The
Bhopal gas tragedy was the worst industrial disaster in human
history. Twenty-five thousand people died, 500,000 were injured, and
the injustice done to the victims of Bhopal over the past 25 years
will go down as the worst case of jurisprudence ever.
The gas leak in Bhopal in December 1984 was from the Union Carbide
pesticide plant which manufactured “carabaryl” (trade name “sevin”)
— a pesticide used mostly in cotton plants. It was, in fact, because
of the Bhopal gas tragedy and the tragedy of extremist violence in
Punjab that I woke up to the fact that agriculture had become a war
zone. Pesticides are war chemicals that kill — every year 220,000
people are killed by pesticides worldwide
.
After research I realized that we do not need toxic pesticides that
kill humans and other species which maintain the web of life.
Pesticides do not control pests, they create pests by killing
beneficial species. We have safer, non-violent alternatives such as
neem. That is why at the time of the Bhopal disaster I started the
campaign “No more Bhopals, plant a neem”. The neem campaign led to
challenging the bio-piracy of neem in 1994 when I found that a US
multinational, W.R. Grace, had patented neem for use as pesticide
and fungicide and was setting up a neem oil extraction plant in
Tumkur, Karnataka. We fought the bio-piracy case for 11 years and
were eventually successful in striking down the bio-piracy patent.
Meanwhile, the old pesticide industry was mutating into the
biotechnology and genetic engineering industry.
While
genetic engineering was promoted as an alternative to pesticides, Bt
cotton was introduced to end pesticide use. But Bt cotton has failed
to control the bollworm and has instead created major new pests,
leading to an increase in pesticide use.
The high costs of genetically-modified (GM) seeds and pesticides are
pushing farmers into debt, and indebted farmers are committing
suicide. If one adds the 200,000 farmer suicides in India to the
25,000 killed in Bhopal, we are witnessing a massive corporate
genocide — the killing of people for super profits. To maintain
these super profits, lies are told about how, without pesticides and
genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), there will be no food. In
fact, the conclusions of International Assessment of Agricultural
Science and Technology for Development, undertaken by the United
Nations, shows that ecologically organic agriculture produces more
food and better food at lower cost than either chemical agriculture
or GMOs.
The agrochemical industry and its new avatar, the biotechnology
industry, do not merely distort and manipulate knowledge, science
and public policy. They also manipulate the law and the justice
system. The reason justice has been denied to the victims of Bhopal
is because corporations want to escape liability. Freedom from
liability is, in fact, the real meaning of “free trade”. The tragedy
of Bhopal is dual. Interestingly, the Bhopal disaster happened
precisely when corporations were seeking deregulation and freedom
from liability through the instruments of “free trade”, “trade
liberalization” and “globalization”, both through bilateral pressure
and through the Uruguay Round of General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which led to the creation of
the World Trade Organization.
Injustice for Bhopal has been used to tell corporations that they
can get away with murder. This is what senior politicians
communicated to Dow Chemical. This is what the US-India Commission
for.
Environmental
Cooperation forum stated on June 11, 2010, in the context of the
call from across India for justice for Bhopal victims. As one
newspaper commented, Bhopal is being seen as a “road block and
impediment to trade… the recommendations include removing road
blocks to commercial trade by (India), and adoption of a nuclear
liability regime”.
Denial of justice to Bhopal has been the basis of all toxic
investments since Bhopal, be it Bt cotton, DuPont’s nylon plant or
the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.
Just as Bhopal victims were paid a mere Rs 12,000 (approximately
$250) each, the proposed Nuclear Liability Bill also seeks to put a
ceiling on liability of a mere $100 million on private operations of
a nuclear power plant in case of a nuclear accident. Once again,
people can be killed but corporations should not have to pay.
There has also been an intense debate in India on GMOs. An attempt
was made by Monsanto/Mahyco to introduce Bt brinjal in 2009. As a
result of public hearings across the country, a moratorium has been
put on its commercialization. Immediately after the moratorium a
bill was introduced for a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of
India —the bill does not only leave the biotechnology industry free
of liability, but it also has a clause which empowers the government
to arrest and fine those of us who question the need and safety of
GMOs.
From Bhopal to pesticides to GMOs to nuclear plants, there are two
lessons we can draw. One is that corporations introduce hazardous
technologies like pesticides and GMOs for profits, and profits
alone. And second lesson, related to trade, is that corporations
are seeking to expand markets and relocate hazardous and
environmentally costly technologies to countries like India.
Corporations seek to globalize production but they do not want to
globalize justice and rights. The difference in the treatment of
Union Carbide and Dow Chemical in the context of Bhopal, and of BP
in the context of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico shows how an
apartheid is being created. The devaluation of the life of people of
the Third World and ecosystems is built into the project of
globalization. Globalization is leading to the outsourcing of
pollution — hazardous substances and technologies — to the Third
World. This is at the heart of globalization — the economies of
genocide.
Lawrence Summers, who was the World Bank’s chief economist and is
now chief economic adviser to the Obama government, in a memo dated
December 12, 1991, to senior World Bank staff, wrote, “Just between
you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration
of the dirty industries to the less developed countries?”
Since wages are low in the Third World, economic costs of pollution
arising from increased illness and death are least in the poorest
countries. According to Mr. Summers, the logic “of relocation of
pollutants in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should
face up to that”.
All this and Bhopal must teach us to reclaim our universal and
common humanity and build an Earth Democracy in which all are equal,
and corporations are not allowed to get away with crimes against
people and the planet.
The
Bhopal gas tragedy was the worst industrial disaster in human
history. Twenty-five thousand people died, 500,000 were injured, and
the injustice done to the victims of Bhopal over the past 25 years
will go down as the worst case of jurisprudence ever.
While
genetic engineering was promoted as an alternative to pesticides, Bt
cotton was introduced to end pesticide use. But Bt cotton has failed
to control the bollworm and has instead created major new pests,
leading to an increase in pesticide use.
Environmental
Cooperation forum stated on June 11, 2010, in the context of the
call from across India for justice for Bhopal victims. As one
newspaper commented, Bhopal is being seen as a “road block and
impediment to trade… the recommendations include removing road
blocks to commercial trade by (India), and adoption of a nuclear
liability regime”.
