Bhopal, and other things that aren't as simple as they seem

For those who don't know, one of the biggest Indian media stories of the past few weeks is the recent verdict in a 26-year-old legal case involving the Bhopal gas tragedy, described by several papers as the world's worst industrial disaster.

In the middle of winter, 1984, a massive chemical plant in Bhopal, a city in central India, suffered a leak. Deadly gases escaped into the air and the water. More than 5000 people died over the course of two days. Nearly 20,000 more were maimed.

The plant was operated by Indians, but it belonged to Union Carbide India Limited, the Indian branch of an American corporation. At the time, the Indian government instructed one of its labs, the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, to conduct a thorough survey of the leak site. The NEERI report said that the groundwater reserves under the site had not been damaged, although later reports would prove them incorrect.

The Indian government, led at the time by the Indian National Congress party, negotiated a settlement with Union Carbide in which the company would pay $470 million, an amount that covered only a fraction of the costs, which included cleansing the ground, air and water, caring for the dead and wounded, and disposing of thousands of dead animal carcasses from the area.

The government then sealed the site for 10 years. During that time, survivors of the tragedy received little of the money that was owed them. The government did almost no work on cleaning the toxic site. Casualties continued, and the noxious fumes continued to percolate into groundwater reserves.

Starting in 1994, a series of alarming reports emerged. NEERI performed additional tests, which showed massive above-ground contamination at the site. Nonprofit groups, including Greenpeace International and India's Centre for Science and Environment, performed tests that indicated groundwater contamination. Tests conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board, under the government, found groundwater and above-ground contamination that would require millions of dollars to clean up.

Union Carbide's internal documents revealed that the Indian plant was riddled with errors. Workers had complained about pollution multiple times. The plant's alarms did not work. A safety audit shortly before the accident came up with several areas of concern. These areas of concern were corrected at UCIL's American factories, but not at the factory in Bhopal. But this emerged after the settlement.

Still, the Indian government maintained that the site of the disaster was clean. Victims continued to receive paltry compensation. Union Carbide India Limited was sold to Dow Chemical, under the assumption that the Bhopal gas leak situation had been settled.

Last week, Indian courts finally resolved the criminal case. They sentenced seven of the plant's Indian operators to two years in jail. The men were then immediately released on bail, sparking nation-wide outrage. The union government - led, again, by the Indian National Congress Party - called a special meeting of high-ranking officials, who heard testimony and came up with a report on the disaster. In their report, they recommended another Rs. 350 crore for cleanup of the toxic site, as well as pressed for the extradition of Warren Anderson, chairman of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster, now in his nineties, who is still wanted by Indian courts.

Last week, I had lunch with an American journalist, who knows a lot about this case. He was enraged at the popular Indian media's suggestion that Dow Chemical, who bought UCIL, should pay any additional money on top of the pathetic settlement that had already been negotiated nearly a quarter of a century ago.

"When the Indian government made that deal, they ended UCIL's responsibility," he said. "Now it's the Indian government's job to pay up."

His point of view is not incorrect, but it illustrates the "line in the sand" that exists between the developing and developed world. It seems that there's no way to cross this line - people are born on one side of it. Contentious global issues - climate change, terrorism - exist in an area where there seems to be no possibility of agreement.

To the American journalist, this is a clear-cut case of the Indian government shifting blame.

And of course, the Indian government IS shifting blame. Their behavior - NEERI's incompetent initial assessments, their refusal to allow others into the site, their corrupt handling of the funds that were awarded - is a tragic case study in how Indians suffer at the hands of their own leaders.

But there's more to it than that. Why is the government capable of this blame shift? It comes down to that same line in the sand. The average Indian believes - and this belief is also not incorrect - that the government was hoodwinked by American corporate interest. That the Americans who owned the plant closed their eyes on its problems, because they didn't care. That the Indian government lacked the power in the world arena to push for a fair settlement.

And it's easy to believe this explanation too. In the eyes of most of the world, that is what America excels at - taking advantage.

The American journalist's viewpoint echoes - almost word for word - the stand of the American special envoy on climate change, Todd Stern, at the recent negotiations on climate change.

"We absolutely recognize our historic role in putting the emissions in the atmosphere up there that are—you know, that are there now. But the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just—I categorically reject that."

Ultimately, all these questions - Bhopal, climate change - come down to a single question: what does the rich world really owe the poor world for the injustices of the past? For the past century, America has thrived. Occasionally, this success has come at other nations' expense, either at that time or in the future. Although the US did not hold colonies, they inherited the colonial mindset, which held that those who could, should. Whether covert anti-Communist operations or current gas-guzzling, the United States is entrenched above all in its unwillingness to accept responsibility for itself.

And in a sense, it's easy to take the American journalist's view. To say, "Your government should have done better." Is that the path of justice? Is that the path of the future? For many years, the US has set the world's agenda. If an American diplomat said, 'I reject reparations', then reparations were rejected. But is the past century was one of power, the coming years will be ones of reckoning. America's dirty laundry is being aired.

Both sides of this debate could try to support themselves with logic. After all - it's easy to sympathize with Dow Chemical, who bought a company years ago thinking that its legal woes were long past and settled. It's easy to sympathize with the victims of the Bhopal disaster, who even now suffer aches, pains and burning lungs. It's EVEN easy to sympathize with the Indian and American governments - maybe they just didn't know.

But that doesn't change the fundamental question: what does the rich world owe the poor world? Either you are Todd Stern, or you are the Maldives. There is a line in the sand. And ultimately, the side you are on depends less on logic than on raw and instinctive emotion.

(One could argue that India is still waiting for reparations for the past - for 300 years of racist, backbreaking, criminal British rule. And these reparations will never come. There is no form of mathematics that can rewrite history, that can undo colonialism and award India the place in the world it would otherwise have had. English people will say, "Tough shit. It was a war. You lost." Indians will reply, "There is no moral excuse for what you did.")