I was there in Bhopal on December 7, 1984, when Warren Anderson, then-chairman of Union Carbide, was whisked away from the stricken city to New Delhi and back to the US a few days after a lethal gas leak at his company?s pesticides factory. That was one of the world?s worst industrial disasters, leading to the death of over 5,000 people and continuing ill health of over 5,00,000.
Since then, Anderson has been protected by the US from being extradited to India to answer for the appalling human and environmental damage. Now that same American establishment has been pillorying BP and its chief executive, Tony Hayward, following the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
In New Delhi, politicians and media have been in a frenzy over the Bhopal tragedy since a long-delayed court judgement was delivered on June 7, sentencing eight former Union Carbide Indian executives to two-year prison sentences and fines of about $2,000 (subject to the appeals that could, of course, take years).
President Obama has been stoking anti-BP sentiment instead of steadying it, when the real culprits are officials in various US government organisations that for years have allowed oil companies to negotiate exceptions on environmental and safety procedures. NYT graphically explained this on June 6. It started by talking about the managerial muddle on the BP rig, with unclear lines of authority and control, but it then went on to report how US officials had allowed the catastrophic situation to develop: ?Deepwater rigs operate under an ad hoc system of exceptions. The deeper the water, the further the exceptions stretch, not just from federal guidelines but also often from company policy. So, for example, when BP officials first set their sights on extracting the oily riches under what is known as Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the Gulf of Mexico, they asked for and received permission from federal regulators to exempt the drilling project from federal law that requires a rigorous type of environmental review, internal documents and federal records indicate.?
So when Obama said last week that he wanted to know ?whose ass to kick?, the answer should have been American officials in the regulatory authorities. Sure, BP is massively responsible for what has happened, but for Obama to have personally attacked Hayward, is mean.
On Bhopal, the court sentences passed on the eight men are, of course, ridiculously small?and 25 years late. But it is wrong now to focus on who allowed Anderson to escape. The real need is to look at the authorities that allowed a potentially unsafe chemical plant to be built so near the city, then allowed slum housing to mushroom nearby, and then failed to carry out regulatory checks.
Of the eight, the only well-known figure is Keshub Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra, one of the most respected and ?clean? Indian groups. He was non-executive chairman of Union Carbide India at a time when such posts had no real corporate responsibility and were mainly involved in helping the company operate in the country. The other seven (including one who has died) were victims of an American management that had effectively walked away from the investment and wanted to dump it.
On the escape of Anderson, I was there in Bhopal at the time?December 7, 1984?and later learnt about what happened from both government and company sources.
Arjun Singh, then-chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, heard that Anderson was flying into Bhopal from Bombay on a flight that stopped in Indore. So he ordered his police to the airport without (fearing leaks) telling them why, till the plane had taken off from Indore, when he told them Anderson should be arrested on arrival.
Anderson had planned his visit as some sort of mercy and goodwill mission. As the plane landed in Bhopal, he looked out of the cabin window and saw the police cars, and said to Mahindra, who was sitting beside him, how good it was of the state government to provide him with an escort.
He was immediately arrested and taken to the Union Carbide guest house on a hill overlooking the city. Along with a crowd of Indian and foreign journalists, I stood that afternoon at the guest house?s front gates waiting for Anderson to emerge. Shame on us all, he was whisked out of the back gate without most of us seeing him, and was released on bail after being held for just six hours. He was put on a government plane to New Delhi, and then flew to the US.
Although we did not know that afternoon whether Anderson was being flown to New Delhi to be detained there, we had no doubt that Singh was acting on the orders?or at least with the approval?of Rajiv Gandhi, then-Prime Minister. Pranab Mukherjee, finance minister, has this week said that Singh sent Anderson out of Bhopal because he feared civil unrest if the executive was seen in the city. But that does not explain why, presumably at the behest of the US, Anderson was then allowed to leave the country.
But whether Singh or Gandhi were wrong to have done that is not now relevant. The real crime has been committed by the Indian and American authorities, and by Union Carbide and Dow, which has now taken over the company, by not punishing the right people and cleaning up the health hazards in Bhopal.
Now there?s a cause where President Obama could usefully ?kick ass?.
The author is a journalist based in New Delhi