When the Bhopal Court finally gave out convictions for the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy on June 7 this year, the judgement attracted such a public outcry that the government?in what has become its habitual crisis management strategy?immediately constituted a GoM to address the issue. There were three main elements to the public outcry. First, that the accused haven?t been suitably sentenced. Second, that the victims haven?t been appropriately compensated. Third, government collusion has been suspected in the ?soft? treatment enjoyed by the accused. The aforementioned GoM has now filed a curative petition with the Supreme Court, which has agreed to reopen the case. The question is whether this GoM measure amounts to much, if anything.

During a Lok Sabha debate on the tragedy in mid-August, Union home minister P Chidambaram admitted that, ?We can look back with a sense of regret and a sense of guilt?we did not address the issue with the seriousness it deserved.? He mentioned an array of fixes that were being lined up to make up for the failure of successive governments to properly take care of the Bhopal victims. These included upgradation of medical treatment facilities and their effective extension to second-generation victims, cleaning up of the site as it continues to be heavily contaminated to date and more meaningful disbursal of compensation?both to those whose claims had been overlooked or under-addressed. It is notable that no mechanisms for such fixes have been announced so far.

In fact, the curative petition is the only significant move hitherto announced by the GoM. In accepting it, the apex court is saying it is open to revisiting its September 1996 judgement, whereby the culpable homicide charge against the accused was reduced to the charge of ?death by negligence?. Assuming that the weakness of the prosecution?s case led to this dilution in the first place, what are the odds that a similar case can be made stronger so many years later? The passage of time?a lapse of 17 years?was also a reason why the US state department rejected India?s extradition plea against Warren Anderson in 2004. Similar concerns apply to the prospect of extracting further compensation from the Dow Chemical Company, which acquired UCC in 2001 and simultaneously disclaimed all responsibility for UCIL?s Indian liabilities as UCC had divested its stake in UCIL in 1994. Let us also underline that the apex court had approved the 1989 deal between the Indian government and UCC, whereby the former accepted an out-of-court settlement of $470 million on behalf of all Bhopal victims. While this figure is clearly inadequate to meet all legitimate claims and falls far short of the original ask of $3 billion, can a new trial do anything to correct historical lacunae in this regard either? Most commentary suggests, on the contrary, that the redressal that Bhopal?s victims deserve today has little to do with what the judiciary can dish out either on the conviction or compensation front.

Finally landing on the matter of suspected government collusion back on D-day, what we have been seeing is plenty of sensationalism but little of headway. The Congress?s new controversy-making man Digvijay Singh announced that Anderson got away under American pressure. Who gave the directions under this pressure? Was it Rajiv Gandhi? Arjun Singh rose up from obscurity to tell a rapt Parliament that the culprit was PV Narasimha Rao. Assuming that any of this drama is grounded in fact rather than rabble-rousing fiction, does it actually help the Bhopal victims? It would be nice to know what happened in the past, but can the Indian government afford the luxury of devoting its energy to this nebulous investigation rather than concentrating on providing real-time remedies?

The Bhopal site remains contaminated. But there is still no comprehensive analysis of how deep and wide the toxins have spread or how many people continue to suffer chronic sicknesses or give birth to afflicted children. Effective treatment remains a pipedream for most. And yet, the first thing the GoM does is go to court, to the very system that took 26 years to deliver a ?final? word on what the world accepts is one of its worst industrial disasters. But this is par for the course. Even our President rued in a July speech that not only is the judiciary backlogged pathetically, the government?doing more than its bit to add to the jam?is one of the biggest litigants. Government?s litigation share in India is 70%! It now appears that the GoMs? share in building stasis is also rising.