I support the right of the Indian judicial system to try Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal gas disaster.
At the same time, I think prosecution of Anderson now will be quite pointless and is not a priority. And the case against him is weak.
The media and Parliament frenzy around Anderson is mostly a waste of time.
The context
Folks, think about it. As per my quick research, at the time of the disaster Union Carbide ran over 500 installations in 130 countries, with about $9 billion in sales. Less than 2% of sales came from the Indian subsidiary UCIL, which was listed in India and in which 49% was held by investors other than Union Carbide (including individual Indian investors). Bhopal was only one of the dozen factories of UCIL in India.
So Warren Anderson is the CEO of a US company which is in 130 countries. It is invested in an Indian company along with many Indian shareholders, whose revenues are less than 2% of the group revenues. Water gets into a tank and triggers a disaster, and we are baying for his blood?
A culture of laxity
For better or for worse, we in India have a culture of laxity when it comes to safety. Perhaps it comes from a certain spiritual acceptance of the impermanence of life. Perhaps we are just a poor country and do not have the luxury to worry about low probability events.
Whatever it is, we leave wires exposed, drains uncovered, critical equipment poorly maintained. With us it is a way of life.
To illustrate this point, I searched the web to answer the following questions: When did the last person die in Delhi by electrocution due to careless wiring? When did the last child die by falling into a manhole? When did the last Indian Air Force MiG 21 crash?
I have the following results from the last few days. [Note: This article was written on August 11.]
NEW DELHI: A six-year-old boy died on Tuesday morning after falling into an open manhole in Shaheen Bagh, Jamia Nagar. Three hours after he fell in, Adil Raza's body was spotted by children playing on the street, after which labourers who had been working nearby pulled the body out of the manhole. The boy's body was found 20 feet away from the manhole he had fallen into.
(While searching for this, I came across another tragic story from April, where a 10 year old boy died after falling into a 35 deep manhole. Rescuers tried to reach him but the power supply failed. They tried using a generator but - rather typically - it did not work either.)
A man was electrocuted after he came in contact with a live wire dangling from an electric pole in northwest Delhi, police said Tuesday. Ajay Gupta, a 32-year-old auto-rickshaw driver, had stopped his vehicle near a pit full of water by the roadside in Hyderpur area of northwest Delhi Monday and as he stepped out, he received a shock, a police official said.
and
A MiG-21 fighter jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in the eastern Indian state of Assam, local media reported.The pilot lost control and the aircraft fell on a paddy field some 25 km from the city of Tezpur on Saturday.
Remember "Rang De Basanti"? The story continues.
Such events occur ALL the time. We are inured to them by now.
I can understand how Jagmohan felt when he talked in the Lok Sabha about the Uphaar fire tragedy:
"This is really in my view not only a civic issue but also a civilisational issue. We commit a large number of crimes by omission. This is an omission. Can we find any other (place) which is disorderly, disorganised, chaotic, without any regard for rules and regulations? It shows that we are a dehumanised civilisation." [Source: Wikipedia]
I do not think we are a "dehumanized civilisation" but you will agree there is some truth in his words. The Bhopal disaster was quite likely a result of sloppy maintenance and upkeep, in the normal Indian tradition.
Low value of human life
The government sued Union Carbide for $3.3 billion. In the end, Union Carbide paid $470 million in a settlement negotiated by the Supreme Court even though technically its liability for its subsidiary and technological partner UCIL was unclear. This number was indeed laughably low by US standards. But it was in line with compensation awarded routinely in India where the value of human life remains low.
These days, with the media spotlight, the ex-gratia payments made by the government have started climbing up. When there is a spectacular train wreck, for example, the Railway Minister may loudly announce Rs. 3.5 lakhs or 4 lakhs or 5 lakhs for each person killed and 1 lakh for those injured. But even as late as 2002 an Indian Railways circular announced that:
The amount paid as ex-gratia relief payable to the dependents of dead or injured passengers involved in train accidents or untoward incidents as defined under Sections 124 and 124-A should be as under:-
(i) In case of death :Rs. 15,000/-
(ii) In case of grievous injury (Irrespective of the period of hospitalisation) :Rs. 5,000/-
(iii) In case of simple injuries :Rs. 500/-
And even today, when there is no media attention, ex-gratia payments of compensation are miserly.
In comparison, Union Carbide paid $470 million in 1984 dollars, which is equivalent in buying power to more than double the dollars today. The total payment in today's rupees is Rs. 4500 crores. If you take the toll as 20,000 killed and 250,000 grievously injured and 250,000 with simple injuries, and the ratio of death to injury compensation as in the railways case, you get - in today's rupees - Rs. 13,000 for simple injuries, Rs. 1.3 lakhs for grievous injuries, and about Rs. 4 lakhs for deaths. While not generous, it compares well with Indian government payments till very recently.
This is a macabre calculation and human life is priceless, but I just wanted to show that the Supreme Court settlement was probably not a sellout.
Slow relief effort
There is no law that only Union Carbide money can be used to help the victims. Yet the government's payment of compensation has been slow.
The first ex-gratia payment announced was only Rs. 1500. Till 1992, almost half the claimants for compensation had not been medically examined. The final sum paid for each death was less than Rs. 1 lakh. Even today the ground around the site is laden with chemicals.
Worse, many factories all over India continue to spew poison into wells and rivers. The air in our cities is noxious beyond all health norms. It is not clear that we are safer today against a catastrophic industrial accident than we were in 1984.
What about individual responsibility in government?
Of late, our courts have been more aggressive in fixing individual responsibility for accidents (e.g. in the Uphaar case), which is good to an extent (e.g. building managers are now a little more serious about fire safety). But the the government itself often gets away scot-free.
For example, did any senior government person go to jail for the string of errors of omission that led to 173 people dead and 300+ injured on 26/11/2008? Did anyone get arrested for not planning a serious anti-terrorist force in Mumbai, or for the 10 hours it took for the NSG to get to Mumbai (by road from Manesar to Delhi airport and by bus from Mumbai airport to the site!), or for the fact that NSG commandos were fighting in the dark without night vision devices? The world watched as the fatal lack of training and preparation of India's security forces unfolded on live TV and people paid with their lives. The FBI's investigator had some chilling commentary on the amateurism of the Indian security establishment.
I shudder to think what will happen if we ever get into a real war, how many of our soldiers' lives will be needlessly lost due to lack of basic equipment and real training.
The point
I started this post by saying that "I support the right of the Indian judicial system to try Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal gas disaster. At the same time, I think prosecution of Anderson now will be quite pointless and is not a priority. And the case against him is weak. The media and Parliament frenzy around Anderson is mostly a waste of time."
But I want to make a broader point. The "soundbite media" is very dangerous. I think the United States today has been hollowed out by the soundbite-driven media to just a shadow of its former self. I frankly think that the media is the dominant disease that has crippled America. And I don't really know what the solution is. It will always be easier to watch a sensationalist TV "news" show than read the Economist or The New York Times or to listen to the BBC World News.
So as a young person, you must be skeptical of the populist noises coming from the media and politicians of all stripes. Subscribe to sober media. Think critically for yourself. Look at the facts carefully.
As a US Senator nicely observed, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not (to) his own facts."
And the Bhopal disaster is not about Warren Anderson. It is about us.
At the same time, I think prosecution of Anderson now will be quite pointless and is not a priority. And the case against him is weak.
The media and Parliament frenzy around Anderson is mostly a waste of time.
The context
Folks, think about it. As per my quick research, at the time of the disaster Union Carbide ran over 500 installations in 130 countries, with about $9 billion in sales. Less than 2% of sales came from the Indian subsidiary UCIL, which was listed in India and in which 49% was held by investors other than Union Carbide (including individual Indian investors). Bhopal was only one of the dozen factories of UCIL in India.
So Warren Anderson is the CEO of a US company which is in 130 countries. It is invested in an Indian company along with many Indian shareholders, whose revenues are less than 2% of the group revenues. Water gets into a tank and triggers a disaster, and we are baying for his blood?
A culture of laxity
For better or for worse, we in India have a culture of laxity when it comes to safety. Perhaps it comes from a certain spiritual acceptance of the impermanence of life. Perhaps we are just a poor country and do not have the luxury to worry about low probability events.
Whatever it is, we leave wires exposed, drains uncovered, critical equipment poorly maintained. With us it is a way of life.
To illustrate this point, I searched the web to answer the following questions: When did the last person die in Delhi by electrocution due to careless wiring? When did the last child die by falling into a manhole? When did the last Indian Air Force MiG 21 crash?
I have the following results from the last few days. [Note: This article was written on August 11.]
August 11, Times of India
NEW DELHI: A six-year-old boy died on Tuesday morning after falling into an open manhole in Shaheen Bagh, Jamia Nagar. Three hours after he fell in, Adil Raza's body was spotted by children playing on the street, after which labourers who had been working nearby pulled the body out of the manhole. The boy's body was found 20 feet away from the manhole he had fallen into.
(While searching for this, I came across another tragic story from April, where a 10 year old boy died after falling into a 35 deep manhole. Rescuers tried to reach him but the power supply failed. They tried using a generator but - rather typically - it did not work either.)
August 10, Sify News
Man electrocuted in Delhi
A man was electrocuted after he came in contact with a live wire dangling from an electric pole in northwest Delhi, police said Tuesday. Ajay Gupta, a 32-year-old auto-rickshaw driver, had stopped his vehicle near a pit full of water by the roadside in Hyderpur area of northwest Delhi Monday and as he stepped out, he received a shock, a police official said.
and
August 8, Asian Defence
MiG-21 Fighter Jet of Indian Air Force Crashes
MiG-21 Fighter Jet of Indian Air Force Crashes
A MiG-21 fighter jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in the eastern Indian state of Assam, local media reported.The pilot lost control and the aircraft fell on a paddy field some 25 km from the city of Tezpur on Saturday.
Remember "Rang De Basanti"? The story continues.
Such events occur ALL the time. We are inured to them by now.
I can understand how Jagmohan felt when he talked in the Lok Sabha about the Uphaar fire tragedy:
"This is really in my view not only a civic issue but also a civilisational issue. We commit a large number of crimes by omission. This is an omission. Can we find any other (place) which is disorderly, disorganised, chaotic, without any regard for rules and regulations? It shows that we are a dehumanised civilisation." [Source: Wikipedia]
I do not think we are a "dehumanized civilisation" but you will agree there is some truth in his words. The Bhopal disaster was quite likely a result of sloppy maintenance and upkeep, in the normal Indian tradition.
Low value of human life
The government sued Union Carbide for $3.3 billion. In the end, Union Carbide paid $470 million in a settlement negotiated by the Supreme Court even though technically its liability for its subsidiary and technological partner UCIL was unclear. This number was indeed laughably low by US standards. But it was in line with compensation awarded routinely in India where the value of human life remains low.
These days, with the media spotlight, the ex-gratia payments made by the government have started climbing up. When there is a spectacular train wreck, for example, the Railway Minister may loudly announce Rs. 3.5 lakhs or 4 lakhs or 5 lakhs for each person killed and 1 lakh for those injured. But even as late as 2002 an Indian Railways circular announced that:
The amount paid as ex-gratia relief payable to the dependents of dead or injured passengers involved in train accidents or untoward incidents as defined under Sections 124 and 124-A should be as under:-
(i) In case of death :Rs. 15,000/-
(ii) In case of grievous injury (Irrespective of the period of hospitalisation) :Rs. 5,000/-
(iii) In case of simple injuries :Rs. 500/-
And even today, when there is no media attention, ex-gratia payments of compensation are miserly.
In comparison, Union Carbide paid $470 million in 1984 dollars, which is equivalent in buying power to more than double the dollars today. The total payment in today's rupees is Rs. 4500 crores. If you take the toll as 20,000 killed and 250,000 grievously injured and 250,000 with simple injuries, and the ratio of death to injury compensation as in the railways case, you get - in today's rupees - Rs. 13,000 for simple injuries, Rs. 1.3 lakhs for grievous injuries, and about Rs. 4 lakhs for deaths. While not generous, it compares well with Indian government payments till very recently.
This is a macabre calculation and human life is priceless, but I just wanted to show that the Supreme Court settlement was probably not a sellout.
Slow relief effort
There is no law that only Union Carbide money can be used to help the victims. Yet the government's payment of compensation has been slow.
The first ex-gratia payment announced was only Rs. 1500. Till 1992, almost half the claimants for compensation had not been medically examined. The final sum paid for each death was less than Rs. 1 lakh. Even today the ground around the site is laden with chemicals.
Worse, many factories all over India continue to spew poison into wells and rivers. The air in our cities is noxious beyond all health norms. It is not clear that we are safer today against a catastrophic industrial accident than we were in 1984.
What about individual responsibility in government?
Of late, our courts have been more aggressive in fixing individual responsibility for accidents (e.g. in the Uphaar case), which is good to an extent (e.g. building managers are now a little more serious about fire safety). But the the government itself often gets away scot-free.
For example, did any senior government person go to jail for the string of errors of omission that led to 173 people dead and 300+ injured on 26/11/2008? Did anyone get arrested for not planning a serious anti-terrorist force in Mumbai, or for the 10 hours it took for the NSG to get to Mumbai (by road from Manesar to Delhi airport and by bus from Mumbai airport to the site!), or for the fact that NSG commandos were fighting in the dark without night vision devices? The world watched as the fatal lack of training and preparation of India's security forces unfolded on live TV and people paid with their lives. The FBI's investigator had some chilling commentary on the amateurism of the Indian security establishment.
I shudder to think what will happen if we ever get into a real war, how many of our soldiers' lives will be needlessly lost due to lack of basic equipment and real training.
The point
I started this post by saying that "I support the right of the Indian judicial system to try Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal gas disaster. At the same time, I think prosecution of Anderson now will be quite pointless and is not a priority. And the case against him is weak. The media and Parliament frenzy around Anderson is mostly a waste of time."
But I want to make a broader point. The "soundbite media" is very dangerous. I think the United States today has been hollowed out by the soundbite-driven media to just a shadow of its former self. I frankly think that the media is the dominant disease that has crippled America. And I don't really know what the solution is. It will always be easier to watch a sensationalist TV "news" show than read the Economist or The New York Times or to listen to the BBC World News.
So as a young person, you must be skeptical of the populist noises coming from the media and politicians of all stripes. Subscribe to sober media. Think critically for yourself. Look at the facts carefully.
As a US Senator nicely observed, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not (to) his own facts."
And the Bhopal disaster is not about Warren Anderson. It is about us.
6 comments:
Dear Sir,
I must say in the last 5 minutes you have changed the way I was thinking about Bhopal Gas tragedy till now. I completely agree with the idea of how the value of life is very low in our country. Your findings about the last person to die by electrocution, the last child to die due to falling into a manhole & the last Indian Air Force MIG 21 crashing is a slap to the face of media & everyone involved in hyping the Bhopal Gas tragedy making it something of utmost importance.
It is about time we should try to fix ourselves than blaming others. What happened in Bhopal was obviously tragic but whats happening right now is equally worse. Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Shoaib Qureshi
Shoaib, this is a sensitive subject and so I'm relieved you see the point. I hope others will too.
Thanks,
Manas
Respected Sir,
This blog of yours displays the brutal truth of our system. It feels proud to be a part of worlds largest democracy but at the same time when this facts appear, it really feels bad as the value of human life in our country is taken so gently(as mentioned in your blog).
This was really a nice sharing insights, especially a comparison of the compensation.
Regards,
Divyesh Shah.
Respected Sir,
This blog of yours displays the brutal truth of our system. It feels proud to be a part of worlds largest democracy but at the same time when this facts appear, it really feels bad as the value of human life in our country is taken so gently(as mentioned in your blog).
This was really a nice sharing insights, especially a comparison of the compensation.
Regards,
Divyesh Shah.
Dear Sir,
I agree with your point that prosecution of Anderson is of less importance at this point of time. The court has again given orders for further investigation in this case as on 1st Sept. 2010 (Times of India). There are really other areas which are paramount than this one, but the focus is not there.
The growth of nation as such, is not happening (per capita income).
Sir, I would like to ask you what all can be done to curb the pollution caused by the emission of mixed and low quality fuel which people use (or may be due to bad condition of the vehicle itself). There are many other challenges in front of us, but I think pollution is the most common and obvious and we can try and do something about it.
Regards,
Robin Singh Vasu (Fall’ 09)
really sad that human beings in India are treated as a commodity, where excess decreases the value!
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