Who would have thought that two ordinary women from India would one day be honored with the prestigious Goldman award considered as the ‘Nobel prize for environment’. But this honor for Rasheeda bi and Champa Devi has come after a very long struggle for justice in Bhopal and at a very high personal cost. Since the day of the tragedy when Rasheeda Bi woke up to a ‘pungent smell of irritation of something like burning chilis’ she has lost six family members to cancer. And Champa Devi lost her husband and her health in the tragedy and has a physically disabled grandchild. And all this has it’s beginnings in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy that happened 20 years ago on December 3, 1984. 

In 1984, a storage tank containing 40 tons of toxic MIC (methyl-isocyanate) burst at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, the capital of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The poisonous gas spread over the city of Bhopal with the blowing wind. If things had been well there were six safety mechanisms to neutralize any leaked gas but none of these were functional on the night of the leak! Reason: cost cutting on part of the company. The tragedy also known as the ‘Hiroshima of the chemical industry’ is estimated to have caused the death of around 8,000 people in the first week and almost 20,000 people have died to date. 

And the tragedy is far from over. Twenty years later the tragedy still continues. According to the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) about 500, 000 people (1/2 a million people) were exposed to the gas. About 1,20,000 people are believed to be suffering from the long term negative health effects of MIC even today. But, Carbide refuses to give any information on the health impacts of MIC, claiming it to be a ‘trade secret’, thereby hampering any effective treatment of the victims. Many of these people’s who bodies were destroyed by exposure to MIC are in no condition to do the manual labor which used to be their only source of livelihood, reducing them to lives of poverty. 

The victims are still suffering! They were meagerly compensated and the site still remains contaminated also polluting the groundwater in the region. A November 2004 investigation by the BBC said “It [drinking water from a well near the site] had levels of contamination 500 times higher than the maximum limits recommended by the World Health Organization.” A 1999 Greenpeace investigation report lead them to declare the plant site as a “Global Toxic Hotspot”. CARBIDE was never brought to justice. In a further travesty of justice Dow Chemicals (a leading US chemical company which bought Carbide in 2001 thereby taking responsibility for Union Carbide’s liabilities) refuses to take any responsibility for the continuing disaster in Bhopal. 

But just as the suffering continues so does the struggle. As part of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB) many organizations and concerned individuals have become active in the USA also. The ICJB is an umbrella organization of 20 environmental and social justice groups the world over who have joined forces to campaign for justice for the gas survivors of Bhopal. ICJB is spearheaded by the women's survivor group, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationary Karmachari Sangh, headed by Rasheeda bi and Champa Devi. The ICJB has been at the fore front of many phone-fax campaigns, lobbying-education-awareness efforts to make Dow and the Indian Government take responsibility for it’s actions.

In these 20 years the efforts of the Campaign have got translated into causes for celebration. For one Rasheeda Bi and Champa devi (two survivors of the tragedy and long time champions of the cause of victims) – were honored in the USA with the prestigious Goldman award. In October this year they were also honored with the American Public Health Association’s Occupational Health & Safety Award. Alongside Legal proceedings in the Southern District Court of New York have been going on. On another positive note U.S. Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and 8 of his house colleagues have introduced a bill expressing Congress' commitment to ensure that Dow and Union Carbide are held responsible for its actions. In India the Supreme Court has directed the Indian Government to provide safe drinking water to 14 colonies in Bhopal whose drinking water supply has been contaminated by the plant. The SC also ordered the distribution of the compensation money, a large part of which has been lying undistributed with the Indian Government. 

In the mid west too, supporters of the ICJB are active. Association for India’s Development (AID) Milwaukee chapter as part of the ICJB has been doing some education-awareness events and actively supporting the campaign around Bhopal. As part of the 19th anniversary action some AID volunteers also visited the residence of one of the Dow Board members in Lake Forest County, IL to deliver contaminated water from Bhopal in an effort to make Dow realize what the Bhopalis were going through because Dow refused to take on it’s responsibilities. This year as part of the 20th anniversary AID Milwaukee along with the local Milwaukee group ‘Education for the People!’ is holding a candle light vigil at the Gandhi statue, Milwaukee court house to remember the Bhopal victims and show solidarity to the ongoing struggle for Justice! SAPAC (South Asia Progressive Action Collective) have also taken the initiative to visit the Dow member in the IL state to emphasize that Dow needs to take responsibility for Bhopal. At the University of Chicago, the Environmental Concerns Organization and the South Asian Students Association will be hosting a hunger strike during the day on Wednesday December 1st followed by a silent vigil with posters and information about the disaster. They will also be hosting Joe Kirchoff, Activist from Amnesty International. All the events are designed day to demand corporate responsibility in Bhopal. Protests and actions around the 20th anniversary are being planned in many other parts of the mid west including many university campuses like University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne, University of Cincinatti, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Michigan. 


All these efforts in the midwest are organized to emphasize the demands of the ICJB from Dow Chemicals and the Indian Government. The ICJB’s main demands from Dow Chemicals are to make sure Carbide faces trial, that Dow cleans up the Bhopal site and provide long term medical, social and economic support to the victims. From the Indian Government the demands are that it make claims on Dow to clean the plant site, distribute in full the compensation money lying with it, pursue the extradition of the then CEO of Carbide Warren Anderson and publish the findings of the ICMR on impact of exposure to MIC. 

People from more than a dozen countries are expected to participate in the Global Day of Action (Dec 3rd, 2004) . Many towns and cities in India, including Bhopal, have expressed their intent to take action around the Bhopal anniversary; trade unions, community organizations and students bodies in Bangladesh, Belgium, Britain, Egypt, France, Sweden, the United States, and Canada have also planned events.

Apart from the efforts that AID makes to demand responsibility from Dow and the Indian Government, AID also supports livelihood generation activities and health efforts in Bhopal. The solar lanterns project is an income generation scheme intended to benefit the families of the victims of the gas tragedy. The project involves buying solar lanterns and renting them out to the hawkers on a daily rental basis. Another attempt is the Koshish Project that aims to grow herbal medicines to help survivors of the tragedy. 

You can also be part of this struggle– for more information please visit www.bhopal.net www.aidindia.org or contact rbodanyi@studentsforbhopal.org,  kamayani02@yahoo.com 

Kamayani Swami is a volunteer with Association for India’s Development (AID), Milwaukee chapter and involved with the Bhopal Campaign (www.aidindia.org)

Ryan Bodanyi is the Student Coordinator for the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB), and coordinates the student network Students for Bhopal (www.studentsforbhopal.org).