bhopal

Once in a while, i like to go to the nearby provisions store.

Often, it is to buy something.

On one such occasion last week, I stumbled upon an act of inspiring, maybe a little misplaced, integrity. An old man left the shop without the batteries he intended to purchase, because the only ones available were manufactured by a company called Eveready Ltd. "They make good batteries, you know ", I chipped in to help the good old shopkeeper, who has lost faith in micro-credit because of yours truly.

"They are the company responsible for the Bhopal gas tragedy, and I don’t intend to make killers any richer.” he retorted.

So, now I give him my not so often used 'Hey pal, it was Union Carbide' look.

He seemed to understand and told me Eveready batteries Ltd. was, in fact, Union Carbide India limited renamed.

Now, that I did not know.....

I did not know until then, that according to the official toll, there were 3,828 deaths, and 2,680 persons with permanent partial disability; 1,313 persons with temporary disability from permanent injury and 7,172 persons with temporary disability from temporary injury; 18,922 persons with permanent injury with no disability and 173,382 persons with temporary injury with no disability.

All I knew was that it was something terrible that happened in the month I was born. But now, I was seriously worried if I had funded the perpetrators in any way. Surely, a company, if in any way responsible for the tragedy, would not be allowed to function and actually make profits, just by renaming itself. I decided to check out if Eveready India Ltd was in any way responsible. Here's what I found out…

In November 1994, UCC completed the sale of its 50.9 percent interest in Union Carbide India Limited to McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. of Calcutta. Indian government financial institutions owned 26 percent of the shares and some 24,000 Indian private citizens owned the balance. UCIL is primarily a dry-cell battery manufacturer. UCIL was subsequently renamed, Eveready Industries India Ltd. (EIIL). As part of this transaction, EIIL became the leaser of the property and assumed full responsibility for the environmental clean up of the site.

I am not sure if the old man was right in brandishing EIIL as murderers. after all the company's owners did change, and they did take responsibility for cleaning the site.

What more could they have done? Maybe not buy the company at all. But, then, someone else would have. Well, whatever it is, public memory is cruelly short.

But, this gentleman remembered. He spoke exactly 2 lines to me and wiped out a fraction of my ignorance.

Here’s something else to think about...

If you have seen the brilliant movie "Erin Brockovich", you would know that the compensation given to the 600 Hinkley residents by Pacific Gas co. was $333 million. If I am allowed to be simplistic about it, this translates to roughly $0.5 million a person.

The total compensation to the 200165 (official) victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy was $470 million. Now, that translates to $2348 per victim.

$0.5 million v/s $2348.

We have a reason to feel shortchanged, right?