Educationist Anil Sadagopal has been part of the Bhopal gas victims' struggle from the start. In November 1985, the Supreme Court appointed him and Sujit Das of Drug Action Forum, Kolkata, on a committee to make recommendations regarding medical relief and rehabilitation of the gas victims. In 1988, the two filed a minority report in court. Sadagopal speaks to Jyoti Punwani :
How did the court come to monitor the victims' health?
The MP government refused to administer the only antidote to methyl isocyanate (MIC), sodium thiosulphate injections, though the victims showed immediate improvement after receiving them, and they were recommended by the ICMR. It also shut down our Jan Swasthya Kendra, the only clinic administering these injections and systematically keeping medical records of the victims. On the night of June 24, 1985, the police, acting on behalf of Union Carbide, arrested the doctors and seized our records. That's when we approached the Supreme Court. Our clinic restarted, but we never got back our records.
Why did you need to file a minority report?
We thought the Supreme Court committee was a tool to get the data on the effects of MIC and the required treatment. This would have not just helped in treating the victims systematically but also fixed Carbide's criminal and civil liability for the deaths and injuries caused by the leak. Carbide had held that MIC broke down on contact with water on the surface of lungs and eyes, causing no systemic damage. But months after the leak, the victims were suffering from multi-systemic chronic disorders.
Within weeks we realised the committee was a farce, because the government-appointed members, including ICMR officials, refused to ask any questions. So the two of us decided to work on our own. The director of a DRDO laboratory in Gwalior, Ramachandran, whose research had established the dangerous long-term effects of MIC, gave me all his data. I thought i'd found a gold mine, and rushed to place this evidence that showed MIC caused sustained systemic poisoning before the court. We asked that Carbide be ordered to produce all its research findings on MIC. This would have also provided the ground for punitive damages. But Carbide's counsel and the attorney general told the court that the government already had access to the data! In vain did our lawyer Indira Jaising demand that we be given this data.
Were your recommendations accepted?
On the contrary, the court did not pass any orders. In February 1989, hearing the petition for compensation from Carbide, the SC approved a shameful settlement of $470 million between the government of India and Union Carbide, also quashing all criminal charges and banning all future civil suits against Carbide. The SC had already set a precedent of the owner's absolute liability in the Sriram Mills case. But this was ignored. The Supreme Court was forced by people's protests to go back on the criminal liability decision, but the settlement amount didn't change.
Had the government insisted on the full $3.3 billion that it had originally demanded from Carbide, we would have been seen as too unsafe for corporate capital. The government kowtowed to the market forces. The Nuclear Civil Liability Bill shows that our ruling class refuses to learn from Bhopal.
