US President Obama is out to legally force BP executives to set aside billions of dollars as compensation for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. The escrow fund is meant to compensate businesses and individuals affected by what is, in his words, “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.” Additionally, Obama expects BP to pay all clean-up costs and damages from the massive leak that he likens to an epidemic America “will be fighting for months and even years.” While we are impressed by his determination to kick the obvious ass, we wonder, however, whether the values he projects by getting tough on irresponsible Big Business in the US will be applied to India as well, where a controvery has erupted over an American, Warren Anderson, who was the CEO of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) when the Bhopal gas disaster occurred in 1984. Warren, the so-called “Butcher of Bhopal,” remains a free man in the US despite having headed UCC when it caused, through proven corporate negligence, one of the world's worst industrial disasters. Thousands of people were killed and thousands others were maimed in the diasaster yet they or their families have got no compensation that can be deemed reasonable in any civilized country, let alone the world's largest democracy. We in India also wonder what moral ground remains for the Obama administration to still insist that, to make the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal work, New Delhi must ensure that foreign suppliers of nuclear material, equipment and manpower must not be held responsible for damages in the event of an accident. The case for double standards will no doubt be made against the US president, especially by the very vociferous Indian media but, in all fairness, Indians also need to set their house in order before expecting Obama to do it for them. Indian Law Minister Veerappa Moily made that dire need clear earlier this week when he proposed to enact a law, which has its origins in the US, to permit class action suits against corporates found guilty, even if it is through vicarious liability. The absence of such a law is why the Bhopal disaster victims and their families have not got due compensation. Moily's proposal is all the more welcome because India is rushing to become an economic superpower by increasing its industrial, infrastructure and energy production capacities through foreign collaboration, which makes the chances of a Bhopal-like disaster occurring far higher than in 1984. However, stringent laws and saftey standards alone will not do. India remains notoriously corrupt, especially at the top. A German daily in a recent editorial descibed the country as “a Banana Republic” instead of an economic superpower, and there's little argument to the contrary unless, of course, you are a diehard Indian chauvinist of the kind that sees no reason why chilled cow urine must not be made a national drink. That's why even Moily's quick reaction to try and undo the Bhopal wrong is suspect. After all, it was the Congress party that was in power when, four days after the Bhopal gas leak, Andersen was flown out of Madhya Pradesh state (of which Bhopal is the capital) in an official plane provided by the then state chief minister, Arjun Singh, a Congressman. NDTV has broadcast what it claims is footage of Arjun Singh when he visited the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal just four days after the disaster. The video shows him standing outside the factory and saying “There was no intention to prosecute anyone or harass anyone. Therefore he (Anderson) was granted bail and he agreed to be present in court if charges are made.” But not once in the 25 years since the disaster did Anderson make a court appearance in India. When the verdict was announced last week, seven Carbide executives, all of them Indian, were found guilty and punished with a mild rap on the knuckles. Earlier this week, in the wake of public outrage over the verdict and the subsequent Anderson affair, the Congress-led federal government did a suspicious turnaround by withdrawing an amendment to the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill that would have prevented the federal government from holding suppliers of nuclear material, equipment and manpower responsible in the event of a site accident. That's not all. Now it reportedly turns out that a comprehensive survey privately conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Bhopal (TISS) just two weeks after the leak, to detemine the extent of the disaster, was canned by the Arjun Singh government. Those were the days before computers and TISS was unable to keep copies of the truckload of valuable data that was submitted to the government. The Hindu newspaper, which frontpaged the story, said the survey findings included information about the number of people dead, orphaned children, pregnant women, lost domestic animals, injuries, breathing complications, and blindness among other crucial data. Why has the survey report still not seen the light of the day? Does the Congress party have something to hide? Rajiv Gandhi, the late husband of Sonia Gandhi who is the Congress supremo today, was the prime minister in 1984. Public anger is building up over allegations of a coverup. On Wednesday ahead of our print deadline, the Congress's media-cell head slapped a gag order on Congress leaders, asking them not to speak out of turn about the insinuations. So far, the Congress has officially said only this about Anderson, delivered by party spokesperson Manish Tewari: “Rajiv Gandhi or his government had nothing to do with it. It is baseless and cheap to insinuate that a prime minister, who had to sacrifice his mother just one-and-a-half months ago (before assuming his office) and then sacrificed his own life five years later for the nation's integrity, allowed somebody to escape out of the country under any pressure (from the US).” He added: “I do not think that those who are leveling such allegations have any patriotism left in them.” Patriotism? [email protected]. __
