How many disasters do we need to wake up?
Dt: 03.12.09
Bhubaneswar: The Bhopal Gas tragedy is one of the biggest and the most dreadful industrial disasters. Shortly before midnight on 2nd December 1984 thousands of tonnes of deadly chemicals leaked from Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal , Madhya Pradesh. The disaster killed between 8,000 and 10,000 people within the first three days, according to the data by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a further 15,000 over the next 25 years and hundreds of thousands more still suffer from the effects of exposure to the fumes and contamination of land and water and still continue to seek medical care, compensation and justice even after 25 long years. Criminal negligence by the Union Carbide, the US multinational led to this disaster. The criminal Union Carbide and the callous government have colluded to deny the survivors the basic justice.
Despite a quarter of a century having passed, the factory site has not been cleaned up. More than 100,000 people continue to suffer from health problems. Union Carbide knew that it was sitting on a volcano. Since December 1981 to December 1984 more than a dozen accidents were reported in local newspapers in which many workers had narrow escape, sustained injuries or even lost their lives. But Union Carbide persistently denied these reports and strongly stated that there were no threats. Our government also remained silent and did nothing .Even the major safety systems that existed were not maintained by the Union Carbide. In order to cut costs the company even lowered the minimum safety norms.
No-one has ever been held to account for what happened at Bhopal. Our government, after initially demanding 3.3 billion dollars from Union Carbide agreed in 1989 to an out of court settlement totalling 470 million dollars which absolved the firm of any liability to clear up 350 tonnes of remaining toxic waste. In 2008 when a group of Bhopal survivors and people working with them met the Prime Minister in Delhi and brought up this issue of cleaning up the toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory premises by its new owner Dow Chemicals he raised his hands and said he didn’t want to hear a word about Dow, saying “tragedies happen and this country needs to move on.” But for those survivors who still live with the contamination all around them, moving on is something they find impossible to do.
Bhopal is not just an isolated incident. Similar Bhopals continue to exist in our own state of Orissa and within the country. The suicides in the last two months by the people who feed us – the farmers are not a result of only this years’ crop failure. This is a reflection of deep agrarian disaster whose seeds were sown with the promotion of the chemical intensive / external input dependent agriculture by the government and research institutions. The fact of one farmer committing suicide almost every day in the last 11 years (According to a government report, 3,509 farmers in the state have committed suicide in the last 11 years) was not alarming enough to bring about a fundamental change in the way the agriculture is being promoted in the state. Just as in Bhopal no one was or is being held accountable. Compensations were announced by the state government only after the farmer organizations in Western Orissa had to express their pain, anguish and lodged their demand through a month long fast. Can any amount of money replace the deceased for the families who have lost their loved ones, their bread earners? And, while the farmers have struggled to feed the nation, the companies and the research institutions responsible for this disaster have evaded accountability.
The unfolding agrarian disaster has become a multi million dollar business. The chemical giants who till yesterday used to earn their profits by selling pesticides and fertilizers today express their “ concern “ that farmers have to incur heavy loss due to the use of chemicals. And so they have a ready made formula in the form of Genetic Engineering in Agriculture vide the introduction of bt cotton. One of the highest farmer suicide rates in Maharashtra is in Vidharba, where almost all cotton cultivated is Bt-Cotton. The crime committed by the industries has led to new business opportunities.
Now is the turn of Bt brinjal. If the Bt Cotton story repeats itself with Bt Brinjal, farmers might have to use more pesticides, pay higher price for the seeds and convert fertile land to barren ones. All these have happened with Bt Cotton.
There are sufficient researches on the hazards of Genetic Engineering in Agriculture by credible scientists from all over the world. During trials, when Bt-Brinjal was fed to rats, they suffered from diarrhea. Further, they exhibited a decrease in liver weight, and liver to body weight. Bt brinjal appears to have 15 per cent less calories than normal brinjal. There is a severe paucity of literature with respect to the effects of the Bt toxin on human beings. No one is sure of what kind of health crisis Bt Brinjal will lead to! French geneticist Gilles-Eric Seralini, after going through the evidence produced by Monsanto and Mahyco which was misleading and lacking on several counts had said to reporters in New Delhi that he hoped this country would not adopt commercial use of Bt brinjal and allow its people to be turned into “lab rats,” since tests have not yet been carried out on how its consumption would affect human health.
But our governments maintain the same silence and inactiveness as they did with the warnings in Union Carbide in-between December 1981 to December 1984 when accidents were reported in local newspapers but were ignored.
It is expected that the experience of the Bhopal Gas tragedy and the recent farmer suicides in the state will lead to measures taken by the Government and civil society organizations in terms of promoting a farmer led, low external input dependent, and Genetic Engineering free agriculture in the state.
