Revisiting the US-enabled mass murders that India endured

India must shed its diffidence and remind the US that moral authority cannot rest with those who trade human lives for geopolitical gain.

- SEMU BHATT

A week after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, India marks the anniversary of another tragedy: the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, one of the world's worst industrial catastrophes, caused by a US company. On the same day in 1971, after months of dealing with an enormous humanitarian crisis triggered by mass killings of East Pakistani civilians by the US-backed Pakistani military regime, India was ultimately thrust into war.

As India faces the consequences of weaponised US intelligence and judicial apparatus, alongside the US-installed regime in Bangladesh freeing terrorists and persecuting religious minorities, particularly Hindus, it is crucial to revisit the dark legacy of US-enabled mass murders that India endured, and which the US has shrugged off.

BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY, 1984 On the night of 2nd-3rd December 1984, an accident at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal, a subsidiary of the US-based Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), released deadly Methyl Isocyanate gas, instantly killing around 3,000 people. In 1989, victims received USD 470 million in compensation from UCC-a paltry sum for a disaster that is estimated to have cost over 22,000 lives, injured over 500,000, and has had an ongoing impact in terms of health, congenital disorders and environmental issues.

When Dow Chemical acquired UCC in 2001, it absolved itself of all responsibility. While Dow set aside USD 2.2 billion for UCC's asbestos workers in Texas, a Dow spokesperson remarked, "USD 500 is plenty good for an Indian." Interestingly, in 1999, UCC falsely claimed in a disclosure related to the Dow merger that there were no ongoing legal actions. How ever, in 1992, an Indian court had declared the company an absconder, with the judicial proclamation published in the Washington Post. This raises serious concerns about the US Securities and Exchange Commission's wilful disregard for the truth.

All along, the US went to great lengths to support.