Episode 3: Hosla

EPISODE 3: HOSLA

ACT I

Molly: Less than a year after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the government of India filed suit against Union Carbide, demanding 3.3 billion dollars in compensation for the survivors of the gas leak.

     But for reasons we’ll get into later in this episode, Union Carbide – an American company  – never had to face the US court system. The lawsuit went ahead in Indian courts, where it dragged out for years, marred by scandal and accusations of corruption. In 1989, five years later, the parties reached a final out-of-court settlement of $470 million dollars, less than one seventh of the original ask.

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Apoorva: USD $470 million. Compare that to the $4 Billion, with a B, that Exxon paid after its Valdez oil spill, or the $42 Billion that BP paid for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The compensation awarded was less than USD $1000 per person when divided by 500,000 victims, the current estimate of how many people are affected today. Many survivors that I spoke with saw this secret settlement as a betrayal by the Indian government and clear evidence that the government cared more about a foreign corporation than its own people. And this was just the first hurdle. The next and bigger challenge was determining how to get the money to the 500,000 victims. 

Molly: But before we get to that, let’s take a look at those five years between 1984 and 1989. While the courts were slowly determining whose fault the tragedy was and who should pay the compensation, the world was waking up to the news of the disaster, and the gas survivors were busy organizing.

 

INTRO

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Molly: This is the story of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, of the men, women, and children who survived it, and the decades-long struggle for justice, compensation, and the right to clean drinking water.

Apoorva: This is the story of the Bhopalis who were shaped but not defined by the disaster, of hope, of resilience, and of memory.

Molly: This is They Knew Which Way to Run.

     Please note that this podcast contains depictions of death and loss that some people may find disturbing. I’m Molly Mulroy.

Apoorva: And I’m Apoorva Dixit. 

Apoorva: Episode 3: Hosla

 

ACT II

Apoorva: In the days and weeks following the Bhopal Gas tragedy, this news, of course, made headlines! Various news sources around the world were quick to pick up the story. That story, though, often differed, offering varying death toll numbers, differing theories as to what caused the leak, and a number of different perspectives as to what should happen going forward. Generally speaking, Indian news sources the next morning just reported what they had been told by the government. There was practically no mention of Union Carbide, and many of the sources, like the Madhya Pradesh Chronicle and The Hitavada, referenced university professors and quote “experts” from Delhi who claimed that methyl isocyanate was not a toxic gas and couldn’t possibly be the reason for such serious damage.

Molly: American media was better about referencing Union Carbide by name — it was, after all, an American company. And yet many of the news sources, racing to Bhopal to provide their audiences with shocking video footage of the death and destruction, made it very clear where they believed the blame lay. John Cochran, reporting for NBC News from New Delhi on Dec 6, 1984, put it this way:

John Cochran [archival audio]: When the shock of the Union Carbide tragedy has finally subsided, India will still be a poor, third-world country. It will still desperately need Western industries. But the Indian government cannot guarantee high safety standards. 

Molly: That news clipping is just one example of the paternalistic outlook that the only thing that “poor” India has to offer to support “us,” the West, is labor.  

Apoorva: It’s not just the news clipping. It’s a window into this larger mindset of not only the American corporation but also the American government. This was not a fair trade deal. India and the US were not two equal business partners. 

Molly: And there’s a term for this, right? Neocolonialism. It’s the idea that it’s the U.S.’s – or any Western quote-unquote developed nation’s – burden to enlighten the poor, third-world countries with their advanced technologies, and it is exactly the mindset that colonizers had who believed it was their burden to enlighten the savages with civilization and Christianity. 

Apoorva: As if the white saviors are such selfless givers. The truth is rich countries and colonizers benefited most from these relationships. The idea resulted in investment by multinational corporations that enriched few in poorer countries and instead caused huge humanitarian, environmental and ecological disasters.

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Molly: Exactly, the NBC clip makes it sound like the Union Carbide factory was some gift that the U.S. gave to India. But was it? I mean, the area around the factory was populated largely by villagers who had migrated in from the nearby rural areas in search of work. They had nowhere else to go, so they had settled illegally on public land at the edge of the city, near the railway station. This was THEIR community. So what did they make of this giant new factory that cropped up in their backyard?

Apoorva: When I was talking to the survivors, oftentimes they would say they  had no idea what this factory was doing, you know? They would just walk by the walls and knew that there was something in the distance. And others worked for the factory. There were many people in this community, in J.P. Nagar and the surrounding communities that worked for Union Carbide and believed that it was providing good jobs and believed that it was a good source of income. But in reality, sure, the factory provided a couple thousand jobs over the years. But at what price?. Who really benefited from this relationship? 

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ACT III

Molly: American personal injury lawyers descended upon Bhopal just days after the tragedy and quickly brought civil litigation against Union Carbide Corporation in the U.S.  An important distinction to draw at this point is that Union Carbide Corporation – UCC – is different from Union Carbide India Limited – UCIL. UCC was the parent American corporation who owned a 51% stake in UCIL, the Indian subsidiary. Immediately, the question became which one of these entities was responsible and where. Should UCC be tried in the U.S? Should UCIL be tried in India? Should UCC be tried in India? By April, just 5 months after the tragedy, attorneys from 29 American firms had filed federal lawsuits in the United States seeking more than $100 billion on behalf of 148,000 victims. 

Apoorva: Also in April 1985, the Parliament of India passed the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act of 1985, which stripped individual citizens’ rights to sue Union Carbide directly, centralizing all claims under the government. While framed as a tool to give the Indian government collective bargaining power and protect the uneducated survivors, the Act was more insidious than that.

Molly: American attorneys responded by suing the Indian government to continue to represent their clients. They argued their clients were being denied their right to due process, and what would happen if they were presented with a settlement they didn’t agree with? These lawyers argued that the Indian Government had a potential conflict of interest if the nation was named as a defendant in the suits for damages. The government was culpable, after all, for not inspecting the factory and for allowing it to be built so close to populated areas. 

Apoorva: During this back and forth, UCC was already negotiating with the Indian government in hopes of settling out of court. They wanted to avoid the participation of American plaintiff lawyers altogether, along with the intensive questioning and disclosure of documents that would come with American lawsuits. The American suit against the Indian government failed, however, and Parliament succeeded in passing the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act of 1985. 

     Here’s my dad’s reaction:

Ashish: And this I realized even when I grew older. I didn’t realize while I was that young boy. I heard about this Bhopal Gas Tragedy Act, where the government of India pretty much passed a law, and I, a citizen of Bhopal, had forfeited my right to sue Union Carbide. Because they said there were poor people in Bhopal, and they would be misled. So they wanted to represent Bhopal overall, versus every individual going and suing Union Carbide. So I, as a citizen of Bhopal, have lost my right to sue Union Carbide because the government took that right away from me by passing this law in the Parliament.

Apoorva: Once the cases were consolidated under the Indian government, they were presented in front of U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan of New York. The Indian government was asking for $3.3 billion in compensation. UCC’s first move was to ask for dismissal on the grounds that another court was better suited to hear the arguments. The plaintiff, the Indian government, however, was arguing for the trial to occur in the U.S.

Molly: In May of 1986, Judge Keenan sided with UCC and granted the motion of dismissal. ”To retain the litigation in this forum, as plaintiffs request, would be yet another example of imperialism, another situation in which an established sovereign inflicted its rules, its standards and values on a developing nation,” Judge Keenan’s opinion said. ”This Court declines to play such a role. The Union of India is a world power in 1986, and its courts have the proven capacity to mete out fair and equal justice.”

     It’s an interesting argument Judge Keenan made. To a certain extent, he’s empowering India to take charge of what happened within its borders. It would be imperialist and paternalistic to allow the U.S. to decide on these matters. So why was the Indian government arguing against it?

Apoorva: Well, the Indian government claimed that the Indian legal system did not have a well-developed body of law set up to deal with complicated questions of civil liability. They argued that the Indian courts were ill-equipped to handle such a huge litigation, like the Bhopal suits, and that the cases would drag on for decades. And, sadly, they were right.

 

ACT IV

Molly: So in 1987, proceedings for compensation began in Bhopal District Court with the major question being who was liable to pay the compensation? UCC, the American parent corporation, UCIL, the Indian subsidiary, or, better yet, an unknown saboteur?

UCC argued that, first, there was no negligence, and secondly, if there was negligence, it was not their fault. In regards to negligence, they claimed a myriad of excuses, including the possibility of a saboteur causing the leak. But in regards to fault, UCC claimed it had no hand in the day-to-day operations of the Indian subsidiary. It wasn’t UCC who had made the call to reduce training for key personnel and a number of other controversial decisions, they said, and so it was the Indian subsidiary UCIL’s fault. 

Apoorva: This was happening in Judge G.S Patel’s court. Patel Uncle, as I knew him, was my grandpa’s best friend and our neighbor in Judge Colony. He came over for chai at 6pm almost every day. He and Baba had been going on walks together around Bada Talab for decades, and had been neighbors for even longer than that. Patel Uncle is a jovial man, not exactly what you’d expect of a judge. He was always making jokes and poking fun at Baba in a way no one else dared to. As the granddaughter, I saw a very different side of Baba and Patel Uncle from their colleagues or even their own children. I didn’t see them as the formidable judges everyone else saw them as.

     Despite having grown up with Patel Uncle, it wasn’t until I moved to India for my research that I realized what a critical role he had played after the gas tragedy, specifically in the compensation trials. As the ruling judge over the main compensation trial, he began issuing decisions against UCC, including that they sequester funds to pay plaintiffs. Here’s Patel Uncle himself.

G. S. Patel: I gave the ruling that they cannot restrain, mortgage, or even touch the property of Union carbide until the case is decided. The main company was Union Carbide Corporation. Union Carbide of India was a subsidiary, so I gave the ruling to UCC. I told them that I will decide the case in one month, and that terrified them. Everybody got a copy of my order, so no one can dispute what I said and when. Even the journalists got a copy.

     My ruling was not overruled. Union Carbide was scared that I would give a decision too fast so they decided to settle the case. That was the compromise UCC and government reached. Settlement by way of compromise.

Apoorva: But before he could issue a final ruling, he was taken off the case. In February 1987, a claim was made that he himself was a victim of the gas tragedy and had filed for damages. Due to this conflict of interest, he was removed. However, Patel Uncle has a very different story to tell:

G.S. Patel: With regards to the Gas tragedy, the government of Madhya Pradesh and the government of India are still responsible. Union Carbide is a multinational corporation and it was up to the government to regulate it. They failed to control the company. I made a case of it, and they dismissed the case. I was a judge on the case, and they dismissed me from the case. They claimed that I had a conflict, that I was involved in the case… But I was not involved. 

     I did not receive any compensation. I received nothing. Even afterwards, I did not. The reason they claimed that I received compensation is because whenever national priorities are concerned, it’s a high stakes game, so the whole world lies.

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Molly: What exactly happened, we may never know. Whether this was a government and Union Carbide collusion to remove a sympathetic judge or a judge with a conflict of interest, we don’t know. The fact of the matter is not a single person in Bhopal was unaffected by the tragedy, and Judge Patel was making rulings against UCC. 

     Soon after, another judge took over the case and decided to reward the victims Rs. 350 crore, or about USD $1.5 billion, only half of what was originally asked for. However, UCC refused to pay and this case was brought to the Indian Supreme court. In 1989, UCC, UCIL, and the Government of India settled out of court for a total sum of $470 million dollars.

Apoorva: 470 million US dollars. That’s it. Many of the Bhopalis I spoke with were enraged with this settlement. They were silenced. They were left out from the official channels of justice. Although Union Carbide was compensating the survivors, it was a fraction of what they deserved, and when divided between 500,000 victims, it amounted to less than $1,000 USD each.

     Meanwhile, the communities most devastated by the tragedy were left to pick up the pieces. Homes and property were destroyed, families were devastated, and many households were left without a breadwinner. In the summer of 1985, protestors demanded the government provide jobs for survivors of the tragedy. Those protests began a decades-long struggle for justice that continues to this day.

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ACT V

Apoorva [phone interview]: But I think this goes more into … and this is an area I’m only really now starting to explore … but Bhopal’s aversion against activism and activists. That’s a whole different category, like research is one thing and that is acceptable and that is respectable, but activism is another thing, and the two should not mix. 

Molly: That was from a phone call I had with Apoorva when she first got to India. It only took her six weeks to realize that activism wasn’t as popular in the upper strata of society in Bhopal. What do you think about that now, Apoorva? 

Apoorva: What’s so interesting is that I genuinely used to think that this was something unique to India. I used to think that because India is… I don’t know, because the suffering in India is uniquely visible, that somehow the people in India are uniquely apathetic. But what I’ve realized now living through the modern-day Civil Rights Movement that gripped the US after George Floyd’s murder is that that’s just not true. The people that benefit by the status quo will always think of activism as a nuisance, and they will always try to look the other way. 

Molly: Yeah, I mean, already summer of 2020, which was the largest collection of protests this country has ever seen, feels like such a distant memory. 

Apoorva: But that’s what’s so amazing about activists. They continue working regardless of whether the world is paying attention. They know you can’t time the moment, they know that they just have to be ready when the moment does come.

Molly: Despite many Bhopalis’ apathy at best — and active resistance at worst — there has been plenty of activism in Bhopal the past several decades. Much of it started just months after the tragedy occurred. One of the most famous and most vocal activists Bhopal has ever seen is Rasheeda Bi. We heard about Rasheeda Bi’s harrowing experience in the chaos of the night of the tragedy in episode one. 

Apoorva:  I met Rasheeda Bi, along with her friend and fellow activist, Champa Devi Shukla, at their school, Chingari Rehabilitation Center. This is a special needs school that serves the disabled children of Bhopal’s impoverished gas survivors. It was Holi the day that I met them. Holi is the Hindu festival of colors that symbolizes spring renewal, and is often played with lots of bright, colored powers. Playful screams punctuated the Bollywood music blasting in the hallway. The smells of the freshly prepared mattar paneer and a haze of colored powders floated in the air. Rasheeda Bi sat next to me, exuding a calm that marks her a leader, somehow having escaped the Holi frenzy with a sole streak of pink across her cheek. In the school’s alphabet room, Rasheeda wove a tale she knows well. Her life began in burqa, never having spoken to a man unrelated to her. She never learned to read or write. Her world was her makeshift house in the slums of J.P. Nagar – until the night of December 2nd, 1984.

Molly: Now we’re going to do something a little different. For the rest of the episode, we’ll be hearing Rasheeda Bi tell her story herself: how she took the hosla, or courage, she had the night of the tragedy and turned it into a global movement. 

Rasheeda Bi: After the gas leak, we stayed in our village for 6 months, but Bhopal is where we have employment and we can get daily bread. We got back the summer of 1985, and there were protests going on to get the survivors a job. We found out that they had opened a center near Bharat Talkies movie theater where they would train women to learn tailoring for 3 months. So I showed up and signed my name. I said I’ll do whatever I need to do. My husband can’t see, and we are very distressed. So they paid us Rs. 150 per month – 5 rupees a day. And they took 100 women: 50 Muslim and 50 Hindu. 

Molly: 150 rupees in 1985 is worth about 2000 rupees today – not even US $25. They were being paid barely a liveable wage but the promise was they would learn a skill that would last them a lifetime. 

Rasheedi Bi: They didn’t give us any work, though. We would just sit there all day, and they would give us Rs. 5 and we’d go home. After three months of this, they said, okay go home. And we said but we haven’t learned anything! They said they couldn’t do anything. This was only supposed to be for 3 months and that’s all. They said that the Collector was coming and maybe he will listen to you. 

     We asked, what is a collector? They said that it was the person in charge of this township. His name is Parwesh Sharma, and you can talk to him. And I said, how can I talk to him? I’ve never talked to a strange man. I’d never taken off my burqa, I’d never stepped out of the house, so how could I? But the women urged me and Champa Devi, whom I called didi. They said to have hosla, meaning courage, and do it. 

Apoorva: Rasheedi Bi met Champa Devi didi, as she calls her, at the skills center. She calls her didi, which means “older sister” in Hindi. Apa, which we use to refer to Rasheeda, means “older sister” in Urdu. This incredible friendship between a Muslim and Hindu woman became the foundation of their strength, their hosla, and Rasheeda Bi refers to her often in this story.

Rasheeda Bi: When Sharma came, they said that he couldn’t do anything. He said to go to the Chief Minister, or CM for short. We asked who was that? He said that the CM is the person in charge of the state and what he wants, he can make happen. The next morning, we met with him and asked him for jobs. He asked if we’d work at this rate and for this job? We said we have to do whatever rate and whatever, we just needed a job. So he said, okay you’ll get a job. 

     We went back all happy that we’d gotten a job for all of us women! So again we had to report for a month and not do anything all day. We only worked one day. At the end of the month, they gave us a wage of Rs. 6 for the month! When we saw those 6 rupees, we lost our minds! We used to get Rs. 150, what were we supposed to do with these 6 rupees? 

     Didi and I and everyone decided that we would NOT take these 6 rupees. Instead, we would work for free for the government. The government, it seemed, was going hungry, whereas our stomachs had been filled by the gas. So we didn’t need to eat.

Apoorva: In case anybody missed it, Rasheeda Bi is being sarcastic here. In all my conversations with Rasheeda, I really appreciated her biting wit and her low tolerance for nonsense.

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Rasheeda Bi: For 3 months, we didn’t eat. They kept trying to convince us to take the 6 rupees, and we said no. They said they would increase work for us, so they increased it to Rs. 50, and then Rs. 100 a month. This way, two and a half years went by. Then we realized that there was some profit being made off of us. We said to institute the “Factory Act.” 

     In 1948, they passed a law that said over 20 people working together were protected under the Factory Act. In case the roof caves in, someone gets hurt, whatever, we were insured under the Factory Act. When we asked for that they told us that our tongue was too long. They said you talk very big, but we can’t do that. 

     So we started protesting. We started a whole production, and after 28 days, they listened to us. They said they’d increase our salary and make it Rs. 535 a month. Then we figured out that for our exact job, others were getting paid Rs. 1400 a month, and we were only making Rs. 500. Why?

     They said it’s because you’re a gas survivor. We said we didn’t inhale the gas of our own free will. And besides, everyone in this city is a gas survivor. So is that man making Rs. 1400, so reduce his income. Or else, increase ours.

     They didn’t listen, so on 1st June 1989, we decided to walk to Delhi on foot. 

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Rasheeda Bi: We had never seen Delhi, we had no money, and 100 women were with us along with 25 kids and 7 boys that worked with us. We literally asked people for directions to Delhi. We would follow the stone marking along the highway to figure out how many kilometers we had.

     We would camp in the jungle sometimes. We would just stop wherever it was free to stop. Sometimes the village chief would feed us, sometimes the Superintendent of Police, sometimes Collector would, sometimes the community members would give us food. Sometimes we’dask for it, or make it ourselves by finding wood for fire and fruit in the jungle. 

     Once we made up our minds, there was no stopping us. We had all of these women who worked with us who weren’t even married yet, but their parents said that wherever Apa and Didi are going, you can go too. This was a very big deal that the parents would support us this way. 

     When the kids were hungry, the mothers would sell their jewelry to feed them: their anklets, their wedding necklaces. Kids would cry from hunger. It was also so hot. When our flip flops broke, we didn’t have money to buy another, so we would wrap leaves around our feet. It was so hot that the cement of the road was melting. 

Molly: Temperatures in Madhya Pradesh, where Bhopal is located, and other central Indian states in June are generally around 100 degrees F and can hit as high as 120 degrees F. The dark road absorbs the heat and can become even hotter than 120 degrees – hot enough that the tarmac literally melts.

Rasheeda Bi: We all had huge blisters on our feet. We would just tie a leaf and carry on. We were just taking care of each other. No one was admitting defeat. They all looked to us, and they would say that if Apa and Didi are doing it, then we have to as well. That was our hosla. If Apa Didi said so, if they’re doing so, then we have to too.

     In whatever way, we have to go. People used to say, “when the rains start, half of you will die.” And I said that when we’re ahead, the rain will be behind us and when we’re behind, the rain will be ahead of us. And that’s what happened. We were never rained upon. It was always ahead or behind us.

     We used to sleep in the jungle but we were never bitten by snakes or scorpions. We’d wake up in the morning. And we’d just wash our face, and move on. One of us would always stay up to keep watch. One time, everyone was asleep but me, and I saw the biggest black snake in the trees above us. And I just held my breath because I didn’t want to wake anyone or cause panic, and it just went by in the trees.

     We arrived on July 3rd. All 100 women made it.

Apoorva: While Rasheeda Bi’s story began with tragedy, it became one of hosla. It is the hosla that she taps into the night of the Gas Tragedy, it is the hosla that leads her to organize marches to Delhi and around the globe, and it is hosla that does not allow her to underestimate herself and her community. As she talked about the power of womanhood and the next generation, I felt her power. Her ability to convince you of your own strength, her ability to weave a tale that felt almost spiritual of normal wage workers taking their destiny into their own hands. 

 

OUTRO

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Molly: You’ve been listening to They Knew Which Way to Run. Tune in next time to hear the next chapter of Rasheeda Bi’s epic story, about Warren Anderson – the now-infamous CEO of Union Carbide – and the messy start of the compensation distribution. 

Apoorva: We encourage you to check out our website at www.TheyKnewWhichWaytoRun.com, where you can learn more information about the tragedy, see photos of the survivors, and make a donation to NGOs on the ground still fighting for justice to this day. You can also read a transcript of this episode. This podcast series is written, edited, and produced by me and Molly Mulroy. Quinn Mulroy is our sound editor and associate producer.

Molly: All the interviews used in our podcast were conducted by Apoorva Dixit both independently and while working with Sambhavna Clinic and photographer Francesca Moore. Our transcription specialist is Avi Dixit, our copy editor is Julia Hamilton, our cover art was designed by Amey Zhang, our website designer is Ljiljana Brusic, and all of our music is composed by Derek Renfroe. 

Apoorva: Very big thank you to everyone who supported us with this podcast and the following Bhopalis for sharing their stories for this episode: Ashish Dixit, Judge G.S. Patel, and Rasheeda Bi. Also thank you to our voice actors: Mudit Misra, and Rachana Dixit.

     I’m Apoorva Dixit.

Molly: And I’m Molly Mulroy. Thank you for listening.