Do and Dow

Successive Indian governments have failed Bhopal’s gas victims in a variety of ways. From the first shoddy efforts following the terrible incident to non-disbursal of compensation years after the tragedy — it took a PIL and a resultant court ruling for the government to start moving on this front — official responses have made clear there were two villains in the Bhopal case: the callously negligent factory management and the consistently indifferent government. That is why official attempts to act virtuous over Bhopal-related matters are particularly hard to swallow. More so, when after decades, some sensible proposals are being heard.

As this newspaper reported on Monday, Ratan Tata has volunteered to take the lead in remediation — bureaucratese for a clean-up — of the Bhopal site and Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 1999, has offered to be part of the process, including making substantial financial contributions. Since the department of chemicals is a plaintiff in an MP district court case where the demand is that Dow should pay Rs 100 crore for the clean-up, the question before the government is this: should it let the issue of Dow investing in India get horribly complicated by taking time and pushing files over the chemical company’s legal liabilities, or should it sort out the issue quickly? The only victim in the case of a quick decision will be various departments’ efforts to look good.

What needs to be remembered here is that the issue here is not of fixing criminal responsibility. Were that the case, no negotiations or offers would have mattered. The government wants Dow to pay, Dow is willing to pay, a respected Indian industrial house is willing to lead the process. So who gains if the department of chemicals insists that the court case must be the only way to sort out how much money Dow puts in? Arguments about corporate malfeasance don’t apply here. And when they did — the time when the tragedy happened — the government didn’t seem to care. Bhopal’s victims paid. They are still paying.