based supporter and member of the Students for Bhopal Campaign.

Fast in solidarity

Already, more than 100 people from seven countries have signed up to fast with the Bhopalis for a day or longer. Nine of them, from the U.S., France, Argentina and India, have started an indefinite fast in their homes.

Till date the Prime Minister’s Office has received over 5,027 fax messages urging the Prime Minister to meet the survivors and accept their demands. However, Bhopal organisations are yet to hear from the government.

Indian-origin novelist Indra Sinha, who won the Commonwealth award for the best book in the European and Asian region, has severely criticised the US multinational Dow Chemicals for showing ''lower regard for Indian lives than for American ones.''

Sinha, who in March won honours for his novel 'Animal's People' based on the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 in which over 8,000 people died, has also flayed the Indian government for not dealing firmly with the US multinational.

Posting a scathing attack on his website stating ''Why I am joining the Bhopalis in their fight for Justice,'' Sinha said the US multinational Dow Chemicals has lower regard for Indian lives than for American ones.

He said ''I have spent much of the last five years writing a novel in which victims of a chemical disaster caused by a rogue corporation are sold out by their own politicians, triggering a desperate hunger strike.''

''Why doesn't the Indian government force Dow to clean up Bhopal? The Indian law ministry has advised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Dow is indeed liable for Union Carbide's misdeeds in Bhopal. It's exactly what he doesn't wish to hear,'' the novelist wrote on his website.

Sinha alleged that Singh and his ministers are in contortions to appease Dow, which has offered to invest USD 1 billion in India if freed from its Bhopal liabilities.

The author appealed to the prime minister ''to honour your promises made two years ago in relation to proper health care and monitoring for those affected by the gas and poisoned water, to obey the Supreme Court's 2004 order to provide safe drinking water for communities whose water is poisoned and not to have business dealings with Union Carbide Corporation or its legal owners while the contempt of court continues.''

New Delhi, June 14 (IANS) Expressing solidarity with the Bhopal gas leak victims, 16 US House of Congress members led by Padma Bhushan Frank Pallone Jr have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring Dow Chemicals to justice. Their letter dated June 5 is strong in its criticism of the US-based Dow Chemical, which took over Union Carbide, in whose plant the disaster took place on Dec 2-3, 1984.

“The conduct of American corporations outside the US is a long-standing concern of ours. In this case, US corporations have refused to submit to the jurisdiction of foreign (Indian) courts. It is outrageous that the executives of Union Carbide and its successor, Dow Chemical, have yet to be brought to justice,” the letter reads.

In the Bhopal gas leak holocaust, often called the world’s worst industrial disaster, the Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked over 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, which killed at least 3,800 people and affected many thousands.

The US legislators’ letter is the latest in a tide of support that has flowed in from overseas, including endorsements from British and Scottish MPs, Amnesty International, and more than 100 eminent writers and artists.

The letter, a copy of which was given to the media by a group of survivors holding protests and an indefinite hunger strike here, said: “We are writing to express our support for the people of Bhopal, India, victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster in 1984.

“The survivors marched 500 miles in February and March from Bhopal to New Delhi, where they have been for over 60 days. We urge you to personally meet the survivor groups and address their long-standing demands for justice and a life of dignity,” said the letter addressed to the prime minister.

Nearly 100 people including survivors, victims’ family members and activists supporting the cause are protesting near Jantar Mantar in the heart of New Delhi. They say they won’t stop the protest unless Manmohan Singh meets them and solves their problems.

Besides Pallone Jr, the Congress members who have signed the letter include Patrick Kennedy, Barbara Lee and Steve Rothman.

Nityanand Jayraman, an activist on protest, said that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has received over 5,027 faxes urging him to meet the victims and listen to their demands.

While the PMO responded to their demands with a letter, organisations of gas leak survivors have found the response unsatisfactory.

Bhopal, June 14: Three leading Bhopal Gas Peedit (sufferers) organisations have assailed the ruling BJP party for accepting Rs one lakh donation from Dow Chemicals.

They said this showed the state government's "aggressive efforts" to protect the American Multinational from its environmental responsibilities".

"BBC's report about Dow Chemical's Rs one lakh donation to BJP explains the Madhya Pradesh government's aggressive efforts to protect the American Multinational from its environmental responsibilities in Bhopal", Syed M Irfan, President of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila, Purush Sabgharsh Morcha said in Bhopal.

Presenting Right to Information documents to the Press, he said Rs one lakh donation to BJP is merely the tip of the iceberg as the "favours extended by state government by way of pushing for burning of Union Carbide's toxic wastes, despite the recommendations of experts, is clearly worth a lot more to Dow".

Accusing the BJP government in the state for leading the efforts in the High Court to burn 340 tonnes of Carbides toxic wastes in an incinerator in Anbkleshwar, Gujarat, despite opposition from the Gujarat government and against the opinion of the Expert Committee constituted by the High Court, he said a massive fire-damaged large portion of the Ankleshwar facility on April 3, confirmed the nores of caution in this regard.

Alleging the state government for pushing Dow's agenda of creating a memorial over the lands where more than 10,000 tonnes of toxic wastes lie burried, Irfan said indeed it was the buried waste, rather than the 340 tonnes waste that the government was desperate to burn.

London, June 14 (IANS) Celebrated Indian-born novelist Indra Sinha has blamed the Indian government and the multinational Dow Chemicals in equal measure for the continuing plight of Bhopal gas disaster victims. Sinha, who also kept fast in support of a number of survivors and activists who went on a hunger strike in Delhi June 10 to protest the indifference of authorities, has posted a scathing criticism on his website, in an article titled ‘Why I am joining the Bhopalis in their fight for justice’.

France-based Sinha said the US multinational Dow Chemicals has lower regard for Indian lives than for American ones, and that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is responsible for letting it off the hook.

Thousands of people were killed and wounded when deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a Union Carbide pesticides factory in Bhopal midnight Dec 2-3, 1984.

While officials put the number of deaths at around 3,000 the human rights group Amnesty International says some 8,000 people died and nearly half a million were affected.

Doctors and health experts say 15,000 people have died till date from exposure to the toxic gas, which they say continues to kill and maim.

Sinha’s latest novel “Animal’s People”, which won the Commonwealth award for the best book in the European and Asian region in March, is based around the events in Bhopal - the worst industrial disaster in history.

In his article, Sinha said Dow Chemicals, which later acquired Union Carbide, was responsible not only for its assets but also its liabilities and that under the ‘polluter pays’ principle owed Bhopal’s victims billions of dollars in compensation.

“Dow set aside $2.3 billion to settle Union Carbide’s US asbestos liabilities. How then can it refuse to accept Union Carbide’s Indian liabilities?” he asks.

“The hard answer”, he says, “is that Indians are not quite as human as Americans.”

“Dow paid $10 million to settle out-of-court with an American child damaged by Dursban, a pesticide so dangerous that it has been banned for domestic use in the US. But Dow employees were found to have bribed Indian Ministry of Agriculture officials to license Dursban as safe for home use in India. If an Indian child dies I doubt if there’ll be $10 million or even $10,000.”

Sinha also criticises Manmohan Singh, claiming he wants to “appease” Dow Chemicals and holding him personally responsible for jailing Bhopal activists, who the writer said are still behind bars.

He concludes: “I have spent much of the last five years writing a novel in which victims of a chemical disaster caused by a rogue corporation are sold out by their own politicians, triggering a desperate hunger strike.

“’Animal’s People’ is set in the fictional city of Khaufpur, but whatever success it has had, it owes to the inspiring courage and spirit of the Bhopalis, and the descriptions of the hunger strike were drawn directly from the experiences of my friends.”

Sixteen US House of Congress members have expressed solidarity with the Bhopal gas leak victims in India and have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring Dow Chemicals to justice.

A letter from the Congress members is strong in its criticism of the US-based Dow Chemical, which took over Union Carbide, whose plant created a chemical disaster on December 2nd 1984.

The letter read: 'The conduct of American corporations outside the US is a long-standing concern of ours. In this case, US corporations have refused to submit to the jurisdiction of foreign the Indian courts. It is outrageous that the executives of Union Carbide and its successor, Dow Chemical, have yet to be brought to justice.'

In the Bhopal gas disaster, the Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked over 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas, which killed at least 3,800 people and affected many thousands.

Survivors of the disaster have been holding protests and hunger strikes.

The survivors and their supporters marched 500 miles in February and March from Bhopal to New Delhi in the hopes that their demands for compensation could be heard.

NEW DELHI: Expressing solidarity with the Bhopal gas leak victims, 16 US House of Congress members led by Padma Bhushan Frank Pallone Jr have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring Dow Chemicals to justice.

Their letter dated June 5 is strong in its criticism of the US-based Dow Chemical, which took over Union Carbide, in whose plant the disaster took place on December 2-3, 1984.

"The conduct of American corporations outside the US is a long-standing concern of ours. In this case, US corporations have refused to submit to the jurisdiction of foreign (Indian) courts. It is outrageous that the executives of Union Carbide and its successor, Dow Chemical, have yet to be brought to justice," the letter reads.

In the Bhopal gas leak holocaust, often called the world's worst industrial disaster, the Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked over 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, which killed at least 3,800 people and affected many thousands.

The US legislators' letter is the latest in a tide of support that has flowed in from overseas, including endorsements from British and Scottish MPs, Amnesty International, and more than 100 eminent writers and artists.

The letter, a copy of which was given to the media by a group of survivors holding protests and an indefinite hunger strike here, said: "We are writing to express our support for the people of Bhopal, India, victims of the world's worst industrial disaster in 1984.

"The survivors marched 500 miles in February and March from Bhopal to New Delhi, where they have been for over 60 days. We urge you to personally meet the survivor groups and address their long-standing demands for justice and a life of dignity," said the letter addressed to the prime minister.

Nearly 100 people including survivors, victims' family members and activists supporting the cause are protesting near Jantar Mantar in the heart of New Delhi. They say they won't stop the protest unless Manmohan Singh meets them and solves their problems.
Besides Pallone Jr, the Congress members who have signed the letter include Patrick Kennedy, Barbara Lee and Steve Rothman.

Nityanand Jayraman, an activist on protest, said that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has received over 5,027 faxes urging him to meet the victims and listen to their demands.

While the PMO responded to their demands with a letter, organisations of gas leak survivors have found the response unsatisfactory.

Bhopal, June 14 (IANS) An organisation of victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak holocaust has condemned the Madhya Pradesh government for pushing to incinerate toxic wastes from the closed pesticide plant despite the recommendations of experts. Syed M. Irfan, president of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangarsh Morcha, said: “The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government has led the effort in the high court to burn 340 tonnes of Union Carbide’s toxic wastes in an incinerator in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, despite opposition by the Gujarat government, warnings by experts and the opinion of the technical sub committee constituted by the court.”

The methyl isocyanate leak from the pesticide plant on Dec 2-3, 1984 killed at least 3,800 people immediately and affected around 50,000 more. Health and environmental effects of what is often called the world’s worst industrial disaster are continuing.

Irfan referred to a recent media report that alleged the BJP had taken a Rs.100,000 donation from Dow Chemicals, which has bought over Union Carbide, to say “this is merely the tip of the iceberg”.

While the MP Pollution Control Board has been reporting severe contamination of groundwater around the closed-down plant from 1996, the state government continues to deny this, Irfan said.

“Similarly, despite a 2006 report on the health damage caused by contaminated groundwater by the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, a state government research agency, the same government refuses to acknowledge these injuries.

“A state government sponsored study completed last year by the Gandhi Medical College on the health effects of water contamination remains under wraps.”

Irfan alleged: “Recently, BJP minister Ajay Vishnoi was caught for skimming money from the gas relief funds.”

“The state government is actively pushing Dow’s agenda of creating a memorial over the lands where more than 10,000 tons of toxic wastes lie buried,” Irfan said. “It is the buried waste, rather than the 340 tonnes that the government is desperate to burn, that needs to be dealt with as a priority.”

The state’s minister in charge of relief to gas victims has opposed the commission on Bhopal recommended by the Group of Ministers recently, Irfan said.

The minister has reportedly pointed out that there are already two Supreme Court Committees on medical rehabilitation, and that no commission can be above that.

“However,” Irfan said, “the state government’s disdain for the Supreme Court is clear from its track record of compliance with the apex court’s directions.

“The Supreme Court monitoring committee on medical rehabilitation has recorded that the state government has failed to act on any of the recommendations contained in no less than six of its reports.

“A May 2004 order of the Supreme Court directing the state government to deliver clean drinking water to 14 water-affected communities near the Union Carbide factory remains unimplemented.”

Nine of the gas victims and their supporters, who had started an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi June 10 to press their demands for better rehabilitation and justice, continued their protest Saturday.

Two Bhopal residents - Rachna Dhingra and Meera More - are fasting in Tihar Jail, where they were being held with 21 others arrested on June 9 for demonstrating outside the prime minister’s office.

Over 80 people from seven countries are fasting in solidarity, Irfan said. “Of these, 10 people, including, noted Booker-shortlisted author of ‘Animal’s People’ Indra Sinha, long-time Bhopal supporter Diane Wilson from Texas, USA and Chennai-based Shweta Narayan have begun an indefinite fast that will end only when justice is done.”

The American actor will be in India soon to shoot for Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain

Oscar nominated writer Julie Delpy (also an actor) will be in India soon to shoot for a forthcoming film Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain. The film revolves around a young rickshaw-puller in Bhopal who gets a menial job at a chemical plant and how the industrial disaster in the city changes his life and those of others.

To be directed by Ravi Kumar, this historical will also include actors Rajpal Yadav and Tannishtha Chatterjee. But the star attraction of the film is Julie, who has been a writer, actor, director, composer and editor in many films. The French/American actress, plays the character of Eva in the film, whose script has been written by Ravi and David Brooks.

Julie was nominated for an Oscar in 2004 for her writing prowess for the film Before Sunset that had her and Ethan Hawke playing the lead roles.

“The film is about the tragedy and the aftermath. The film will be shot in India and the filmmakers are trying to keep the setting in Bhopal,” says a source.

The source adds, “Julie will come down to Bhopal to shoot the film. Currently, some work on the script is on.

It will be an English- Hindi film.”Rajpal Yadav, who plays the character of Dilip in the film, was not very forthcoming, “I cannot talk about the Bhopal tragedy film because nothing much has been finalised.”
(With inputs from Rashmi Hemrajani)

Booker-shortlisted author Indra Sinha has begun a hunger strike in support of victims of the Bhopal gas disaster.

The Simon & Schuster author of Animal’s People, started the fast on 10th June in an attempt to bring American industrial company Dow Chemical to court in India to face criminal and civil charges relating to the tragedy.

In December 1984, Union Carbide’s pesticide’s factory released a cloud of toxic gases over the Indian city of Bhopal killing 8,000 people immediately. According to Amnesty International, the cloud injured half a million people, caused another 15,000 deaths since 1984 and injured a further 25,000 through contamination. Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide in 2001.

Sinha joined nine other Bhopal campaigners in New Delhi, seven of whom have been severely affected by water or gas contamination. His novel Animal’s People, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize last year, was a fictionalised account of the Bhopal disaster. In the book three characters embark on a hunger strike in a bid to force government officials to ditch a deal with the company responsible for the disaster.

In a statement last night (11th June), Sinha said: “Those poisoned in Bhopal continue to sicken and die, without help, without compassion, without justice, because the politicians in Delhi want to do business with their killers. These canaille refuse to honour the law, blindfold themselves against justice, and, by their inaction, condemn thousands of the citizens they are sworn to protect to fear, pain, suffering and death.”

The Bhopal survivors’ campaign has gained strong support in Westminster with Desmond Turner, MP for Brighton Kemptown, tabling an early day motion that has been so far signed by 73 MPs. “It is morally totally indefensible that in a situation like this that many local communities are exposed to this toxic threat and the Dow Chemical Company continues to abrogate its responsibility for one of the greatest human tragedies in history,” he said.

Bhopal, June 11: Nine Bhopal activists, including survivors of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, victims of water contamination and their supporters on Wednesday commenced an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi to underscore their demands for a special empowered commission for rehabilitation in Bhopal, and legal action against Dow Chemical and Union Carbide.

Joining them in the global hunger strike is noted Booker-shortlisted author Indra Sinha, who will begin his fast today from his residence in South West France.

"The Indian Prime Minister underestimates the emotive power of the Bhopal struggle. The hunger strike will catalyze global opinion against the Prime Minister's refusal to yield to the Bhopalis' justified demands," said Sinha, author of Commonwealth Prize-winning book Animal's People.

According to news enamating from New Delhi three of the hunger strikers - Rachna Dhingra (30), Irshad Khan (20) and Meera More (27) - are among 36 that were arrested on Tuesday for staging a die-in in front of the Prime Minister's Office, (PMO). To teach the Bhopalis a lesson, more than 15 policepersons, including one woman cop and two plainclothesmen, strip-searched, whipped and slapped Bhopali youth and children who were in police custody last night. Suresh Pal was stripped, beaten and locked up. Eleven-year-old Yasmin, who walked from Bhopal to Delhi, and six-year-old Naghma were beaten up by the police, while 19-year-old Imran was whipped with a belt and hurt in the eye for intervening when policemen began abusing and dragging Rachna into the lock-up.

Mahendra Singh, a plainclothesman who masterminded the operation, said "In saaliyon ke kapde fado." (Tear the clothes off these bitches). The arrested persons will be produced before the magistrate today. Of the 36, 18, including 9 children, 7 women and two men, said they will not post a bail. If imprisoned, Dhingra, Irshad and More will start the fast in jail.

Bhopal activists have said that the police action is part of a good-cop, bad-cop game being played by the Prime Minister's Office. "The presence of the plainclothesmen, the warning by the Deputy Commissioner of Police that "you will face the consequences this time," and the mild platitudes periodically issued from the PMO are proof enough that this is not an act by a few rowdy cops, but something that has a higher sanction," said Dhingra of Bhopal Group for Information and Action.

When confronted with news about children being beaten up at the police station, Director of Public Relations at the Prime Minister's Office, Muthukumaran said "I have heard about it. It is shameful. I have informed the authorities, and we'll see what can be done."

Bhopal survivors have said that Muthuraman's statement is as vague and insincere as last month's statement by the Prime Minister's emissary Prthviraj Chavan that seemed to partially concede to the demands. The statement by Minister of State in the PMO made no mention of the powers, funds and the number of years the Bhopal Commission will function and was silent on the issue of legal action against Union Carbide and Dow Chemical. Bhopalis are refusing to accept a toothless Commission and insist that the Commission on Bhopal be enacted by the Parliament to get the powers it needs to function.

The demands for legal action against Dow Chemical and Union Carbide, they said, merely require the Government to do what it is mandated under law to do. The pesticides that were registered by paying bribes have to be deregistered. Warren Anderson and Union Carbide's legal representative need to be extradited in line with the orders of the Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate.

Bhopalis have also called for revocation of an approval given by the Industry and Commerce Ministry to Reliance to purchase Union Carbide's Unipol technology. The Bhopal CJM had ordered attachment of Union Carbide's property in 1992. Unipol by virtue of its ownership is a confiscable property.

The persons fasting include Irshad Khan (20), Gabbar Singh (29), Meera More (27), Iqbal Khan Khokhar (54), Jabbar Khan (45), Sanjay Verma (24), Abdul Rafiq (38), Rachna Dhingra (30) and Satinath Sarangi (54). Barring the last two, all others are either affected by the gas disaster or by ground water contamination from Union Carbide's chemical wastes.