Contamination in the City of Lakes: Pesticide Pollution in the Heart of India

Modern Bhopal juxtaposed with the historic Taj-Ul-Masajid

The bastion of Fatehgarh Fort on the banks of the Bhojtal boasts a 32 ft proud 18th century statue of Raja Bhoj. Local folklore recites that over a millenia ago, the righteous scholar Raja Bhoj, ruler of the Kingdom of Malwa and king of the Parmar dynasty, founded Bhopal upon forming Bhojital lake from 365 tributaries to cure him of leprosy (1, 2). Through securing his eastern frontier, deep into the heart of monsoon thwarted India, the monarch founded the cornerstone of Bhopal, the City of Lakes.

The illustrious Raja Bhoj overlooking over the Bhojital

Over a millennia later, in the 1980s, remnants of the ancient landscape scatter the cityscape. Bhopal stood as a tapestry of contrasts, where the serene waters of its lakes reflected a diverse city animated with life. Nestled amidst the rolling Vindhya hills, the city was was a harmonious blend of the old and the new. The pink and marble domed silhouette of the Taj-Ul-Masajid, India's largest mosque, a magnificent silhouette for the phlegmatic Bhojtal. The city’s heart pulsed in its historic markets, overwatched by palaces standing as silent sentinels to its rich and storied past.

Bhopal in the 1980s was a mosaic of human stories which bridged an epic human past to the modern day. In the narrow lanes of the old city, the air fragrant and the chatter of the locals provided a lively soundtrack to the day’s events. People in the thousands swelled into the city centre by day to attend school, shop, work, or play. For a select few, a short commute to the largest American employer in the area, Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), for a trying day in the industrial pesticide plant before plodding home in the sweet breeze of the evening for whatever comforts await at home.

Yet, beneath the veneer of this romanticised setting, the year 1984 marked a turning point in Bhopal’s history with a tragedy that would reverberate through time. In the early hours of December 3rd, the city was enveloped by a calamitous cloud that descended upon the unsuspecting residents. The Bhopal gas leak, the world’s worst industrial disaster, unleashed a torrent of toxic methyl isocyanate gas from the UCC pesticide plant.

In the aftermath, the once vibrant streets of Bhopal were shrouded in silence, punctuated only by the collective mourning of its people. The city’s fabric was torn, leaving a patchwork of pain, resilience, and an indomitable spirit to overcome. The survivors, though scarred, emerged with stories of courage and unity, binding the community together with a resolve to rebuild and to remember. Bhopal, in its resilience, became a symbol of hope but a reminder of the profound impact of industrial negligence on human lives and the natural environment.

 The pesticide plant which erupted with poisonous gas (Source: BBC (3))

Contaminated Water

The Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 left an indelible mark on the environment, one that continues to manifest in the ecology and climate of the region. More than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the pesticide plant, immediately killing at least 3,800 people, with death toll estimates reaching 15,000 (4), and causing significant morbidity and premature deaths for many thousands more (5).

On that ominous night, a rise in temperature at the firm lead to an extremely dangerous set of chemical reactions. With no efforts to warn the citizens of Bhopal, the senior plant officials first suspected a leak within the plant which insidiously seeped MIC, an extremely reactive substance, polluting the air (6). MIC is a wildly harmful chemical to humans which can cause damages such as: strong irritation on tissue such as skin; suffocation; lung damage including progressive fibrosis; keratitis and corneal ulcers; and death (6). If it reacts with a certain groups of proteins - such as DNA polymerase - MIC can alter and mutate DNA. The biological effects of the Bhopal disaster ripple through its’ society today (6).

'Safety is everybody's business' - a sign found in the UCC pesticide plant (Source: Bhopal Medical Appeal (7))

One of the Bhopal survivors, Aziza Sultan, explained her experience: “At about 12.30 a.m I woke to the sound of my baby coughing badly… Then I started coughing. Each breath felt as if I was breathing in fire. My eyes were burning.”(8) In 1994, The Bhopal Medical Appeal released a statement addressing the severity of the impacts of the gas: ‘The gases burned the tissues of their eyes and lungs and attacked their nervous systems... people lost control of their bodies. Urine and faeces ran down their legs.’(9)

Even in the aftermath of the disaster, research has confirmed that the groundwater and soil are significantly contaminated due to the improper disposal of hazardous waste and the abandonment of the UCC site without proper remediation (10). The consequences for Bhopal’s natural environment have been severe. The leakage of toxic chemicals into the soil has led to bioaccumulation, affecting the food chain and local biodiversity. Groundwater, once a source of life for the city’s populace, remains contaminated, posing health risks to current and future generations (11). The toxic substances have leached through the soil into the aquifer, with chemicals such as mercury to visibly pooling in certain areas of the factory site (12).

The impact on the community has been profound and multifaceted. The contaminated water has been linked to a range of health issues, extending the already morbid list of physiological consequences to include birth defects, cancer, neurological damage, and mental illness (12). These statistics are a grim testament to the scale of the tragedy: tens of thousands of families continue to rely on this compromised water supply, with some areas likely contaminated even before the gas leak occurred (13). The survivors, who have endured the brunt of this ongoing crisis, face not only the physical repercussions but also the emotional burden of the disaster’s legacy. As Bhopal continues to grapple with the aftermath, the water contamination stands as a poignant reminder of the enduring human cost of environmental mismanagement.

Map of the spread of the gas from the UCC factory (Source: BBC (14))

Environmental Justice and Globalisation

The disaster underscored the need for enforceable international standards for environmental safety and highlighted the long-term ecological costs of industrial negligence. The historian Broughton sums up: ‘The disaster demonstrated that seemingly local problems of industrial hazards and toxic contamination are often tied to global market dynamics.’ (15) Even after decades, the legacy of the Bhopal gas tragedy serves as a stark reminder of the continuous antagonistic relationship between industrial development, global markets, and environmental stewardship. But more so, it coincides with a longer term biproduct, more morbidly in this case, which is not only the restricted access to natural environmental resources, but personal physiological freedom.

UCC, later bought by American conglomerate Dow Chemical, have failed to clean up water supplies. To this day, harmful chemicals in the water and contaminated soil impacts local agriculture. In 2015, 10MT of Union Carbide waste was secretly disposed of in the town of Pithampur. The International Coalition for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB) released a press statement whereby Safreen Khan, who works for Children Against Dow-Carbide, pointed out that the removal of such waste was not even ridding Bhopalis from danger, which really lies in the soil and water (16). Through her qualitative research, she reported that contamination in the ground water spread far beyond the 22 communities that the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, (IITR) had marked as contaminated a mere few years previously.

Similarly, Suroopa Mukherjee argued that the lack of authentic data on the cause and fallout of the disaster has over the years become a saga of neglect (17) particularly so from the international audience. The international rhetoric to justify their apathy towards the Bhopal cause was that only Indians were able to understand the severity of poverty, health complications, and environmental degradation the disaster caused, and so the responsibility of the aftermath should be localised.

Source: Giles Clarke, Toxic Trespass collection, 'Demonstrators hold a candlelight vigil to mark the anniversary of the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak that killed thousands of residents of Bhopal within 72 hours.' (18)

The power of oral testimony and unapologetic language has allowed activists to pursue a powerful relentless rhetoric and to alter actions taken in the global legal community. In the case of Bhopal, it was a true turning point, turning the tables to open the eyes of the global community to perceiving globalisation as able to exploit vulnerable communities and oppress them both physically and socially. The human physical consequences of Bhopal are harrowing. Champa Devi Shukla, a survivor, remembers: “it felt like somebody had filled our bodies up with red chillies… we had froth in our mouths… even cows were running and trying to save their lives and crushing people as they ran.”(19)

In reaction to the localisation of the responsibility, the activists lobbied for the creation of the ‘International Coalition for Justice in Bhopal’ (ICJB). This progressive movement made leaps and bounds in international administrative procedures. Previous to its formation, Bhopal survivor group campaigning lacked the capacity and resources to challenge the framing of the disaster as a distinct localised issue and were forced into a narrowing of their 'collective action frames’, consequently having to pursue justice at the level of local administrative machinery (20). By operating within the local welfare state the victims couldn’t implement change on any effective level.

In the 1991 Indian Supreme Court case between Bhopal survivors and Union Carbide (21), the activists cited incorrect figures used in the 1989 settlement representing the numbers dead and injured. The 1989 settlement amount of $470 million remained unchanged so survivors could not sue them for any more compensation to cover mortalities and injuries. Information about this court case can be found on the ICJB website here.

The ICJB, however, challenged the localisation of responsibility and sought to ‘expand both the symbolic meaning of the disaster’ and increase the ‘regulatory forums for seeking justice' (20). One way in which the ICJB effectively shifted the paradigm of blame was through drawing attention to the issue of water contamination. The issue of contaminated groundwater and soil was not covered in the legal proceedings of 1989. The ICJB ‘created opportunities for disrupting the regulatory and memorial localisation of the disaster’ (20). The ICJB has repeatedly, in the decades since, brought renewed life to the justice movement, reaffirming and pulling international attention to the toxic legacy of UCC.

Source: Giles Clarke, Toxic Trespass collection, 'Infographics and posters at the Chingari Trust, a unique rehabilitation centre located near the abandoned Union Carbide (now DOW Chemical) industrial complex' (18).

Note the objectives: "Rehabilitation of congenitally disabled children born in the families affected by Bhopal Gas tragedy and subsequent water contamination"

Generally, people were wary of the international ‘Northern NGO’ help in Bhopal for suspicions of the imbalances which could occur in the spheres of influence; the local activist agenda can easily become transformed by the aims of international organisations. For example, by using the Bhopal disaster to introduce new rules in the international chemical industry, the movement was hijacked and became detached from the focus of meeting the immediate and specific needs of Bhopal survivors (22). Stephen Zavestoski summarised that the Bhopal movement illustrates how a domestic movement is compelled to become transnational in nature in order for its grievances to be addressed and to connect local stories with the global debates over its lifespan (23).

However, let us not forget that that this is not a rule of thumb, and in the case of Bhopal, a wealth of organisations and groups cropped up during the wake of the Bhopal crisis that did cater to the immediate needs of survivors; Bhopal Gas Victims’ Support Group, Bhopal People's Health and Documentation Clinic, and the Bhopal Medical Appeal are the names of a few. Let us also not do injustice to the operational impact of certain charities such as Amnesty International and the Bhopal Gas Affected Working Women’s Union which were orchestrated to provide medical help for the affected population. In this light, we must not remove agency from those organisations who did not detract away from the immediate health concerns of the victims, and appreciate the variety of organisations which grew to cater for number of niches

To the Future

40 years from the disaster and struggle continues to be a central theme for activists. Ideas over who controls, and more importantly, who is allowed to enjoy clean air and natural resources arises from this global conflict. Unless there is a shift in the power equation, the poorest people will never have enough rights over resources to improve the quality of their lives (24). This is an argument that many activists carry forwards into today.

In the case of the ICJB, they have injected a dose of longevity into the ongoing call for justice. The ICJB student wing transpired in 2003, almost 20 years after the incident. It has also facilitated the nuances in addressing longer term international issues. For example, the ICJB demands for the Government of India to prevent Dow Chemical from investing in India ‘directly or indirectly, till it accepts Union Carbide’s liabilities in Bhopal’ (25).

In the wake of the Bhopal disaster, the concept of climate justice has emerged as a critical aspect of the global environmental discourse. International understandings of 'climate justice' recognise that while low and middle-income nations have contributed lesser to global toxic emissions, they bear the brunt of climate change’s impacts. The call for climate justice is a call for equity and equality, ensuring that those who are most vulnerable receive support to adapt to climate changes and are compensated for losses and damages they could not prevent (26). It’s about acknowledging historical responsibilities and the disproportionate effects of environmental disasters.

References:

1. History of Bhopal | District Bhopal, Government of Madhya Pradesh | India

2. Stories of Bhopal, Part 2: Lakes - Go Heritage Runs - Run, Fun, Travel - Run-vacations

3. In pictures: Bhopal's poisonous plant - BBC News

4. The Bhopal Gas Disaster and Corporate Criminal Negligence by G. S. Bajpai, Bir Pal Singh :: SSRN

5. The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review - https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-069X-4-6

6. The Bhopal Tragedy: A Middle Word, Pushpa M. Bhargava (Economic and Political Weekly) Vol. 20, No. 22 (Jun. 1, 1985), pp. 962-965

7. 'Safety is everybody's business' photo of a sign found in UCC plant - Photo Gallery – THE BHOPAL MEDICAL APPEAL

8. Aziza Sultan, oral testimony accessed 19/11/2019 at https://www.bhopal.net/what-happened/that-night-december-3-1984/reliving-that-night/  [7] 1994, Bhopal

9. Medical Appeal, accessed on 19/11/2019 https://www.bhopal.net/what-happened/that-night-december-3-1984/reliving-that-night/ 

10. The Bhopal tragedy: 30 years of injustice for victims and survivors India: The Bhopal tragedy: 30 years of injustice for victims and survivors: Amnesty International written statement to the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council (3 – 28 March 2014)

11. 30 years of Bhopal gas tragedy: a continuing disaster 30 years of Bhopal gas tragedy: a continuing disaster (downtoearth.org.in)

12. Poisoned Water Haunts Bhopal 25 Years after Chemical Accident Poisoned Water Haunts Bhopal 25 Years after Chemical Accident | Scientific American

13. Water Contamination Crisis- Bhopal’s Second Disaster Water Contamination Crisis- Bhopal’s Second Disaster – THE BHOPAL MEDICAL APPEAL

14. BBC map of the spread of the gas from the UCC factory Indian government re-examines 1984 Bhopal disaster - BBC News

15. Broughton, ‘The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review’, Environmental Health 4:6 (2005)

16. Safreen Khan, Bhopal Gas Survivor organisations demand straight answers on secret transport & disposal of 10MT of Union Carbide waste and endangering the lives and health of residents of Pithampur | International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal

17. Suroopa Mukherjee, p.1,  Surviving Bhopal: dancing bodies, written texts, and oral testimonials of women in the wake of an industrial disaster

18. Giles Clarke, Toxic Tresspass Collection, BHOPAL, INDIA: TOXIC TRESPASS - GILES CLARKE | Getty Images Reportage | Photographer (gilesnclarke.com)

19. Oral testimony from Champa Devi Shukla, accessed 29/7/2024 https://www.bhopal.net/what-happened/that-night-december-3-1984/reliving-that-night/ 

20. Social movements and the scaling of memory and justice in Bhopal - Bisht Pawas

21. Information about this court case accessed on 30/07/2024 found at https://www.bhopal.net/what-happened/1990-present/court-cases-pushback-against-1989-settlement/ 

22. (Smith, 2008: 120) Quote found within source (23) - see below.

23. Stephen Zavestoski, 2009, The Struggle for Justice in Bhopal: A New/Old Breed of Transnational Social Movement

24. Suroopa Mukherjee, p.110,  Surviving Bhopal: dancing bodies, written texts, and oral testimonials of women in the wake of an industrial disaster

25. The ICJB demands are presented on their website. Accessed 31/07/2024 at https://www.bhopal.net/our-demands/

26. United Nations, accessed on 13/08/2024, Developing countries at COP27 call for ‘climate justice’ in the form of adaptation and loss and damage funds | UN News