Whether or not Dow Chemicals, which acquired Union Carbide, bears legal responsibility for cleaning up the Bhopal site is not an unimportant question. The law ministry has said Dow may have a legal obligation. But this is a complex question the answer to which will depend partly on how Dow and Union Carbide worked out the deal and how the Supreme Court-blessed agreement between the Union of India and Union Carbide on civil liabilities is interpreted. The tragedy is that the government seems content to not do anything about cleaning up the site till this legal conundrum is resolved. Surely, the first official concern should be to prevent any further contamination. There may be as much as 10,000 tons of dangerous waste buried in and around the factory site; the 346 tons figure that has been mentioned in Bhopal court hearings is misleading. There have been examples of Indian agencies, public and private, doing a shoddy clean-up job. Only recently an incinerator supposed to handle toxic waste blew up. The scale of the job?from properly determining the extent of contamination to acquiring agencies with the right technical expertise?is big and the government?s attention should be on that, even as it pursues the question of Dow?s legal liability.
Bhopal?s gas tragedy has always been as much about a company?s horrendous safety standards as about the shocking callousness of state agencies. The horror stories of delayed and poor compensation to victims were the first demonstration of state neglect. Even then much energy was devoted to making the company pay. Of course it should pay and there?s good reason to argue that Union Carbide got away lightly. It would have certainly had a far tougher time in America. But the government?s direct responsibility is to the people and that responsibility has been discharged with the maximum possible lack of concern. In no other mature democracy would a government dare to pursue a legal liability issue while people are at serious risk from a toxic threat. It?s been more than two decades since the Bhopal tragedy, and every monsoon since then brings with it the threat of rainwater spreading the toxins. How can this be considered a lower priority than finding out who?ll pay for the clean-up? If Dow is found to be liable, it can always be asked to pay.
