Bhopal: The Other Story

Or why the Bhopal Gas victims are better off without the hordes that will descend—yet again—to feast on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.

Or why the Bhopal Gas victims are better off without the hordes that will descend—yet again—to feast on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.

During my first year in Bhopal as state correspondent for The Indian Express I was left bemused by the hostility and suspicion with which victims of the gas tragedy greeted the annual deluge of visitors from Delhi and abroad on the December 3 anniversary. By the time I left Bhopal I had come to share this attitude.

It is not as if the victims do not need help. Each day more than 6,000 still seek medical aid for a host of respiratory ailments at designated medical centres. For them the process is an exercise in daily humiliation and there is almost none to help them out. The Monitoring Committee for Medical Rehabilitation of Bhopal Gas Victims set up by the Supreme Court in 2004, a full 20 years after the tragedy, has been without a chairperson for the last year and a half.
Bhopal itself has two prominent organisations working for the victims. While both have moved the court in several cases to seek relief and justice, on the ground they operate in very different fashions. The Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, led by Abdul Jabbar, focuses on helping the victims in their daily quest for medical help. The other, the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, led by Satinath Sarangi, focuses on efforts to inform the outside world of what is unfolding in Bhopal.

Abdul Jabbar is a man who speaks little or no English, his organisation has very little presence on the Web, yet for the victims, he is the only one who can help out with their daily struggle. Satinath Sarangi is fluent in English, hosts a website that provides detailed information on every aspect of the tragedy and is the link between Bhopal and the outside world. His work in Bhopal is limited to an ayurvedic dispensary.

When I first reached Bhopal, I thought the two were an ideal foil for each other. But as is now common knowledge among activists, the two detest each other. Over the years this has resulted in the erasure of Jabbar’s role outside Bhopal simply because foreign correspondents, representatives of international NGOs as well as reporters from the English language Indian media reach Bhopal requiring pre-digested information. In the day or two they spend in the city they want their hands held by someone fluent in English who can mediate between them and the victims. Satinath fits this role perfectly, Jabbar doesn’t.

In 2004, reporting on the twentieth anniversary for Tehelka, I wrote of my fear that the outside world would mistake Satinath’s message for the reality of Jabbar’s Bhopal. As if in confirmation a few years later, Indra Sinha published his book Animal’s People that places a character clearly based on Satinath at the centre of the victims’ struggle in a city based on Bhopal. A part of the proceeds from the sale of the book go to Satinath’s organisation.
When I alluded to this problem in an earlier column, Indra Sinha weighed in with claims about the autonomy of fiction. But where events such as the Bhopal tragedy or the Gujarat riots are concerned, fiction loses its autonomy. No writer can claim he has the right to mould such material to his will. However reasonable the intention, a half-truth in this setting is an abomination with unfortunate consequences. The victims themselves can hardly raise money to support the organisations working in Bhopal, funds flow in from outside and they do not flow equitably. Thanks to patrons such as Greenpeace and Indra Sinha, Satinath is flush with funds, Jabbar has none. The money from the outside world goes mainly towards providing more information on Bhopal to the outside world while the man whose help the victims most need is left bereft.

No doubt I will hear from many indignant activists, but don’t be fooled. The people who Jabbar helps have little or no access to the English media or the internet, they won’t be writing in. If you want the truth, don’t pay attention to those who parachute in for a day or two or those who claim to understand Bhopal from London, don’t even take my word for any of this. Go to Bhopal armed with a knowledge of Hindi and see for yourself. Allow yourself a month or two in the city to see how the victims who cannot obtain the medicine they need are helped by a story on the front page of the New York Times or a book on the Booker shortlist. Perhaps, you will also come to know why they remain sceptical of the hordes from outside who will descend to feast on another anniversary.

anniversaryBhopal Gas Tragedy