Ashraf Engineer
August 23, 2025
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to All Indians Matter. I am Ashraf Engineer.
It was just after midnight on December 2, 1984. A storage tank at the 49-acre Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal began leaking a gas called methyl isocyanate, better known as MIC. It happened as an engineer flushed water through a corroded pipe. A series of valves failed, allowing the water to flow into one of the three-storey tanks holding liquid MIC. As the water met the MIC, there was a violent reaction, shattering the tank and its concrete casing. The six safety systems meant to detect such a leak were all non-operational that night. Soon, 27 tons of MIC spread over the slumbering city.
As the toxic cloud blanketed Bhopal, people began to die. Survivors recall waking up to the sound of family members coughing violently and their homes filling with a white cloud. Soon, the confusion turned into panic. People began screaming and running wildly out of their homes as their eyes and lungs felt as if they had caught fire.
It was an apocalyptic moment. MIC, which is used to produce pesticides, is highly corrosive if inhaled. Many vomited, convulsed and dropped dead. Others drowned in their own bodily fluids. Some others died in the stampedes as residents tried to flee their neighbourhoods.
It is estimated that more than 22,000 people died prematurely due to exposure to MIC, with deaths continuing to occur 41 years after the disaster. The contamination has affected soil and drinking water supplies of an estimated 2 lakh people in 71 villages in Madhya Pradesh. Victims are still agitating for a cleanup, compensation and medical care.
The injustice, as is evident, continues.
SIGNATURE TUNE
A few months ago, the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board incinerated 337 tons of toxic waste from the defunct Union Carbide facility in Bhopal. That was the latest chapter in a saga that rages on 41 years after what is widely considered the world’s worst industrial disaster – the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984.
The incineration is illustrative of how tough it has been to not just clean up the site and its surroundings but also how elusive justice has been for survivors and their descendants. The incineration took interventions from the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the Supreme Court and the Union Environment Ministry, but it was opposed by survivors’ organisations who felt that it would expose a large population to dangerous chemicals. They instead demanded that Dow Chemicals, which now owns Union Carbide, the then owner of the plant, clean up the soil and water and pay for the environmental damage. This is in keeping with the climate action principle of ‘polluters pay’.
Whatever the best way to dispose of the toxic waste, it’s telling that it took 41 years and a cost of Rs 126 crore to do so. It seems the means always existed but not the political will.
This is a critical detail because such waste, once it enters the environment, rarely goes away. The incinerated waste yielded more than 800 tons of ash and residue that officials needed to landfill scientifically. Such a landfill requires maintenance, monitoring and funding. The plant site, meanwhile, retains tons of contaminated soil and subsurface resources.
Like I said, this is only the latest episode in the seemingly unending quest for justice for survivors. It is they who have moved court, arguing that deaths and injuries have been undercounted and that inflation-adjusted damages should be awarded. Meanwhile, they also allege that the advisory committee appointed by the Supreme Court has met only sporadically and that hospitals face a shortage of specialist workers. They demand that Dow Chemicals implements corrective actions and that the state and Centre pay settlement claims.
In the water, chemicals that cause cancer, brain damage and birth defects have been found. Trichloroethene, which impairs foetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than US Environmental Protection Agency limits. Testing published in 2002 revealed poisons such as 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in breastmilk.
Activists have alleged that the Indian company controlled by Union Carbide Corporation dumped and mismanaged hazardous waste in Bhopal. This created a so-called sacrifice zone, a site where the contamination continues to poison people, many of them living in abject poverty.
So, they argue, it shouldn’t be seen as an issue of the past.
Pay close attention to the facts that follow.
Despite the scale of the tragedy, Warren Anderson, who was then the Union Carbide CEO, managed to flee India despite a warrant being issued for his arrest. He never returned to face justice. The US rejected India’s requests for his extradition in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2010.
The Indian officials who were pronounced guilty of causing death by negligence in 2010 never spent a day in jail either. They received bail on the day of conviction and their appeals are pending. On November 4, 2024, when Bhopal District Judge Manoj Shrivastava started hearing their appeal, he was the eighth judge in 14 years to hear the case. All the judges hearing the appeal were transferred before they could rule on it.
Seventeen years after the leak, in 2001, the Michigan-headquartered Dow Chemical Company bought Union Carbide, acquiring its assets as well as liabilities. Despite that, Dow has refused to clean up the Bhopal site. It has also not provided safe drinking water, compensated the victims adequately or shared information about the toxic effects of MIC. Doctors have requested this data because they need it to deal with the lasting effects of the disaster.
It’s not a surprise then that many activists have alleged environmental racism. They point to the harm that results from the transfer of dirty technology to poor countries in the Global South. The multinationals apply lower safety standards and outsource risks to their subsidiaries.
So, more than five lakh Indians have suffered permanent harm, including through the inter-generational impact of MIC exposure. Many suffer from long-term ailments. People routinely spend hours in hospital queues for ailments that include congenital malformations, growth retardation and immune system damage.
Survivors call it “an ongoing corporate crime”.
Union Carbide built the factory in the 1970s, seeing India as a huge market for its pesticides. However, sales never met expectations because Indian farmers were too poor to buy the products. For years before the disaster, Union Carbide dumped toxic chemical waste at sites inside and outside the factory. Thousands of tons of pesticides, solvents and catalysts were strewn across 16 acres inside the plant. Evaporation ponds across 14 hectares outside the factory were filled with thousands of litres of liquid waste.
The plant, which never reached full capacity, was a loss-making venture and shut down, with large volumes of dangerous chemicals abandoned there. Among the detritus were three huge steel tanks holding more than 60 tons of MIC. MIC is an unstable gas, but Union Carbide’s safety systems were allowed to fall into disrepair.
As monsoons battered the neglected plant, rain caused the evaporation ponds to overflow. Toxins went deep into the soil and contaminated water from wells was pumped into 42 neighbourhoods.
Despite knowing about this, Union Carbide chose not to notify authorities, instead dismissing those who warned about the effects as troublemakers. The full extent of the contamination was not exposed until 1999, when Greenpeace investigators ran a series of tests.
Little has changed since the gas leaked out of the plant. Victims continue to be denied justice. Those responsible continue to evade their responsibilities. Survivors, meanwhile, continue to put up an inspirational fight through lawsuits and demonstrations, with very little state support. They demand that Dow Chemicals compensate for the health damages and that the Indian government sue it.
They also demand more state funds for medical, social, economic and environmental rehabilitation. There should be, they say, regular health checkups and treatment for gas exposure as well as water and soil contamination.
On November 30, 2024, they moved a fresh petition seeking additional compensation from the government for survivors with cancers and fatal kidney diseases whose injuries were wrongly categorised as temporary.
The indifference with which survivors and their descendants have been treated are embodiments of the environmental racism I mentioned earlier. The inadequate compensation is in blatant contravention of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. As a result, victims eke out a perilous existence. More than 50,000 are unable to work because of their injuries. Many have lost their entire families.
In 1991, 10 years after the disaster, Warren Anderson was charged in India with culpable homicide not amounting to murder. If he had been convicted, he would have faced a maximum of 10 years in prison. He never stood trial.
In September 2014, a few months before the 30th anniversary of the disaster, Anderson died at age 92 in a nursing home in Florida.
There are many lessons to be learnt from the tragedy. More than that, there is an urgent need to address the dark history of injustice in Bhopal.
Thank you all for listening. Please visit allindiansmatter.in for more columns and audio podcasts. You can follow me on Twitter at @AshrafEngineer and @AllIndiansCount. Search for the All Indians Matter page on Facebook. On Instagram, the handle is @AllIndiansMatter. Email me at editor@allindiansmatter.in. Catch you again soon.
