On November 25, almost a week before the 18th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, 60-odd activists of the global environment watchdog Greenpeace broke into the sealed premises of the Union Carbide plant to "clean up" the 4,000 metric tonnes of lethal chemical waste there. This "direct action" was the latest in the long list of gimmicks by organisations "representing" the interests of the victims.
The "direct action" ended with Greenpeace workers—most of them Europeans—being dragged out of the plant by cops in riot gear. But they got what they wanted—publicity—in ample measure. "The disposal of the chemical waste is a delicate and risky job needing crores of rupees and specialised help. What they were trying to do with ordinary gas masks, spades and a few cans of petrol is beyond me," says a senior functionary of the gas relief department. A week later, 4,000 brooms were presented to a top functionary of Dow Chemicals India, a subsidiary of the new owners of the Union Carbide Company (UCC), in Mumbai to demand that the company dispose of the chemical debris. The International Campaign for Justice to Bhopal, which organised this protest, however, claims that the gimmick did work. "The official promised to 'personally recommend' to his higher-ups to do something," says a spokesperson. Others don't agree. "We know they were told that the compensation paid to the victims was much higher than the standard of living in India justified," says Abdul Jabbar, convenor of the Bhopal Gas Pidhit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, one of the biggest organisations of gas victims.
Nearly two decades after some 8,000 people fell victim to the deadly methyl isocynate gas that leaked from the Union Carbide factory outside Bhopal town, fly-by-night, media-savvy organisations and ngos are still making a killing out of the world's worst industrial disaster. Not a single fortnight goes by without some organisation or the other holding a dharna or procession or protest. Banners and placards are ever ready as are "captive demonstrators". "I see the same faces in every event. With years of practice, they have grown quite good at pushing at police barricades and shouting slogans," says a police functionary wryly.
Some time back, Champa Devi and Pranay Sharma of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, an organisation now aligned with Greenpeace, flew to Switzerland to sit on a dharna with brooms outside the Dow Chemicals headquarters. Photographs of the protest were splashed in newspapers and TV screens around the world. Burning huge effigies of Warren Anderson, UCC chairperson at the time of the disaster, is the latest craze. Says Devilal, who, this year, got orders for preparing four 15-feet high effigies of Anderson, "I no longer need to consult his photograph. I remember the face clearly."
After all, creating a symbol of hate and then inciting passions against it is a much easier job than talking about complex issues like economic rehabilitation. The image of the poor in a Third World city suffering interminably due to the greed of a multinational is good material for rousing the sympathy of the West. And the sympathy does not take long to translate into dollar donations, adds N. Rajan, a veteran scribe. "Bhopal is being marketed in the West," admits Jabbar. "We keep on receiving reports from abroad of money being collected there in the name of gas victims but where this money goes needs investigation."
And if you thought these organisations were united in the cause, you couldn't be more wrong. On the 18th anniversary of the disaster on December 3, for instance, the area around the UCC plant witnessed dozens of separate events by different organisations. If one chose to take out a "candle procession" at midnight, another set ablaze a huge Anderson effigy.Yet another led a demonstration with children.
For, in the aftermath of Bhopal, dozens of organisations had cropped up with the professed objective of struggling for the gas victims. Since then, many have fallen by the wayside. Others have disappeared into thin air. Among them was an ngo floated by film personalities Tapan Bose and Suhasini Mulay. The duo camped in Bhopal for more than a year, produced a documentary and then promising to do "sustained work" left the city for good, never to be seen again. Scores are still in the field and there new ones too are coming up. But the plight of the gas victims is unchanged.