International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal activist Satinath Sarangi (left)

NEW DELHI (AFP) — Activists for victims of India's 1984 Bhopal gas leak said Monday that as the owner of the former Union Carbide, Dow Chemicals should pay for a clean-up before any new business in the country.

Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 1999, 15 years after toxic gases leaked from a plant in Bhopal in central India on the night of December 3, 1984, is not "immune" to responsibilities of compensation, said activist Rachna Dhingra of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

The group, citing what they said was an Indian law ministry document obtained through the Right for Information Act last week, which they said holds that "irrespective of the manner in which Union Carbide has been acquired by Dow Chemicals, if there is any legal liability it would be borne by Dow Chemicals."

"We are happy to say that the law ministry is saying something we have been saying all along," said Satinath Sarangi of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

The gas leak, described as the world's worst industrial accident, occurred when a storage tank at a Union Carbide India pesticide plant spewed deadly cyanide gas into the air in Bhopal, killing more than 3,500 slum dwellers immediately.

The death toll has since climbed to more than 15,000, the government says.

Survivors and activists want US giant Dow Chemical to pay for the clean-up and health damages.

Dow says all liabilities were settled in 1989 when Union Carbide paid 470 million dollars to the Indian government to be allocated to survivors and families of the dead.

But local court cases in India have since challenged Dow's stand and called for more compensation for victims as well as for the environmental damage.

Dow Chemicals has sought help from the government and local companies such as Tata Group to settle the matter so it can proceed with investments in India estimated at one billion dollars.

The Bhopal activist group however says the plant site still contains around 5,000 tonnes of toxic chemicals, which have contaminated soil and water up to five kilometres (three miles) away.

New Delhi: The night of December 2, 1984 has stretched into 23 years, but the Bhopal gas tragedy lives on in the minds of people and in their bodies.

One of the survivors of the tragedy, Rashida Bi says that they are still forced to drink contaminated water as they do not have access to clean water.

Sometimes to survive is also to perish, like 70 of the survivors did, by breaching a high-security zone to literally knock on the Prime Minister's door, hoping that he would hear them.

However, the only ones who heard the victims gate-crashing the PM's residence were his security, who carried the protestors — including 39 children — away, and these survivors once again became victims and landed in the police station instead of getting the justice that they were hoping would be doled out to them.

Fighting ill health, the victims of the 1984 tragedy had walked to Delhi two years ago. A hunger strike that time had won them a meeting with the Prime Minister and they had been promised that their demand for clean drinking water for the 25,000 survivors would be met.

An activist for the victims of the tragedy, Nityanand says, "We walked to Delhi in 2006. Two years have passed and we are yet to receive even a drop of clean drinking water."

Meanwhile, the Group of Ministers on the Bhopal gas tragedy, headed by Arjun Singh is yet to hear them out for an empowered commisson on Bhopal, and a separate law for the gas-affected people, and most importantly, to deliver justice to them.

It has been a very long walk from Bhopal to Delhi and a long wait in Jantar Mantar for the victims of the gas tragedy, which include physically and mentally challenged children.

However, it seems as if the matter was not important enough for the Prime Minister to even consider meeting them — not even when they tried to gate-crash into his residence in a desperate bid to get what every human being deserves, clean drinking water.

Police personnel preventing Bhopal gas victims from staging a surprise demonstration with their children outside the Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI: More than 40 gas-affected children from Bhopal virtually knocked at the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s door at Race Course Road to draw his attention to their demands.

The children, along with their parents, made a sudden appearance near the Prime Minister’s residence demanding livelihood and clean environment.

“We are of the same age as the Prime Minister’s grandchildren. Would he let his grandchildren drink poisoned water or see them sitting on the streets for days,” Yasim Khan, who walked from Bhopal to Delhi, said.

On April 16, Yasim wrote a letter to Dr. Singh with blood drawn from the Bhopal gas victims, seeking constitution of an empowered commission to look into economic and medical rehabilitation, environmental clean-up and other issues related to the gas victims.

Dominique Lapierre, author of Five Minutes Past Midnight, a book on the tragedy that visited Bhopal in the midnight of December 2, 1984, talks to Sreelatha Menon on the continuing suffering and neglect of the survivors of the Union Carbide gas leak. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan on Monday.

You have written a book on Bhopal and you have continued to visit the survivors since 1984. What is the difference between then and now?

A lot of problems are pending. On May 5, the activists and survivors who went to appeal to the prime minister have got arrested. I think there are a number of questions like cleaning up of the site of the disaster which is absolutely essential.

For lack of cleaning it, the underground water is completely poisoned and people are drinking poisoned water. I think they should be given the right to safe drinking water.

What went wrong? Why has the lot of Bhopal victims remained unaddressed for so many years?

I don't know. It is something to be worried about. Social, health and economic rehabilitation is needed. I have given money from the royalties of my book to build the gynaecological clinic at the Sambhavna Trust.

The trust treats 160 people... free of cost daily.

Yes. These are people who are never diagnosed, people who had only one aspirin tablet for curing their horrible condition caused by inhaling the toxic gas.

This is a very lethal gas. It has gone into the genes of the people. We don't know how many generations would be affected by it. Today, malformed children are still being born, women are getting cancer of the cervix. This is worrisome.

What has been the role of the Indian media?

I am very sad that the Indian media is ignoring this tragedy. When I started doing my research for my book on Bhopal, the media was asking me, 'Why on Bhopal?'. And I was shocked. Had there been a media outcry day after day, no government would let people suffer like this.

Do you think that the issues concerning Bhopal have been neglected because the victims are the poorest of the poor?

Yes. If the rich were involved then the response of the government and the media would definitely be different. On Sunday I was sitting on the sidewalks with the survivors who are camping here in Delhi's Jantar Mantar demanding to be heard by the government. I found that not a line was being written about them in newspapers here.

As you said once that the wind blew that night in the direction where the poorest people were living.

Very true.

You have equated Warren Anderson of Union Carbide with Osama bin Laden, killing more than the latter did, and remaining a fugitive. What do you think about Dow? Should they take responsibility?

They should assume responsibility of Union Carbide. I am sure of that. They should at least clean the toxic affluent.

They say that Carbide has its own mechanism of dealing with liabilities.

I don't know that. I know that Dow must take responsibility at least for the clean up of the toxic wastes.

Have you spoken to Dow?

No, never. But in the future I may talk to them.

Today you will receive the Padma Bhushan from the government of India which you have criticised for not acting enough on Bhopal.

I am just sad not critical. I have no right to be critical as I am an outsider. If I have a chance I will talk about these people. It is sad the voice of these people is not reaching the government.

Nida, 10 months old, an allegedly Bhopal gas leak disaster victim's deformed daughter, looks out from the window of a bus after being arrested along with her parents from outside Indian prime minister's house, in New Delhi, India, Monday, May 5, 2008. More than 40 children of Bhopal gas tragedy victim along with with their parents demonstrated outside prime minister house demanding economic and medical rehabilitation, environmental clean-up and provision of clean drinking water. Bhopal Gas leak disaster killed at least 10,000 people and affected some 550,000 others in the central Indian city of Bhopal in December 1984. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

NEW DELHI—Police detained 80 people who walked nearly 500 miles from the site of a catastrophic 1984 gas leak in central India to protest Monday outside the prime minister's residence, an organizer said.

more stories like thisThe protesters, including 52 children, were calling for the site of the Bhopal gas leak to be cleaned up and for survivors to be compensated, said Rachna Dhingra, a spokeswoman for Bhopal Group for Information and Action.

Guards took the protesters to a nearby police station soon after they arrived outside Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official residence, Dhingra said. They were freed two hours later.

Police officer Jagat Singh said the protesters came without an appointment with the prime minister, and protests are not allowed around the official residence.

The leak from the Bhopal pesticide plant in 1984 killed at least 10,000 people and affected about 550,000 others. A subsidiary of U.S. chemical company Union Carbide ran the plant at the time.

For decades, survivors have been fighting to have the site cleaned up, but they say their efforts were slowed when Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co. took over Union Carbide in 2001, seven years after Union Carbide sold its interest in the Bhopal plant.

The protesters want an official panel to work on social, economic and medical rehabilitation for the gas victims, and to arrange for the clean up of the site and drinking water in the area, said Nityanand Jayaraman, an organizer.

Jayaraman said nearly 10,000 tons of toxic waste was still lying in and around the site.

In 1989, Union Carbide paid $470 million in compensation to victims of the gas leak and said responsibility for the cleanup lay with the government of India.

Dow has also maintained that it is not responsible for cleaning up the site.

The plant is now under the control of India's Madhya Pradesh state, which has agreed to pay an Indian company, Bharuch Environ Infrastructure Ltd., $220,000 to dispose of the waste.

© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Bhopal protesters say babies born since the disaster suffer illnesses

Police in India's capital have detained dozens of protesters demanding more help for victims of the world's worst industrial disaster, at Bhopal in 1984.

They were briefly taken into custody after an unauthorised protest outside Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office.

They are demanding more compensation and a better clean-up of the site.

Several thousand people died in Bhopal on the night of the gas leak from a Union Carbide factory. Thousands more died in the weeks that followed.

Compensation

The protesters wanted to meet the prime minister to press their case for more to be done to clean up the site around the former factory, which still contains thousands of tonnes of toxic chemicals.

Dozens of demonstrators, including a number of children, were taken to a nearby police station but were freed two hours later.

Police said the protesters had no appointment with the prime minister and demonstrations around the official residence were not permitted.

Many of the demonstrators have been in Delhi for more than a month, after walking 800km (500 miles) from the site of the 3 December 1984 disaster.

The BBC's Chris Morris in Delhi says one key issue is the plight of children born in Bhopal since the disaster who suffer from a variety of mental and physical disorders.

Union Carbide was bought by the Dow Chemical Company in 2001. Dow says it is not responsible for cleaning up the site, which sits on land owned by the Madhya Pradesh state government.

Union Carbide paid $470m in compensation to victims in 1989.

New Delhi, May 5 (IANS) At least 70 survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak tragedy, including 40 children, were detained Monday as they staged a protest outside Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s residence seeking government-redressal of their grievances. Braving the risks of holding a demonstration in a high-security zone, the children took to task the government for making the Bhopal gas tragedy victims walk and wait merely to get their basic rights to health, livelihood and clean environment.

“We are of the same age as Dr. (Manmohan) Singh’s grandchildren. Would he let his grandchildren drink poisoned water or see them sitting on the hot pavement for 40 days?” Asked 11-year-old Yasmin Khan, one of the two score youngsters who have come to the capital after an arduous 800-km march from Bhopal.

Representatives of the Bhopal survivors have been holding a sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar here for the past 40 days to draw the government’s attention to inadequate health care facilities, poisoned water sources and other problems they continue to face.

On the night of Dec 3, 1984, a Union Carbide subsidiary pesticides plant in Bhopal accidentally released 40 tonnes of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas, killing approximately 3,800 people.

The incident, known as one of the world’s worst industrial disasters, left hundreds of thousands suffering from various diseases after chronic exposure. Contaminated groundwater around the plant area still continues to infect people with various ailments ranging from skin problems to birth defects.

Nityanand Jayaraman, an activist who is protesting along with the survivors, said: “On April 16, Yasmin wrote a letter to the prime minister with blood drawn from Bhopal victims, seeking an hour of his time.

“This letter was delivered to the prime minister along with hand-written notes from more than 500 children from across the country,” he said.

Since then, 2,800 people from 18 countries have sent fax messages to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for a meeting with Manmohan Singh on the survivors’ grievances.

Various NGOs working for the survivors have demanded an empowered commission to execute social, economic and medical rehabilitation, environmental cleanup and provision of clean drinking water.

They have submitted a draft bill for the commission to the PMO and a Group of Ministers.

Nida, 17 months old Bhopali girl with a congenital birth defect. Photograph: Money Sharma/EPA

· Children of victims suffer but have no health cover
· 23 years after disaster, site has still not been cleaned

Hundreds of children are still being born with birth defects as a result of the world's worst industrial disaster 23 years ago in the central Indian town of Bhopal, say campaigners. They are demanding that the Indian government provide immediate medical care and research the "hidden" health impacts.

More than two decades ago, white clouds of toxic gas escaped from American multinational Union Carbide's pesticide plant. The gas killed 5,000 people that night and 15,000 more in the following weeks - and doctors say that a new generation is being affected.

The true legacy of the disaster is only now coming to light. The Indian government stopped all research on the medical effects of the gas cloud 14 years ago, without explanation. Despite the country's supreme court ordering that the children of victims receive insurance, more than 100,000 remain without cover.

Satinath Sarangi of the Sambhavna Trust, which helps to rehabilitate victims, said that the Bhopal victims' penury and low social status meant few are prepared to help.

No one, he says, has taken responsibility for cleaning up the site and paying the high cost of medical bills.

"Because these people are poor or from a minority or lower caste no one seems to care. Their lives and their children are being sacrificed for the cause of industrial progress," Sarangi said.

Medical experts who had studied the effects of the gas on children born in communities affected by the gas cloud said there was now "no doubt of increased chance of the negative effects in children".

A 2003 study by the American Medical Association found that boys who were either exposed as toddlers to gases from the Bhopal pesticide plant or born to exposed parents were prone to "growth retardation".

Yesterday campaigners, who marched the 500 miles from Bhopal last month and vow to sit in protest in Delhi until the government acts, held a press conference to highlight a new fight for compensation for families whose children have been born with "congenital birth defects".

One of the mothers, Kesar Bhai, held her 12-year-old son Suraj in her arms. She had inhaled the noxious fumes in 1984 and was hospitalised but recovered. Her son, Suraj, was born brain damaged and cannot sit or talk.

"My husband is a labourer. We have no money to spend on our son. He cannot even eat on his own. I get free medical care for my breathing difficulties because I am a gas victim. My child does not get any help but he has been affected," she said.

Other children's growth had been stunted, said campaigners, because there has been still no clean-up of the Bhopal plant despite a promise from the prime minister in 2006. So far, less than 20% of the funds set aside to dismantle and make safe the plant have been spent.

The disused Union Carbide factory contains about 8,000 tonnes of carcinogenic chemicals which continue to leach out and contaminate water supplies used by 30,000 local people. The clean-up has been stalled by a mixture of bureaucratic indifference, legal actions and rows over corporate responsibility.

Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, says it is not responsible, arguing that because the plant is on government land it is up to the state to clean it up. However, the Indian government's chemicals and fertilisers ministry has said in court that Dow should pay 1 billion rupees, or £13m, to dismantle the factory and restore the fields.

Backstory

On December 2 1984, the sleeping citizens of Bhopal were enveloped by a lethal fog of poisonous gas spewing from a pesticide plant owned by American multinational Union Carbide. The gas was methyl isocyanate, which when inhaled produces an extremely acidic reaction attacking the internal organs, especially the lungs. This stops oxygen entering the blood, and victims drown in their own body fluids. The Indian government is still pursuing Warren Anderson, the former chief executive of Union Carbide, who keeps a low profile in retirement in New York and Florida. Union Carbide paid a lump sum of $470m in an out-of-court settlement with the Indian government in 1989. When the money was distributed among 570,000 people in 2005, most recipients got little more than £600. Dow, one of the world's largest chemical companies, purchased Union Carbide in 2001. Campaigners then covered its Mumbai offices with red paint, saying it was the "blood of Bhopal". Dow says it never owned or operated the Bhopal plant and it has no responsibility for the events in 1984.

Children of gas-hit parents continue to suffer from disorders

NEW DELHI: Parents of children from Bhopal with serious birth defects presented what they claimed to be evidence of the Government’s criminal negligence towards the next generation of Union Carbide victims at a press conference here on Tuesday.

Present at the press conference were also parents who were exposed to methyl isocyanate and other toxic gases during the 1984 gas leak disaster and those who continue to be exposed to toxic chemicals and heavy metals like mercury in their drinking water from the community hand-pumps.

“The Central Government is fully aware that the children of gas-affected parents suffer from congenital physical and mental growth disorders. For its part, the State Government provided official assistance for heart surgery and congenital brain anomalies to merely 27 children under a programme called Special Assistance to At Risk Children. However, that was terminated in 1997 citing financial constraints,” complained a parent.

The parents of children born with brain damage, mental retardation and cleft lip and palette said the Government continues to disregard a Supreme Court order of 1991 that directed medical insurance for at least one lakh children born to gas-exposed parents.

Among other things, the parents are demanding from the Government special medical assistance, community-based rehabilitation centres and monetary help besides research and monitoring programmes aimed at assessing the magnitude of the problem and early detection of such defects.

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

At least a thousand applications to be file to ask what action has been taken by the govt

In an effort to draw attention to the plight of the survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy, a major RTI campaign will be undertaken and at least a thousand applications will be filed in the next one week seeking information on the action taken by the government.

RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal, who along with the survivors of the gas leak in 1984 is launching the massive RTI campaign, said answers will be sought from the government on what it has done to rehabilitate the victims.

The RTI applications will seek information on issues like the dumped chemicals at the Union Carbide factory site poisoning the environment, gas-leak survivors being asked to pay for their healthcare and why the government was not ensuring that the Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals provided adequate compensation.

Moreover, 50 persons from Bhopal, who marched 800 km from the Madhya Pradesh capital to reach Delhi on March 28, had asked the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) for an appointment as early as February 20.

Since then, more than 1,700 people have sent faxes to the PMO in support of the Bhopal ‘Padyatris'.

"These RTI applications will be sent to the PMO next week to find out what the prime minister has done to keep his word in the last two years," said Kejriwal.

Story Comments Total Post : 1

Posted By : gnsetty on 27 April,2008

This has been LONG OVERDUE.All the politicians guilty in this tragedy must be exposed.First in the list is Arjun Singh, as CM of MP at the time,when he enjoyed free hospitality of club-style bungalow in UC compound and granted all permissions for first manufacturing world 's largest quantity of deadly chemical at UC Bhopal and allowed it to be stored for months when even a small quantity of that chemical was NOT allowed to be stored in any developed country or any country for that matter.

NEW DELHI: US giant Dow Chemicals may have to wait for an independent commission’s views before it could firm up plans for mega investments in India. The government is expected to appoint a high-powered committee to comprehensively look into issues relating to the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, including Dow’s liability to clean up the site.

The American chemical major, with the support of the US government and Indian industry, had been persuading New Delhi to take a view that it is not liable to clearing the site of the toxicity that persists there.

A group of ministers headed by Union human resources development minister Arjun Singh heard NGOs last Thursday, where the activists demanded an independent examination of all issues. The ministerial panel and the government of Madhya Pradesh are inclined to appoint a commission, sources told ET.

The government would decide the structure of the commission in consultation with the law ministry, the sources said. The proposed commission would also look into issues of relief and rehabilitation, lack of co-ordination between various central and state agencies and the day-to-day difficulties of the affected people. It would also have powers to summon stakeholders and give directions. The commission’s report would also be tabled in Parliament.

Letting an independent commission take a view on contentious issues would absolve the government of criticism for putting investments before human rights, especially when general elections and various state assembly polls are expected soon. It would also help the government to take a balanced view on other rehabilitation issues where different government agencies have narrow administrative interests.

Dow’s efforts to be absolved of any legal liability for the slip of Union Carbide Corporation, which it acquired in 2001, has not met with much success as the chemicals and fertilizers ministry has not supported it. The ministry had also asked the company to pay Rs 100 crore as interim advance to clean up the site, which the company has not paid.

Pune, April 23: Around 280 legal professionals, including retired judges and eminent lawyers from Pune and the state have submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister stating that the attempts by the Prime Minister's office to grant immunity to Dow Chemical from its Bhopal liabilities are unconstitutional and illegal.

In a press meet addressed in the city, activist Neeraj Jain (who represents Kick out Dow, Save Pune) said that a memorandum signed by lawyers, retired judges and law students from the state submitted at the Prime Minister's Office have clearly stated that the government is colluding with Dow Chemical to extinguish its legal liability in an exchange of promise to invest one billion dollars in India.

Dow has maintained that they have no connection with the Union Carbide Corporation, which was instrumental for the Bhopal gas tragedy, Jain said that in the memorandum the lawyers argue that the principles of "polluter pays" and strict and absolute liability for compensation of affected persons, and remediation of damaged health and environment are well established in Indian law.

"By virtue of this the successor company is responsible for the environmental clean-up of the Bhopal site as well as compensation and health reparations,'' said Jain.

Through this proposed settlement, the government cannot let the company off while failing to discharge its "own statutory duties of protecting the environment and holding the polluters liable.'' The movement is extending all support to the Bhopal gas tragedy survivors, who have put up a protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.

Jain said that the government should immediately agree to the demands of tragedy survivors, pursue Union Carbide and Dow for their respective liabilities. In a press note, the movement also wants the government to investigate and take action against Dow for bribing Indian officers to register Dursban in India as well as cancel the permission given to start the Research and Development centre at Shinde Vasuli in Pune.

THE OTHER INDIA

The Bhopal gas tragedy remains a live issue 23 years after toxic gases leaked out of a Union Carbide plant in December 1984. Recent developments indicate a desire on the part of the government to put an end to it. A series of reports looks at these developments and the continuing presence of 9,000 tonnes of toxic waste on the premises of the plant

There is a sense of urgency in the government to close the chapter on the 23-year-old Union Carbide gas leak case. There has been rapid movement on the government side even as 60-odd citizens from Bhopal, who walked all the way from the Madhya Pradesh's capital, have camped in Delhi since last month.

The Prime Minister's Office has held three meetings so far with the activists leading the agitation and a Group of Ministers on Bhopal, which seldom meets (it has met thrice so far in three years), decided to hold a hearing for the victims last week.

On April 17, the GoM headed by Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh, who was also the Madhya Pradesh chief minister when the ghastly chemical disaster took place, gave an assurance to the victims that their demand for a commission on Bhopal would be considered.

PMO sources now say that the PM is keen to address the issue as early as possible and is waiting for the recommendations of the GoM.

A delegation of the activists was heard out again by a PMO official on Monday.

The activists, though relieved by the progress, smell a rat in the sudden revival of interest in the issue and have already braced themselves with a petition signed by about 300 legal experts seeking legal liability for Dow Chemical.

Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action says: "The government had in 1989 made a settlement with Carbide where the latter was allowed to walk away from all liability for a measly $470 million. Now, it is similarly contemplating another settlement to bail out Carbide?s successor Dow Chemical for small change."

Dow had bought over the assets of Union Carbide and has maintained that it has no legal liability. However, the Union chemicals ministry has an application pending in the Madhya Pradesh High Court seeking remediation from Dow Chemical for the damage caused by the gas leak.

It has asked for an initial deposit of Rs 100 crore for cleaning up of the toxic substances left behind by Carbide in Bhopal. This includes 9,000 tonnes of toxic substances buried in the premises of the Carbide plant, which continue to pollute the groundwater in the area.

Groundwater in about 3-km radius from the area has been affected by poisonous substances buried there, says Sarangi.

The ministry has steadfastly stood by its petition that Dow is liable and has even crossed swords with other ministries that have approved investment by Dow in India.

"I have always been against doing business with Dow or Carbide till this issue of liability is solved," Chemicals Minister Ramvilas Paswan told Business Standard.

"If it was left to me, I would find a solution to the whole issue of damage caused by Carbide, the pending clean-up and the relief measures in two days," he added.

But the PMO seems to be keen on moving even faster. Activists link this haste to the investment plans of Dow in India and the memorandums which were sent to the PMO last year by various ministers pleading the case of absolving Dow of the liability for the Bhopal leak.

A GoM meeting last week gave an assurance that the court alone could decide on the liability of Dow. But the activists do not want to take chances.

On Monday, they brought out a petition signed by about 300 legal experts, including former Justice Rajendra Sacchar, advocate Prashant Bhushan and advocate Indira Jaisingh as a preemptive move against a possible bailout for Dow.

Bhushan said: "It is obvious from documents available that Dow has tried to get people, right from Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi (who is a lawyer for Dow) to Ratan Tata, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and even Finance Minister P Chidambaram to plead on its behalf."

"It means absolving an offender because it means billions of dollars of investment for India," says Sarangi.

NEW DELHI, APRIL 21: More than 200 retired judges and lawyers have signed a memorandum that says that the attempts made by the Government to grant “immunity” to Dow Chemical from its Bhopal liabilities are “unconstitutional and illegal”. The memorandum alleges that the Central Government is colluding with Dow Chemical to let it off its legal liability in an exchange for a promise to invest $ 1 billion in India.

The group has managed to procure documents under the RTI Act that show that Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, counsel for Dow Chemicals in the Madhya Pradesh High Court, and Ratan Tata, co-chairman of the US-India CEO Forum, believe that company has no legal liabilities. “Seen in the light of the case in Madhya Pradesh High Court, this collusion constitutes a Contempt of Court by the Government,” states the memorandum.

In 2005, the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals had asked the Madhya Pradesh HC to direct Dow Chemical to deposit Rs 100 crore as advance towards clean-up of contamination in Bhopal. A note prepared by former Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi refers to letters from Ratan Tata and from Dow Chemical to the Indian Ambassador in USA, highlighting Dow’s difficulty in investing in India unless the application filed by the Chemicals Department is withdrawn.

The Cabinet Secretary says, “Given the scope of future investments in the sector, it stands to reason that instead of continuing to agitate against these issues in court, due consideration be given to the prospect of settling them appropriately. An important aim is to remove uncertainties and pave the way for promoting investments in the sector.”

Addressing a press conference on Monday, Supreme Court Advocate Prashant Bhushan and former Rajya Sabha MP and senior journalist Kuldip Nayyar said that the Governments of India and Madhya Pradesh and Dow Chemical are “joint tort feasors” and are responsible for the condition of the Bhopal site and its surroundings. Through this proposed settlement, the Government of India is contemplating letting Dow off the hook, even while failing to discharge its own statutory duties of protecting the environment and holding the polluters liable.

Dow has argued that its wholly-owned subsidiary Union Carbide is a separate legal entity that handles its own liabilities, and that the Government of India should pursue Union Carbide and not Dow. “Dow’s argument is specious. Carbide has been an absconder since 1992. Dow knows very well that its subsidiary will not respond to summons from Indian courts,” said Nayyar.

“As a 100 per cent owner of Union Carbide after the merger, Dow is saddled with successor liability. Its attempts to use the corporate veil, separating Dow and Union Carbide, to evade liability is fraudulent,” added Bhushan.

Survivors of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, and victims of water contamination are currently camping in Jantar Mantar after an 800-km padyatra from Bhopal to Delhi. Besides their demand for an empowered commission to address rehabilitation issues, they also want the Government to pursue Union Carbide and Dow for their respective liabilities.