Remembering Bhopal

At CorporateCrackdown.org, we expose the unethical business practices of corporations that sacrifice the public good for private earnings – so we would be remiss in neglecting to remember the 25th anniversary this month of one of the most notorious and deadly examples of corporate malfeasance in history – the Bhopal Disaster.

On December 3, 1984, a Union Carbide manufacturing factory in Bhopal, India experienced a major leak of gaseous pesticide-chemicals. As the residents of Bhopal slept during the early morning hours, the deadly gas spread throughout the city – immediately killing an estimated 3,800 people and killing many thousands more over the next few years. The region continues to deal with the aftereffects of this disaster, coping with debilitating long-term health and environmental effects that have devastated the area.

Union Carbide’s immediate reaction was to disassociate itself with the disaster and claim limited liability. The corporation – which is now owned by Dow Chemical – shifted culpability to Indian subsidiaries and even attempted to blame a Sikh extremist group for sabotaging the facility – a claim which has been heavily disputed.

A settlement agreement was eventually reached in the Indian Supreme Court in which Union Carbide agreed to accept the intangible notion of “moral responsibility” and to pay only $470 million in compensation – averaging a dismal $2,200 per affected family.

The folks over at CorpWatch have written a detailed and moving account of the ongoing grassroots activist push in India for Dow Chemical to assume greater responsibility for cleanup and compensation. Dow has been active in promoting their humanitarian efforts in the region as a way to play into the (profitable) fad of “corporate social responsibility,” but their actions are hardly good enough to wash away 25 years of neglect.

The fight for true corporate responsibility in this matter is far from over. Read the CorpWatch article for more info and visit The Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” blog for a poignant photo essay about Bhopal.