Bhopal Revisited:
The View from Below
by Amrita Basu

Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars,
vol. 26, nos. 1-2, Jan.-June 1994

The night of 2-3 December 1994 will mark the tenth anniversary of the
world's largest industrial disaster. Over the years the attention Bhopal has
attracted has centered on the extended legal negotiations between the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and the Indian government. What is less known is that despite a settlement in 1989 and a review in 1991, the gas survivors continue to suffer untold misery. Indeed their lives are more insecure today than they were in 1984.

The forces that wreaked havoc on the lives of the poorest and most
vulnerable segments of the population have displayed callousness throughout the nine years after the gas disaster. The Indian Council of Medical Research has still failed to devise appropriate treatment for the ailments of gas victims; UCC has refused to divulge information about the chemicals that could assist with diagnoses. According to one estimate, over 300,000 people continue to suffer from breathlessness, impaired vision, fatigue, body aches, loss of appetite, depression, and anxiety.1 Moreover, the government has been slow and inept in distributing interim relief and has
created little employment for those injured in the disaster.

The survivors were further victimized in 1990, when many were evicted from
their homes to the outskirts of the city, where employment, food, and
medical facilities are scarce. A large number of survivors once again sought
shelter in the flimsy sheds of Bagh Farzat Afza, constructed years earlier
as shelters for gas victims when the government engaged in its anti-encroachment drive. In December 1992, amidst a major "communal" riot in
Bhopal, slum dwellers-many of whom are gas survivors-were among the most seriously affected groups.2 More people returned to the sheds to escape the riot.

When the gas disaster occurred, attention focused on the irresponsibility of
multinational corporations and their collusion with postcolonial governments. I would argue that in the 1990s it has become increasingly clear that the suffering in Bhopal cannot be explained simply by the actions of multinational corporations in a neocolonial context. Such an explanation
neglects the critical fact that the victims are predominantly Muslim. Events
in the 1990s have highlighted the critical role of the state, not so much in
pandering to multinational capital as in pandering to electoral considerations, which have been associated in turn with a communal stance. Focusing on the electoral compulsions underlying the state's actions and its antipoor, anti-Muslim bias reveals some important continuities between the events of 1984, 1991, and 1992.

In making this argument I do not mean to deny the influence on Indian
politics of India's relationship to foreign capital. However, I would
suggest that we not only devote greater attention to the role of the state,
as scholars have already pointed out, but also to patterns of class and
particularly communal stratification within India. UCC could locate its
plant within a thriving urban metropolis like Bhopal, despite the government's knowledge that toxic chemicals were being produced there, not only because India needed access to foreign exchange and technology. Affluent Hindus lived in the elegant foot hills of Bhopal where they were relatively protected from the toxic fumes. By contrast the slums that mushroomed in the area adjoining the UCC plant were inhabited largely by poor Muslims.

To rectify the disproportionate attention that most accounts devote to the
central government, I devote greater attention to the role of the state
government. While the central government's role was critical until 1990-in
authorizing a UCC plant in Bhopal, in its initial handling of the disaster,
and in its subsequent negotiations with UCC-the role of the Madhya Pradesh
(MP) state government has subsequently become critical. The right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that came to power in MP in 1990 has further victimized the Muslim gas survivors. Electoral considerations have prevented Congress, the major opposition party in Madhya Pradesh, from seriously challenging the BJP.

The vantage point of my account is that of the victims of successive crises
in Bhopal. This "view from below" reveals continuities both in their sufferings and in the struggles they have waged. The Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathana (the BGPMUS, the Organization of Bhopal Women-Worker
Victims), an organization predominantly of Muslim women, has been at the
forefront of struggles against UCC, the eviction of slum dwellers, and
communal violence.

The Emergence of the BGPMUS

In the wake of the 1984 crisis, numerous activists traveled to Bhopal from
other parts of India to work among the victims. Once the immediate crisis
passed, some left Bhopal, and others, like the Bhopal Gas and Information
Group, stopped organizing and devoted themselves exclusively to collecting
and disseminating information. Some, like the Zahreeli Gas Kand Sangarsh
Morcha, developed a more amicable relationship with the government.

As pressure on the government subsided and the media lost interest in
Bhopal, the government began to renege on its earlier assurances of relief
and rehabilitation. It never fulfilled its promise of reserving 50 percent
of all jobs in the Railroad Coach Factory for men who had suffered from the
gas leak. It also closed down some sewing centers that had provided
employment for gas-affected women. Three hundred women who had worked in one of the centers galvanized others to protest the government's actions.

What subsequently became the BGPMUS (referred to interchangeably as the
Sangathana) organized a prolonged picket of government officers demanding
that they reopen one of these centers. Although the government was initially unresponsive, each day women reestablished the picket line, until the government reopened a sewing center that employed over 2,000 women. Their average income from sewing, for which they were paid on a piece-work basis, was about 340 rupees ($20.40*) a month.

Unlike other groups that had been active in Bhopal, the BGPMUS was a
grass-roots organization composed exclusively of gas survivors. Many members still suffer from severe health problems. My interviews with them often were interrupted because they were overcome with nausea, fatigue, and dizziness. Despite poor health, these women participated in every aspect of the BGPMUS's activities: demonstrating in the streets, providing testimony in court, and working in riot-affected areas. Most Sangathana members are mothers: some are widows, some have been deserted by husbands, and some are married to unemployed men; many of the women are the principal income earners in their families.

The women who attended the weekly Saturday meetings kept raising new
problems for the BGPMUS to address. In 1987 the women asked Abdul Jabbar Khan, a man who had been committed to the cause of gas survivors since 1985, to become the BGPMUS convener. Jabbar, as he is widely known, was from a poor Muslim family. His father was killed by the gas leak; six remaining family members were seriously affected; his wife's former husband was also killed.

Jabbar quickly became the driving force behind the BGPMUS. He issued most
public statements on its behalf, served as the negotiator in talks with the
government, and made key decisions about the Sangathana's strategy and
goals. Perhaps partly because of his personalistic leadership style, some
activist groups have accused the BGPMUS of functioning in an undemocratic
fashion. Whatever the validity of these charges and the source of rivalries
among activists, the BGPMUS remains very closely involved in the lives of
the poor Muslim community. Supporting itself on a shoestring budget
consisting mainly of sympathizers' contributions and the 5 rupees ($.30)
monthly dues of its 17,900 members, it operates out of Jabbar's cramped
living room in old Bhopal.

The Sangathana has exploited whatever opportunities exist for political
struggle. Whereas many activists gave up on the courts in disgust after the
1989 Supreme Court verdict, the Sangathana has periodically filed appeals in court without giving up on direct-action tactics. While the Sangathana is
deeply skeptical about working through the party system, it has skillfully
formed temporary alliances with political parties that support its demands.

The Legal Battle

In February 1989 the Indian Supreme Court announced that it was proposing a final settlement in which the government would accept from UCC $470 million on behalf of the victims and discharge it from all civil and criminal liability for the disaster. The Indian government had initially sought $3 billion in damages from UCC. Many commentators considered the government's capitulation an attempt to retain the good will of foreign investors. Equally important, however, was the government's attempt to protect itself against demands from the gas survivors and its refusal to let them represent themselves. BGPMUS activists report that the government made no attempt to solicit their views.

Within a week of the Supreme Court decision the BGPMUS mobilized 3,500
people to travel to Delhi where they ransacked the Union Carbide office.
Press reports highlighted women's militance: one woman reportedly snatched a gun from an armed guard, while another chased a policeman until he jumped onto a passing bus for safety.

Over the next several months the BGPMUS continued to organize large-scale
protest. One of the most ingenious was a "Quit India" demonstration in
August 1989, on the forty-seventh anniversary of the 1942 Quit India
movement demanding immediate independence from the British. Three thousand BGPMUS members demonstrated outside the UCC plant in opposition to the court decision and demanded that UCC terminate all activities in India. Newspapers reported police violence resulting in serious injuries to over 300 women; over a thousand women courted arrest.5 The demonstration elicited widespread support; a predominantly Muslim organization had exposed the way the Congress Party had surrendered to foreign interests while claiming concern for the most vulnerable and marginal groups.

The BGPMUS was responsible for many of the gains credited to the Janata Dal, the coalition that became the national government after winning the election in 1989. Since its criticisms of the Supreme Court settlement came just before the 1989 parliamentary elections, the Janata Dal was receptive to grievances against Congress. In November 1990 the newly elected government initiated a rehearing of the settlement based on the review the BGPMUS had filed. No government had addressed the question of how gas victims would survive in the many years before they obtained a final settlement. In June 1988 the BGPMUS filed a petition in court demanding interim relief for the gas victims. In March 1990 the Supreme Court ordered the MP government to pay monthly sums of 200 rupees ($12.00) per month for three years to the 500,000 people it determined were in the vicinity of the gas disaster on the night of 2-3 December 1984. But in March 1990, the Hindu nationalist BJP was elected to head the MP state government. A BJP government would administer relief and rehabilitation and determine policies for Bhopal's Muslim population.