Human Insecurity: Bhopal Tragedy






December 2, India’s forgotten black day, marked the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster, which is still the biggest chemical accident in history. Humanity is reminded of the scope of the disaster caused by the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima by the Americans who claim to be the top democrats. The environmental tragedy, the ongoing poisoning of the environment and people of Bhopal, has unfolded in the three decades since that night and continues to unfold today. Close to 3,000 disabled children from the surrounding neighborhoods urgently need help today. To this day, Union Carbide denies any responsibility for the long-term damage to human beings and the environment in Bhopal.

India, which as a usual tactic to fool Hindu voters, attacks neighboring Pakistan in order to retain Jammu Kashmir as part of Indian constitution, now does not criticize foreign government for their crimes in India. The multinational Union Carbide is not alone in feeling safe in India.

The world’s biggest democracy with regular polls conducted to obtain legitimacy from the big powers for state crimes seems to get ready to participate in an impending nuclear war is in the process of further terrorizing population and complicating the life of common people who live in the nuclear zones.

The consequences of environmental sins are far more serious in overpopulated India than in other parts of the world. Polluted air and contaminated water can quickly affect millions of people in India. For decades, there have been guidelines that require, for example, that new factories where toxic chemicals are used and waste is pushed outside be constructed at least 25 kilometers (15.4 miles) away from residential areas. But the reality is that India wants the rich guys, both Indian and foreign, to start industries and as such any new business in India attracts poor people who need to work on low wages to feed themselves.


Indian politicians continue to pursue the path of industrial enlightenment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated the “Make in India” campaign and rolled out the red carpet for foreign investors who seek extra profits. Since most of the growth can be attributed to emerging economies, the chemical business has been booming for decades in India. About 70 percent of the population in India lives on agriculture, and farming is responsible for 18 percent of GDP. With an annual production volume of more than 80,000 tons, India is the world’s third-largest pesticide producer, after China and Japan. DDT which India produces disturbs the hormonal balance of human beings and animals, which led Western industrialized nations to move to ban the insecticide in the 1970s. The Indian government still promotes the controversial broadband insecticide monocrotophos, which the EU banned long ago and WHO blames for thousands of deaths among Indian farmers.

Union Carbide chemical tragedy in Bhopal which Indian regime always wants to forget in order to protect the criminals responsible for the tragedy, harming population permanently, which the regime considers as a “cold case,” still has made it into the report 30 years after the disaster, for which no official agency is willing to take responsibility anymore today. They all now want Russian nuclear reactors to terrorize poor Indians who live in radioactivity zone of nuclear terror plants, like in Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu.


Today there are already 22 settlements affected by the contaminated groundwater due to “historic” Carbide release of poison and the number is on the rise. Most slum resident are illiterate. They know nothing about limits for chlorine and heavy metals. All they know is that every day is a struggle for rice and rupees. If the water contains detectable levels of the substances, which are harmful to the central nervous system but people are not aware of the high level of pesticides containing chlorine in drinking water. The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that about 100,000 people died in industrial accidents worldwide between 1998 and 2007. According to the manual, production sites in the chemical industry are particularly hazardous.


Indian government, which has no hesitation to be known as a leading terrocracy almost at par with USA, Russia and other big powers of the globe, lags far behind when it comes to monitoring regulation limits on pollution and industrial waste by industries of big corporate lords behaving like the real owners of the earth in India, and declines to protect the environment from all negative phenomena. Factories surrounded by slums, filth, disease and poverty.


Although India feels proud of having got the extensive laws to protect the environment, as well as to regulate limits on pollution and industrial waste, it has not been able to do justice to the earth and environment as the corporate lords that control the regime and parliament do not think they are indeed duty bound to respect the laws. Shielded by the state, the industrialists deliberately violate the laws in protecting the environment. The people are at the mercy of these poisons, but politicians just aren’t interested. This sort of thing can only happen in India where Italian state terrorists could come to wealthy Kerala state and kill Malayalees while Kerala politicians and the regime are keen to save the Italy’s criminals maybe because Indian leader Sonia Gandhi belonged to that NATO member state.


India doesn’t lack rules to protect environment, but rather the resources to monitor compliance and the willingness on the part of the regime to act in favor of environment and common people.


The industries and companies take advantage of the weaknesses of the state and proliferate industries, expand illegal mining belts resulting in devastating consequences. The illegal mines in the Aravalli region of Rajasthan and in Singur in West Bengal inn parts of Karnataka where the powerful lords, including political leaders are involved in illegal mining, expecting the state to protect them. High pollution levels in Chandrapur region, in the state of Maharashtra, which ranks fourth among India’s most heavily polluted areas as per the national pollution index compiled by the government’s Central Pollution Control Board, led to a moratorium on further expansion of coal mining. But the state’s corrupt environment minister promptly lifted the moratorium and permitted the expansion of production licenses.


In the late 1970s, the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide, a US chemical company now owned by Dow Chemical, began producing the pesticide Sevin in Bhopal. The city of 1.8 million is the capital of Madhya Pradesh, a predominantly rural state in the heart of India, slightly larger than Italy. Locals in Bhopal, like in Kudankulam later, hoped the plant would provide an economic boost to the city, and tons of toxic chemicals were stored on the factory grounds. On Dec. 2, 1984, some 27 tons of the highly toxic chemical methylisocyanate (MIC) escaped through a leak, creating a cloud of toxic gas that settled over the city, killing thousands of people. The poorest of the poor, those living in the slums next to the factory, were the worst affected. There were bodies everywhere, their limbs twisted in rigor mortis, and their mouths open like fish gasping for air. To this day, more than 200,000 people have fallen ill and up to 30,000 have died from the consequences of the accident. The Muslim cemeteries were overwhelmed with bodies, with gravediggers working around the clock. The Hindus, who cremate their dead, built funeral pyres of human bodies.


More than 11,000 tons of material was dumped in the murky Bhopal Lake, only about 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the grounds of the former Union Carbide plant and now the soil and groundwater are contaminated with mercury, nickel and other heavy metals. The contaminated lake affects more than half a million people.


Indian governments both central and regional, care a damn about environmental secularity which is being destabilized by the industrialists.

All people are free to live where they choose in a true democracy and Indian government has a duty to ensure their security and well being. It is atrocious that India prefers dangerous nuclear path ostensibly for electricity generation when other safe formats are available. India does not need to continue to use nuclear terror reactors to mutilate humans.


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