the bhopal gas tragedy case study

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Bhopal disaster

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• The University of New Mexico - The Bhopal Disaster of 1984
• University of Massachusetts Amherst - Bhopal Plant Disaster
• National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review
• University College London - The Bhopal gas tragedy 1984 to? The evasion of corporate responsibility
• The New York Times - The Bhopal Disaster: How it happened
• The Guardian - 'Bhopal’s tragedy has not stopped': the urban disaster still claiming lives 35 years on
• Academia - The Bhopal Disaster and Its Ramifications: A Brief Overview

What was the Bhopal disaster?

The Bhopal disaster was a chemical leak that occurred on December 3, 1984, in the Indian city of Bhopal. It killed an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people. At the time, it was the worst industrial accident in history.

What was the cause of the Bhopal disaster?

The Bhopal disaster occurred when about 45 tons of the gas methyl isocyanate escaped from a plant owned by a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corporation. Investigations later established that substandard operating and safety procedures at the understaffed plant had led to the catastrophe.

What was the aftermath of Bhopal disaster?

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people died as a result of the Bhopal disaster, and some 500,000 survivors suffered respiratory problems, blindness, and other health problems. In 2010 several former executives of the company that operated the Bhopal plant—all Indian citizens—were convicted of negligence.

Bhopal disaster , chemical leak in 1984 in the city of Bhopal , Madhya Pradesh state, India . At the time, it was called the worst industrial accident in history.

On December 3, 1984, about 45 tons of the dangerous gas methyl isocyanate escaped from an insecticide plant that was owned by the Indian subsidiary of the American firm Union Carbide Corporation . The gas drifted over the densely populated neighbourhoods around the plant, killing thousands of people immediately and creating a panic as tens of thousands of others attempted to flee Bhopal. The final death toll was estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000. Some half a million survivors suffered respiratory problems, eye irritation or blindness, and other maladies resulting from exposure to the toxic gas; many were awarded compensation of a few hundred dollars. Investigations later established that substandard operating and safety procedures at the understaffed plant had led to the disaster . In 1998 the former factory site was turned over to the state of Madhya Pradesh .

In the early 21st century more than 400 tons of industrial waste were still present on the site. Despite continued protests and attempts at litigation, neither the Dow Chemical Company , which bought out the Union Carbide Corporation in 2001, nor the Indian government had properly cleaned the site. Soil and water contamination in the area was blamed for chronic health problems and high instances of birth defects in the area’s inhabitants. In 2004 the Indian Supreme Court ordered the state to supply clean drinking water to the residents of Bhopal because of groundwater contamination. In 2010 several former executives of Union Carbide’s India subsidiary—all Indian citizens—were convicted by a Bhopal court of negligence in the disaster.

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Bhopal Gas Tragedy : Causes, effects and aftermath

The Bhopal gas tragedy occurred at midnight of December 2nd- 3rd December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) pesticide facility in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. This catastrophe affected around 500,000 people along with many animals. People who were exposed are still suffering as a result of the gas leak’s long-term health impacts. Chronic eye difficulties and respiratory problems were some issues due to it. Children who have been exposed have stunted growth and cognitive impairments. 

Table of Content

Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Bhopal gas tragedy case study, causes of bhopal gas tragedy, effects of bhopal gas tragedy, aftermath of bhopal gas tragedy.

Union Carbide was an American company that produced pesticides. MIC – methyl isocyanide, a dangerous poisonous gas began to leak at midnight on 2nd December 1984 from the Union Carbide factory. This MIC caused the Bhopal gas tragedy. The Bhopal gas tragedy was a fatal accident. It was one of the world’s worst industrial accidents. 

UCIL was a pesticide manufacturing plant that produced the insecticide carbaryl. Carbaryl was discovered by the American company Union Carbide Corporation, which owned a significant share in UCIL. As an intermediary, UCIL produced carbaryl using methyl isocyanate (MIC). Other techniques for producing the ultimate product are available, but they are more expensive. The very toxic chemical MIC is extremely dangerous to human health. Residents of Bhopal in the area of the pesticide plant began to feel irritated by the MIC and began fleeing the city.

Bhopal UCIL constructed three underground MIC storage tanks which were named E610, E611, and E619. On October 1984, E610 was not able to maintain its nitrogen gas pressure and so the liquid which is present inside the tank would not pump out, because of which 42 tons of MIC in E610 was wasted. The chemical in E610 was left unpumped as they were not able to re-establish its pressure, which later became responsible for Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

The main causes of Bhopal Gas Tragedy are as follows:

• During the buildup to the spill, the plant’s safety mechanisms for the highly toxic MIC were not working. The alarm off tanks of the plant had not worked properly.
• Many valves and lines were in disrepair, and many vent gas scrubbers were not working, as was the steam boiler that was supposed to clean the pipes.
• The MIC was stored in three tanks, with tank E610 being the source of the leak. This tank should have held no more than 30 tonnes of MIC, according to safety regulations.
• Water is believed to have entered the tank through a side pipe as technicians were attempting to clear it late that fatal night.
• This resulted in an exothermic reaction in the tank, progressively raising the pressure until the gas was ejected through the atmosphere.

The main effects of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy are as follows:

• Thousands had died as a result of choking, pulmonary edema, and reflexogenic circulatory collapse.
• Neonatal death rates increased by 200 percent.
• A huge number of animal carcasses have been discovered in the area, indicating the impact on flora and animals. The trees died after a few days. Food supplies have grown scarce due to the fear of contamination. 
• Fishing was also prohibited.
• In March 1985, the Indian government established the Bhopal Gas Leak Accident Act, giving it legal authority to represent all victims of the accident, whether they were in India or abroad.
• At least 200,000 youngsters were exposed to the gas.
• Hospitals were overcrowded, and there was no sufficient training for medical workers to deal with MIC exposure.

In the United States, UCC was sued in federal court. In one action, the court recommended that UCC pay between $5 million and $10 million to assist the victims. UCC agreed to pay a $5 million settlement. The Indian government, however, rejected this offer and claimed $3.3 billion. In 1989, UCC agreed to pay $470 million in damages and paid the cash immediately in an out-of-court settlement.

Warren Anderson, the CEO and Chairman of UCC was charged with manslaughter by Bhopal authorities in 1991. He refused to appear in court and the Bhopal court declared him a fugitive from justice in February 1992. Despite the central government’s efforts in the United States to extradite Anderson, nothing happened. Anderson died in 2014 without ever appearing in a court of law.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy continues to be an important warning sign for industrialization, for developing countries and in particular India, with human, environmental, and economic pitfalls. The economy of India is growing at a fast rate but at the cost of environmental health as well as public safety.

Frequently Asked Questions

What were the reasons behind bhopal gas tragedy.

The reasons behind Bhopal gas tragedy was a large volume of water had been introduced into the MIC tank and has caused a chemical reaction which did force the pressure release valve, which allowed the gas to leak.

What is the name of Bhopal gas case law?

The name is Union Carbide Corporation v.

Which gas was leaked in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy?

The gas which was leaked in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy is methyl isocyanate.

Was Bhopal gas tragedy an accident or experiment?

Bhopal gas tragedy was the world’s most worst industrial accident.

How many people died in the Bhopal Gas?

A total of 3,787 deaths were registered related to the gas release in case of Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

What were the four main demands of the Bhopal Gas victims?

The 4 demands of Bhopal Gas victims include: Proper medical treatment. Adequate compensation. Fixation of criminal responsibility Steps for prevention of such disasters in future.

How was Bhopal Gas Tragedy fixed?

Bhopal Gas Tragedy was fixed with construction of a secure landfill for holding the wastes from the two on-site solar evaporation ponds.

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How the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India has hurt multiple generations

Rhitu Chatterjee

Nearly 39 years after a gas from a pesticide factory poisoned tens of thousands of people in Bhopal, India, a new study finds that it also had health and economic impacts on men born a year later.

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• Published: 10 May 2005

The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review

• Edward Broughton 1  

Environmental Health volume  4 , Article number:  6 ( 2005 ) Cite this article

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On December 3 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, immediately killing at least 3,800 people and causing significant morbidity and premature death for many thousands more. The company involved in what became the worst industrial accident in history immediately tried to dissociate itself from legal responsibility. Eventually it reached a settlement with the Indian Government through mediation of that country's Supreme Court and accepted moral responsibility. It paid $470 million in compensation, a relatively small amount of based on significant underestimations of the long-term health consequences of exposure and the number of people exposed. The disaster indicated a need for enforceable international standards for environmental safety, preventative strategies to avoid similar accidents and industrial disaster preparedness.

Since the disaster, India has experienced rapid industrialization. While some positive changes in government policy and behavior of a few industries have taken place, major threats to the environment from rapid and poorly regulated industrial growth remain. Widespread environmental degradation with significant adverse human health consequences continues to occur throughout India.

Peer Review reports

December 2004 marked the twentieth anniversary of the massive toxic gas leak from Union Carbide Corporation's chemical plant in Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India that killed more than 3,800 people. This review examines the health effects of exposure to the disaster, the legal response, the lessons learned and whether or not these are put into practice in India in terms of industrial development, environmental management and public health.

In the 1970s, the Indian government initiated policies to encourage foreign companies to invest in local industry. Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) was asked to build a plant for the manufacture of Sevin, a pesticide commonly used throughout Asia. As part of the deal, India's government insisted that a significant percentage of the investment come from local shareholders. The government itself had a 22% stake in the company's subsidiary, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) [ 1 ]. The company built the plant in Bhopal because of its central location and access to transport infrastructure. The specific site within the city was zoned for light industrial and commercial use, not for hazardous industry. The plant was initially approved only for formulation of pesticides from component chemicals, such as MIC imported from the parent company, in relatively small quantities. However, pressure from competition in the chemical industry led UCIL to implement "backward integration" – the manufacture of raw materials and intermediate products for formulation of the final product within one facility. This was inherently a more sophisticated and hazardous process [ 2 ].

In 1984, the plant was manufacturing Sevin at one quarter of its production capacity due to decreased demand for pesticides. Widespread crop failures and famine on the subcontinent in the 1980s led to increased indebtedness and decreased capital for farmers to invest in pesticides. Local managers were directed to close the plant and prepare it for sale in July 1984 due to decreased profitability [ 3 ]. When no ready buyer was found, UCIL made plans to dismantle key production units of the facility for shipment to another developing country. In the meantime, the facility continued to operate with safety equipment and procedures far below the standards found in its sister plant in Institute, West Virginia. The local government was aware of safety problems but was reticent to place heavy industrial safety and pollution control burdens on the struggling industry because it feared the economic effects of the loss of such a large employer [ 3 ].

At 11.00 PM on December 2 1984, while most of the one million residents of Bhopal slept, an operator at the plant noticed a small leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and increasing pressure inside a storage tank. The vent-gas scrubber, a safety device designer to neutralize toxic discharge from the MIC system, had been turned off three weeks prior [ 3 ]. Apparently a faulty valve had allowed one ton of water for cleaning internal pipes to mix with forty tons of MIC [ 1 ]. A 30 ton refrigeration unit that normally served as a safety component to cool the MIC storage tank had been drained of its coolant for use in another part of the plant [ 3 ]. Pressure and heat from the vigorous exothermic reaction in the tank continued to build. The gas flare safety system was out of action and had been for three months. At around 1.00 AM, December 3, loud rumbling reverberated around the plant as a safety valve gave way sending a plume of MIC gas into the early morning air [ 4 ]. Within hours, the streets of Bhopal were littered with human corpses and the carcasses of buffaloes, cows, dogs and birds. An estimated 3,800 people died immediately, mostly in the poor slum colony adjacent to the UCC plant [ 1 , 5 ]. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed with the injured, a crisis further compounded by a lack of knowledge of exactly what gas was involved and what its effects were [ 1 ]. It became one of the worst chemical disasters in history and the name Bhopal became synonymous with industrial catastrophe [ 5 ].

Estimates of the number of people killed in the first few days by the plume from the UCC plant run as high as 10,000, with 15,000 to 20,000 premature deaths reportedly occurring in the subsequent two decades [ 6 ]. The Indian government reported that more than half a million people were exposed to the gas [ 7 ]. Several epidemiological studies conducted soon after the accident showed significant morbidity and increased mortality in the exposed population. Table 1 . summarizes early and late effects on health. These data are likely to under-represent the true extent of adverse health effects because many exposed individuals left Bhopal immediately following the disaster never to return and were therefore lost to follow-up [ 8 ].

Immediately after the disaster, UCC began attempts to dissociate itself from responsibility for the gas leak. Its principal tactic was to shift culpability to UCIL, stating the plant was wholly built and operated by the Indian subsidiary. It also fabricated scenarios involving sabotage by previously unknown Sikh extremist groups and disgruntled employees but this theory was impugned by numerous independent sources [ 1 ].

The toxic plume had barely cleared when, on December 7, the first multi-billion dollar lawsuit was filed by an American attorney in a U.S. court. This was the beginning of years of legal machinations in which the ethical implications of the tragedy and its affect on Bhopal's people were largely ignored. In March 1985, the Indian government enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act as a way of ensuring that claims arising from the accident would be dealt with speedily and equitably. The Act made the government the sole representative of the victims in legal proceedings both within and outside India. Eventually all cases were taken out of the U.S. legal system under the ruling of the presiding American judge and placed entirely under Indian jurisdiction much to the detriment of the injured parties.

In a settlement mediated by the Indian Supreme Court, UCC accepted moral responsibility and agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government to be distributed to claimants as a full and final settlement. The figure was partly based on the disputed claim that only 3000 people died and 102,000 suffered permanent disabilities [ 9 ]. Upon announcing this settlement, shares of UCC rose $2 per share or 7% in value [ 1 ]. Had compensation in Bhopal been paid at the same rate that asbestosis victims where being awarded in US courts by defendant including UCC – which mined asbestos from 1963 to 1985 – the liability would have been greater than the $10 billion the company was worth and insured for in 1984 [ 10 ]. By the end of October 2003, according to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, compensation had been awarded to 554,895 people for injuries received and 15,310 survivors of those killed. The average amount to families of the dead was $2,200 [ 9 ].

At every turn, UCC has attempted to manipulate, obfuscate and withhold scientific data to the detriment of victims. Even to this date, the company has not stated exactly what was in the toxic cloud that enveloped the city on that December night [ 8 ]. When MIC is exposed to 200° heat, it forms degraded MIC that contains the more deadly hydrogen cyanide (HCN). There was clear evidence that the storage tank temperature did reach this level in the disaster. The cherry-red color of blood and viscera of some victims were characteristic of acute cyanide poisoning [ 11 ]. Moreover, many responded well to administration of sodium thiosulfate, an effective therapy for cyanide poisoning but not MIC exposure [ 11 ]. UCC initially recommended use of sodium thiosulfate but withdrew the statement later prompting suggestions that it attempted to cover up evidence of HCN in the gas leak. The presence of HCN was vigorously denied by UCC and was a point of conjecture among researchers [ 8 , 11 – 13 ].

As further insult, UCC discontinued operation at its Bhopal plant following the disaster but failed to clean up the industrial site completely. The plant continues to leak several toxic chemicals and heavy metals that have found their way into local aquifers. Dangerously contaminated water has now been added to the legacy left by the company for the people of Bhopal [ 1 , 14 ].

Lessons learned

The events in Bhopal revealed that expanding industrialization in developing countries without concurrent evolution in safety regulations could have catastrophic consequences [ 4 ]. The disaster demonstrated that seemingly local problems of industrial hazards and toxic contamination are often tied to global market dynamics. UCC's Sevin production plant was built in Madhya Pradesh not to avoid environmental regulations in the U.S. but to exploit the large and growing Indian pesticide market. However the manner in which the project was executed suggests the existence of a double standard for multinational corporations operating in developing countries [ 1 ]. Enforceable uniform international operating regulations for hazardous industries would have provided a mechanism for significantly improved in safety in Bhopal. Even without enforcement, international standards could provide norms for measuring performance of individual companies engaged in hazardous activities such as the manufacture of pesticides and other toxic chemicals in India [ 15 ]. National governments and international agencies should focus on widely applicable techniques for corporate responsibility and accident prevention as much in the developing world context as in advanced industrial nations [ 16 ]. Specifically, prevention should include risk reduction in plant location and design and safety legislation [ 17 ].

Local governments clearly cannot allow industrial facilities to be situated within urban areas, regardless of the evolution of land use over time. Industry and government need to bring proper financial support to local communities so they can provide medical and other necessary services to reduce morbidity, mortality and material loss in the case of industrial accidents.

Public health infrastructure was very weak in Bhopal in 1984. Tap water was available for only a few hours a day and was of very poor quality. With no functioning sewage system, untreated human waste was dumped into two nearby lakes, one a source of drinking water. The city had four major hospitals but there was a shortage of physicians and hospital beds. There was also no mass casualty emergency response system in place in the city [ 3 ]. Existing public health infrastructure needs to be taken into account when hazardous industries choose sites for manufacturing plants. Future management of industrial development requires that appropriate resources be devoted to advance planning before any disaster occurs [ 18 ]. Communities that do not possess infrastructure and technical expertise to respond adequately to such industrial accidents should not be chosen as sites for hazardous industry.

Following the events of December 3 1984 environmental awareness and activism in India increased significantly. The Environment Protection Act was passed in 1986, creating the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and strengthening India's commitment to the environment. Under the new act, the MoEF was given overall responsibility for administering and enforcing environmental laws and policies. It established the importance of integrating environmental strategies into all industrial development plans for the country. However, despite greater government commitment to protect public health, forests, and wildlife, policies geared to developing the country's economy have taken precedence in the last 20 years [ 19 ].

India has undergone tremendous economic growth in the two decades since the Bhopal disaster. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has increased from $1,000 in 1984 to $2,900 in 2004 and it continues to grow at a rate of over 8% per year [ 20 ]. Rapid industrial development has contributed greatly to economic growth but there has been significant cost in environmental degradation and increased public health risks. Since abatement efforts consume a large portion of India's GDP, MoEF faces an uphill battle as it tries to fulfill its mandate of reducing industrial pollution [ 19 ]. Heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants and poor enforcement of vehicle emission laws have result from economic concerns taking precedence over environmental protection [ 19 ].

With the industrial growth since 1984, there has been an increase in small scale industries (SSIs) that are clustered about major urban areas in India. There are generally less stringent rules for the treatment of waste produced by SSIs due to less waste generation within each individual industry. This has allowed SSIs to dispose of untreated wastewater into drainage systems that flow directly into rivers. New Delhi's Yamuna River is illustrative. Dangerously high levels of heavy metals such as lead, cobalt, cadmium, chrome, nickel and zinc have been detected in this river which is a major supply of potable water to India's capital thus posing a potential health risk to the people living there and areas downstream [ 21 ].

Land pollution due to uncontrolled disposal of industrial solid and hazardous waste is also a problem throughout India. With rapid industrialization, the generation of industrial solid and hazardous waste has increased appreciably and the environmental impact is significant [ 22 ].

India relaxed its controls on foreign investment in order to accede to WTO rules and thereby attract an increasing flow of capital. In the process, a number of environmental regulations are being rolled back as growing foreign investments continue to roll in. The Indian experience is comparable to that of a number of developing countries that are experiencing the environmental impacts of structural adjustment. Exploitation and export of natural resources has accelerated on the subcontinent. Prohibitions against locating industrial facilities in ecologically sensitive zones have been eliminated while conservation zones are being stripped of their status so that pesticide, cement and bauxite mines can be built [ 23 ]. Heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants and poor enforcement of vehicle emission laws are other consequences of economic concerns taking precedence over environmental protection [ 19 ].

In March 2001, residents of Kodaikanal in southern India caught the Anglo-Dutch company, Unilever, red-handed when they discovered a dumpsite with toxic mercury laced waste from a thermometer factory run by the company's Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Lever. The 7.4 ton stockpile of mercury-laden glass was found in torn stacks spilling onto the ground in a scrap metal yard located near a school. In the fall of 2001, steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center was exported to India apparently without first being tested for contamination from asbestos and heavy metals present in the twin tower debris. Other examples of poor environmental stewardship and economic considerations taking precedence over public health concerns abound [ 24 ].

The Bhopal disaster could have changed the nature of the chemical industry and caused a reexamination of the necessity to produce such potentially harmful products in the first place. However the lessons of acute and chronic effects of exposure to pesticides and their precursors in Bhopal has not changed agricultural practice patterns. An estimated 3 million people per year suffer the consequences of pesticide poisoning with most exposure occurring in the agricultural developing world. It is reported to be the cause of at least 22,000 deaths in India each year. In the state of Kerala, significant mortality and morbidity have been reported following exposure to Endosulfan, a toxic pesticide whose use continued for 15 years after the events of Bhopal [ 25 ].

Aggressive marketing of asbestos continues in developing countries as a result of restrictions being placed on its use in developed nations due to the well-established link between asbestos products and respiratory diseases. India has become a major consumer, using around 100,000 tons of asbestos per year, 80% of which is imported with Canada being the largest overseas supplier. Mining, production and use of asbestos in India is very loosely regulated despite the health hazards. Reports have shown morbidity and mortality from asbestos related disease will continue in India without enforcement of a ban or significantly tighter controls [ 26 , 27 ].

UCC has shrunk to one sixth of its size since the Bhopal disaster in an effort to restructure and divest itself. By doing so, the company avoided a hostile takeover, placed a significant portion of UCC's assets out of legal reach of the victims and gave its shareholder and top executives bountiful profits [ 1 ]. The company still operates under the ownership of Dow Chemicals and still states on its website that the Bhopal disaster was "cause by deliberate sabotage". [ 28 ].

Some positive changes were seen following the Bhopal disaster. The British chemical company, ICI, whose Indian subsidiary manufactured pesticides, increased attention to health, safety and environmental issues following the events of December 1984. The subsidiary now spends 30–40% of their capital expenditures on environmental-related projects. However, they still do not adhere to standards as strict as their parent company in the UK. [ 24 ].

The US chemical giant DuPont learned its lesson of Bhopal in a different way. The company attempted for a decade to export a nylon plant from Richmond, VA to Goa, India. In its early negotiations with the Indian government, DuPont had sought and won a remarkable clause in its investment agreement that absolved it from all liabilities in case of an accident. But the people of Goa were not willing to acquiesce while an important ecological site was cleared for a heavy polluting industry. After nearly a decade of protesting by Goa's residents, DuPont was forced to scuttle plans there. Chennai was the next proposed site for the plastics plant. The state government there made significantly greater demand on DuPont for concessions on public health and environmental protection. Eventually, these plans were also aborted due to what the company called "financial concerns". [ 29 ].

The tragedy of Bhopal continues to be a warning sign at once ignored and heeded. Bhopal and its aftermath were a warning that the path to industrialization, for developing countries in general and India in particular, is fraught with human, environmental and economic perils. Some moves by the Indian government, including the formation of the MoEF, have served to offer some protection of the public's health from the harmful practices of local and multinational heavy industry and grassroots organizations that have also played a part in opposing rampant development. The Indian economy is growing at a tremendous rate but at significant cost in environmental health and public safety as large and small companies throughout the subcontinent continue to pollute. Far more remains to be done for public health in the context of industrialization to show that the lessons of the countless thousands dead in Bhopal have truly been heeded.

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Article contents

• Introduction
• A Brief History of Causal Selection
• Exceptions to Mill’s Pessimism
• Analyzing Pragmatics
• Causal Selection in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy
• Pragmatics of Leveson’s Reasoning
• Philosophical Analysis of Pragmatic Details
• The Philosophical Importance of Pragmatic Details

What Caused the Bhopal Gas Tragedy? The Philosophical Importance of Causal and Pragmatic Details

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

In cases in which many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as particularly important. Philosophers since Mill have been pessimistic about analyzing this reasoning because of its variability and the multifarious causal and pragmatic details of how it works. I argue Mill was right to think these details matter but wrong that they preclude philosophical analysis of causal selection. I show that analyzing the pragmatic details of scientific debates about the important causes of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy can illuminate causal reasoning about disasters and shed new light on causality and causal selection.

1. Introduction

Why are some causes judged to be more important than others? Do some causes have features that make them more important? Or are these judgments unfounded? In cases in which many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as particularly important and background the others. Causal selection is used regularly in scientific and everyday reasoning. Yet, philosophers tend to respond to it with either pessimism or retreat. Many doubt its merit as a philosophically interesting form of reasoning or simply ignore it in favor of more general notions of causality. The variability in how causes are selected and the diverse pragmatic details about different rules, reasons, and purposes involved in selecting important causes across different contexts lead many to these dismissive conclusions.

I argue that embracing the pragmatics of causal selection, something most philosophers avoid, is key to understanding how this reasoning works. Ignoring these details leaves important cases of causal selection intractable. While the reasoning behind causal selection does indeed vary, there are principled and philosophically interesting ways to analyze the pragmatics of causal selection. I show this by analyzing safety scientists’ reasoning about the important causes of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the deadliest industrial disaster in history.

Before proceeding, it is important to distinguish two senses of “causal selection.” Philosophers of science typically conceive causal selection in terms of distinctions among many causal factors. They analyze how scientists reason about important causes in cases with many causal factors. For example, Waters ( Reference Waters 2007 ) examines why genetic causes are more important than nongenetic causes for explanatory reasoning in biology. Philosophers of causation working in an analytic tradition are interested in a different sense of selecting causes. They analyze distinctions made between genuine causes and mere background conditions (Schaffer Reference Schaffer 2005 , Reference Schaffer and Zalta 2016 ). This sense of causal selection is set in terms of distinguishing causes from noncauses. For example, Schaffer ( Reference Schaffer 2005 ) asks why a spark is selected as “the cause” of a fire, while oxygen is a mere (noncausal) background condition. In this article causal selection is conceived in the former sense.

Despite significant discrepancies, a common thread binds together much of the literature on causal selection. The thread is John Stuart Mill. Waters ( Reference Waters 2007 ) uses Mill as a foil. Schaffer ( Reference Schaffer and Zalta 2016 ) takes Mill to offer the “main argument” for the “standard view.” Mill’s ( Reference Mill 1843/1981 ) discussion of causal selection has a pervasive influence on how philosophers think about causal selection. His pessimism and dismissive conclusions about it continue to frame the philosophical problem.

2. A Brief History of Causal Selection

Since John Stuart Mill, causal selection has been rightly associated with variability. Mill demonstrates that even when selections follow a fixed rule, there is significant variability in how selections are made. A single rule can pick out various types of causes across different cases. Sometimes a rule makes sensible selections, and other times it selects causes “no one would regard as … principal” (Mill Reference Mill 1843/1981 , 329). Mill observes that this depends on “the purpose we have in view” (329). A rule may select causes useful for some purposes but not others. While his discussion is framed around one rule, Mill says there is no reason to suppose “this or any other rule is always adhered to” (329). Many types of causes are selected for many different purposes using many different rules. For Mill, this variability prompts pessimism.

The diverse causal and pragmatic details that vary across cases of causal selection lead Mill to conclude causal selection is “capricious,” unscientific, and outside the purview of philosophical analysis ( Reference Mill 1843/1981 , 329). The severity of his conclusions is striking in the context of System of Logic , where Mill uses a method of refining our often-capricious everyday reasoning into more principled “ratiocination.” His method is pragmatic, involving analyzing how reasoning and logical “contrivances” are used toward their epistemic purposes (6). Yet, causal selection is uniquely problematic. Mill thinks selections are influenced by too many, and too diverse, causal and pragmatic details —details about different purposes, rules, and reasons for selecting causes—to be given adequate philosophical analysis. Footnote 1

Mill resolves his concerns by retreating from causal selection entirely. He proposes restricting all causal reasoning to a general notion of universal and invariable causes that preclude any need for selection. This pattern of reasoning is not unique to Mill and enjoys a lasting legacy. Lewis follows a similar pattern, noting the “invidious principles” of causal selection before retreating to the “prior question” of a “broad” concept of causation ( Reference Lewis 1973 , 559). With this endorsement, Mill’s pessimism has “won the field” in many circles (Schaffer Reference Schaffer and Zalta 2016 ). Consequently, causal selection and the reasoning behind it are widely ignored. However, Lewis himself recognizes that pessimism and retreat are not necessary. In a footnote, Lewis ( Reference Lewis 1973 , 559 n. 6) says he would be amenable to an account of causal selection like the one offered by White ( Reference White 1965 ). White’s account is similar to the more influential one formulated by Hart and Honoré ( Reference Hart and Honoré. 1959 ). Not all philosophers have agreed with Mill’s pessimism.

3. Exceptions to Mill’s Pessimism

Hart and Honoré’s ( Reference Hart and Honoré. 1959 ) analysis of causal selection is perhaps the most widely known challenge to Mill. Their approach represents a typical way philosophers break from the Millian pattern of pessimism and retreat. Noting that causal selection is an “inseparable feature” of causal reasoning in law, their area of interest, Hart and Honoré are compelled to challenge Mill’s view (11). Like Mill, they acknowledge the variability of selections. However, they contend that Mill misidentifies the source of it. They argue that only variable causal details are relevant for analyzing how selections are made, not diverse pragmatic details (17). By pushing to the background those variable purposes, rules, and reasons for selecting causes, they think analysis is possible.

Hart and Honoré develop a general rule for selecting abnormal causes , causes deviating from normal circumstances. Mill thinks such a rule is inadequate because many different rules are used to select causes for diverse purposes. To avoid this problem, Hart and Honoré argue that variability across selections is not due to these pragmatic details. Instead it is entirely due to how the same rule is applied to structurally different cases.

For example, in a factory where the presence of oxygen is normal, an abnormal spark is the important cause of a fire. In a factory where sparks are normal, the abnormal presence of oxygen is the important cause of a fire (Hart and Honoré Reference Hart and Honoré. 1959 , 10). Important causes vary, but that variance is entirely due to “a subordinate aspect of a more general principle” as it is applied to cases with varying causal structures (17). They think causal details matter, but pragmatic details do not.

This approach offers a way to dissolve the source of Mill’s pessimism. However, it relies on a crucial assumption. Hart and Honoré claim causal selection is unique to the law. They claim that other areas, including all sciences, have only a “derivative interest” in it (Hart and Honoré Reference Hart and Honoré. 1959 , 9). This circumscription is what justifies subordinating all the variability of selections to different applications of their single rule, which warrants disregarding the diverse pragmatic details Mill identifies. Only by narrowing causal selection to the law can they construe their rule as a general analysis and a solution to Mill’s problem. If causal selection is not unique to law, then their approach is a tenuous response to Mill founded primarily on neglecting the diverse pragmatics that are at work in causal selection.

Contra Hart and Honoré, causal selection is not unique to one discipline. It runs through important reasoning in science, engineering, and other areas of thought. Several philosophers have noted its significant role in explanation and investigation in biology and related sciences (Gannett Reference Gannett 1999 ; Waters Reference Waters 2007 ; Woodward Reference Woodward 2010 , Franklin-Hall Reference Franklin-Hall, Braillard and Malaterre 2014 , Reference Franklin-Hall forthcoming ; Stegmann Reference Stegmann 2014 ; Weber Reference Weber 2017 ; Baxter Reference Baxter 2019 ; Lean Reference Lean 2020 ; Ross, Reference Ross forthcoming ). While this undermines a key premise in Hart and Honoré’s approach, many of these philosophers of biology follow similar ones. Many have strong preferences for “ontological” analyses (Waters Reference Waters 2007 ; Stegmann Reference Stegmann 2014 ; Weber Reference Weber 2017 ), analyses in terms of a single general rule (Waters Reference Waters 2007 , Franklin-Hall, Reference Franklin-Hall forthcoming ), or analyses that minimize the role of pragmatics (Franklin-Hall Reference Franklin-Hall, Braillard and Malaterre 2014 ).

Apparent exceptions to Mill’s pessimism confirm a key aspect of his concern. The diverse pragmatic details of causal selection pose problems for philosophical analysis. Mill almost certainly would deny that Hart and Honoré’s approach addresses his problem. In fact, he rejects a very similar notion to their abnormal causes (Mill Reference Mill 1843/1981 , 328). Mill thinks diverse pragmatics are inseparable from how causal selection works. Formulating a general rule that minimizes or ignores them is not a solution. It leads to deficient accounts that leave out much of the reasoning behind selection. If Mill is correct, then the problem is how to meaningfully analyze the pragmatic details of selections. But is he? There are good reasons to think so.

4. Analyzing Pragmatics

Several philosophers have acknowledged that pragmatics matter for analyzing causal selection (Gannett Reference Gannett 1999 ; Waters Reference Waters 2006 ; Kronfelder Reference Kronfelder 2014 ; Woodward Reference Woodward 2014 ). While Waters ( Reference Waters 2007 ) offers a general rule for selecting important causes, Waters ( Reference Waters 2006 ) embraces pragmatic details (e.g., the purposes, strategies, and activities of biologists) to argue genetic causes are important because they are useful for manipulating biological processes. However, the most compelling evidence that pragmatics matter is the striking diversity among accounts of causal selection.

Hart and Honoré’s concern with assigning liability, Sober’s ( Reference Sober 1988 ) focus on apportioning causal contributions, Franklin-Hall’s ( Reference Franklin-Hall, Braillard and Malaterre 2014 ) interest in how much causal information is needed to explain, and Collingwood’s ( Reference Collingwood 1957 ) focus on manipulation each lead to remarkably different analyses of why some causes are selected as important. Each emphasizes what Mill would consider distinct purposes for selecting causes. If different purposes require different types of selections, and consequently require different analyses, then the variability among philosophical accounts implies pragmatics do matter.

I argue that Mill was right that pragmatic details matter for how causal selection works. However, I show that analyzing them is possible. My approach is similar to van Fraassen’s ( Reference van Fraassen 2008 ) way of analyzing the role of pragmatics in representation. Van Fraassen acknowledges the “variable polyadicity” of representation and embraces diverse pragmatic details about use, purposes, practices, and context in his analysis (29). Similarly, analyzing causal selection in terms of the different purposes it can serve, and the various ways selections are actually used to achieve these purposes, across varying contexts, can elucidate causal reasoning about important causes. My approach can be contrasted with other pragmatic approaches, such as Collingwood’s account of causal selection in terms of what a particular human has an ability to prevent ( Reference Collingwood 1957 , 302–4). This is a narrow sense of “pragmatic” compared to the one I demonstrate in what follows. My approach is more akin to the research program articulated by James Woodward in his PSA presidential address. It shows how to analyze causal reasoning in terms of the details about “various goals and purposes” and how causal concepts and causal knowledge “conduce” to their achievement (Woodward Reference Woodward 2014 , 693).

To argue my case, I analyze a dispute among safety scientists concerning the causes of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Stripped of pragmatics, the dispute appears to involve an intractable disagreement over preferences for different methods, the resolution of which looks more like a question for sociologists than philosophers. However, when pragmatic details such as the purposes guiding the selection of important causes of disasters and the actual uses of causal knowledge are considered, the disagreement is clearly principled and philosophically interesting.

5. Causal Selection in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy

In 1984, a deadly disaster occurred in Bhopal, India. This disaster resulted from the release of a toxic chemical from a processing plant. The chemical spread through surrounding populated areas, killing thousands and permanently injuring hundreds of thousands more. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy continues to affect local populations today.

Many causal factors brought about this disaster, but investigators focused on a human error. During routine cleaning a worker failed to insert a device designed to prevent water from entering chemical tanks in case of valve failures. This error caused water to leak through the valve during cleaning, pouring into a chemical tank containing a large volume of methyl isocyanate. The mixing of water and methyl isocyanate created a chemical reaction with enough energy to vent tons of the toxic chemical into the air.

This account fits the traditional method for modeling disasters used by safety scientists. Typically, as in the findings of the investigators, disasters are modeled as chains of causal events. Causal chain models like these were developed at the dawn of scientific studies of accidents and safety (Heinrich Reference Heinrich 1959 ). Footnote 2 Experts rely on these models to understand accident causality across a range of sociotechnical systems including the plant at Bhopal. The method models disasters using chains of proximate causes , discrete causal events arising from relations among human agents and physical technologies within a system that occur spatially and temporally close to an accident. Examples include human errors, component failures, and energy-related events. The chain of proximate causes involved in the Bhopal disaster is the failure to insert the safety device, the resulting valve leak, and the chemical reaction. Had these causes not occurred, or occurred differently, then the disaster would have been less likely to occur if at all.

Recently, some safety scientists have argued against this methodological orthodoxy. Citing changes in complexities of systems since the beginning of safety science in the early twentieth century, they argue that causal chain models have outlived their usefulness: these models are no longer adequate for understanding and learning from disasters like the one at the chemical plant in Bhopal. At the heart of their dissent is what they see as an incorrect emphasis on proximate causes, which they contend mislead scientists and engineers. Causal models that emphasize more important causes should be developed and replace the widespread use of chain models. Proximate causes are genuine causes, but they are not the most important causes of disasters.

Nancy Leveson is a leading voice against the effectiveness of causal chain models. She argues that the traditional focus on these models should be replaced by an emphasis on systemic causes . Footnote 3 Systemic causes of disasters are distinct from their proximate causes. Systemic causes are properties of a system that causally influence its behavior. They are associated with the overall design and organization of a system. In the case of Bhopal, there were many systemic causes of the disaster (Leveson Reference Leveson 2012 ). One systemic cause was the operating conditions at the plant. Before the disaster, many safety devices were disabled to save money, early warning alarms and refrigerated chemical tanks among them. Poor operating conditions like these allowed the chemical reaction to occur at the strength it did while leaving the reaction undetected. Had operating conditions been different—had they been better—the disaster would have been much less likely to occur.

Leveson identifies a number of other systemic causes involved in the Bhopal disaster. A systems approach reveals design deficiencies also caused the disaster. Devices to minimize chemical releases were designed for smaller, less powerful events than the one at Bhopal. Vent scrubbers and flare towers that neutralize vented chemicals were designed for much smaller amounts of chemicals than were released during the disaster. Water curtains designed to minimize released chemicals only reached heights well below where venting actually occurred. The only devices able to reach that height were inefficient individually operated water jets. Safety culture at the plant was also very poor. Safety audits before the disaster were ignored. Alarms sounded erroneously during normal operations, making genuine alarms impossible to discern. Employees had sparse safety training and safety equipment, and there were few qualified engineers at the plant. Had these design deficiencies and the poor safety culture been remedied, the disaster would have been much less likely to occur.

Disasters in complex sociotechnical systems like in Bhopal are caused by systemic and proximate causes together. Poor safety culture, operating conditions, and design deficiencies as well as the maintenance error and leaky valve were all causes of the disaster. Since systemic and proximate causes are distinct causes of disasters, disagreements about whether proximate causal chain models or systems-based models identify more important causes are disagreements about causal selection, much as Mill defined it. One sense of the term “invidious” that Lewis ( Reference Lewis 1973 ) uses to describe causal selection correctly applies here. Selection of the most important causes of the Bhopal disaster arouses discontent, resentment, or animosity.

To this day, corporate owners of the plant have largely avoided or denied responsibility. Contentious disputes among activists, the Indian government, and corporate entities endure over reparations and deficient cleanup. Legal battles continue steadily since 1984, with court hearings as recent as 2012. Serious questions of ethics are tightly interwoven with questions of what was the most important cause of the disaster. So too are methodological questions about how best to prevent such terrible tragedies from ever happening again.

The Bhopal disaster plays a motivating role in safety science and engineering. The tragedy demonstrates how critical it is for engineers to practice the best methods and reasoning practices available. Given the stakes, decisions over which causes are the most important for understanding and preventing disasters have aroused debate. However, while Lewis implies that all this invidiousness is reason for philosophers to retreat to generalities, the ethical and methodological significance of causal selection in cases such as the Bhopal disaster imply the opposite.

The material weight of how debates about causal selection are adjudicated gives philosophers undeniable reason to take them seriously. It also gives reason to worry that dismissing or retreating from these debates may be deleterious. Bad actors interested in avoiding responsibility surely would agree with Mill’s notion that “we have, philosophy speaking, no right” to make selections of important causes ( Reference Mill 1843/1981 , 328). Cases like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy show that philosophers have, philosophically speaking, a duty to engage with causal selection deeply, not dismissively. But how can philosophers analyze disagreements about important causes, such as the methodological one in safety science?

On one side of the disagreement is a traditional method that emphasizes proximate causes. It is hard to deny that human errors and component failures are important causes of accidents in some sense. On the other side, dissenting safety experts argue against this traditional way of modeling accidents. They contend that the most important causes of disasters in complex systems are systemic ones, and the proximate causal chain models that exclude them are unsatisfactory. Systems-based approaches should be pursued instead. Again, it is hard to deny that issues with safety culture and design deficiencies were important causes of the Bhopal disaster.

Is one position more justified than the other? This question relates to another sense of the term “invidious” as unfairly discriminating, or unjust. This is the sense most assume Lewis intended. At this point it is not obvious what a philosopher can say about which side is justified. Philosophers could analyze the causes themselves and their relations to accidents and to other causal factors. But this alone would not adjudicate the disagreement about which are more important or elucidate any reasons why. One could take the Millian approach and conclude that all a philosopher should say is, strictly speaking, all the factors taken together were the real cause. On this view, beyond that, the disagreement appears to be simply an expression of competing preferences. Engineers in supervisory or maintenance roles prefer thinking about human errors, while engineers who manage or design systems prefer systemic factors. What can philosophers say about preferences that would bear on causality?

The situation is reminiscent of Carnap’s ( Reference Carnap 1995 ) discussion of how different professionals would select different causes to explain a car crash. Footnote 4 Carnap attributes those differences to divergent preferences determined by professional interests. He promptly ends his analysis there and appeals to a general notion of “cause” nearly identical to Mill’s. This abrupt end implies Carnap thinks there is nothing philosophical left to say about disagreements about important causes. Road engineers prefer causes related to their interest in roads, police prefer causes related to an interest in policing, but preferences like these are not philosophically interesting. How can a philosopher of causation give a deeper analysis to preferences?

6. Pragmatics of Leveson’s Reasoning

There is more to the disagreement about the Bhopal disaster than competing preferences. This becomes clear when Leveson’s ( Reference Leveson 2012 ) reasoning is analyzed in terms of pragmatics. Leveson’s reasons for selecting systemic causes over proximate ones relate to the purposes safety scientists have when evaluating the causes of disasters and to how they actually use causal knowledge to achieve these purposes. Analyzing Leveson’s causal reasoning in terms of these pragmatics reveals that the disagreement over the relative importance of systemic and proximate causes is principled. Principles that are about which types of causes are more important than others for certain purposes.

Leveson argues that proximate causes are “misleading at best” ( Reference Leveson 2012 , 28). To narrowly focus on them leads to “ignoring some of the most important factors in terms of preventing future accidents” (33). In large, complex systems of humans and technology, proximate causes are less important causes for preventing certain types of behavior. From a pragmatic perspective, there is a principled rationale behind claims about the relative importance of systemic causes over proximate causes.

As Leveson explains, proximate causes of disasters are unlikely events. The probability of a human error occurring in the way that it did at the plant in Bhopal is quite low. Given the complexity of the system it occurred within, anticipating when it would occur would be near impossible. Furthermore, directly preventing proximate causes such as human error is notoriously difficult (Reason Reference Reason 1990 ). Finally, whether a maintenance error leads to disaster is contingent on an unlikely confluence of many other factors. Proximate causes are unlikely, difficult to predict, problematic points of interventions that are only weakly related to disasters. Because of these features, focusing on them implies disasters like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy are unpredictable and unavoidable events.

Leveson and other safety experts argue disasters, including the one in Bhopal, can often be predicted and prevented. Given the poor state of safety culture, operating conditions, and so on, at the chemical processing plant, imminent disaster was likely and knowable. Had engineers intervened on these systemic factors, then disaster would have been less likely. Yet, this perspective is obscured by focus on proximate causes.

The possibility to predict and prevent disasters in complex sociotechnical systems requires causes that conduce to these goals. Safety experts who argue for the importance of systemic causes are not basing this on their preferred methods or what they happen to be able to control. Their argument is that systemic causes are more important because knowledge of these causes offers distinct epistemic and technical advantages over other causes for the purpose of preventing disasters such as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

Stopping where Carnap concluded his analysis of the car accident would render the disagreement among safety experts philosophically intractable. Digging into pragmatic details here has revealed important lines of reasoning behind claims like the ones made by Leveson. In turn, it raises further questions amenable to philosophical analysis. Philosophers can ask, what properties do systemic causes have that make them useful for prediction and prevention? What do proximate causes lack that makes them less important for these purposes?

7. Philosophical Analysis of Pragmatic Details

To begin analyzing the importance of systemic causes in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the proximate and systemic causes of the disaster can be framed in the same causal theory. To do this, I use Woodward’s ( Reference Woodward 2003 ) interventionist theory of causation. Roughly speaking, according to Woodward’s account, causal relations hold between two variables when a change in the value of one variable would bring about a subsequent change in the value of the other (or an increase or decrease in the probability of a change in value of the second variable). Woodward conceives this relation in terms of hypothetical changes and counterfactual dependence relations. There are many technical aspects to his account, but it is not necessary to draw on them here.

Recall, proximate causes are discrete causal events arising from relations among human agents and physical technologies within a system. At the plant in Bhopal, the human error causing the disaster was an employee failing to insert a physical safety device. This caused the subsequent component failure of water leaking through a valve. These proximate factors caused the release of a chemical from the plant. Safety experts represent this kind of causal process as a chain of proximate causal variables, as discussed in section 5 . Each node of a causal chain model can be given a straightforward interpretation as interventionist causal variables, as represented in figure 1 .

Figure 1. Release of chemicals, represented by E, depended on a component failure, CF, and a human error, HE. The values these variables take on are associated with the occurrence of the respective associated behavior in the system.

Human errors and component failures are understood as events, but they can be formulated as binary variables in the interventionist framework. For example, the variable HE in figure 1 , representing a particular human error, can take on two values: a human error occurring or not. The variable CF, representing a particular component failure, also takes on two different values: a component failure occurs or not. The arrows connecting each variable represent a causal relationship, defined by the following dependence relations. Changes in the value of HE have counterfactual or actual control over the probability of a change in the value of CF. Changes in the value of CF in turn have counterfactual or actual control over the probability of a change in the value of the target effect variable E. There are a number of different ways to conceive of the target effect variable when representing the Bhopal disaster or any complex causal process. For the purpose of this analysis, it is easiest to formulate the variable as safety experts do in causal chain models, as a binary accident variable. In this case, the variable E can take on two different values: chemical is released or not.

Systemic factors, such as safety culture and operating conditions, also stand in an interventionist causal relation with accidents and disasters. Actual or hypothetical interventions on systemic properties do or could bring about subsequent changes to the behavior of the system and the likelihood of certain types of effects. The possibility of systems engineering and systems-based approaches to safety, such as Leveson’s, depend on systemic factors having this kind of causal control over system behavior. Figure 2 offers one way to model a systemic cause of the Bhopal disaster.

Figure 2. Systemic variables have causal control over the release of chemicals. Changes in the value of S are associated with the probability distribution of changes to the value of the same effect variable, E, as in figure 1 .

A systemic causal variable S also stands in a counterfactual dependence relationship with the same target effect variable E from figure 1 . Changes to the values of a systemic causal variable can be associated with changes made to a systemic property. To make this more concrete, in the case of the Bhopal disaster, changes to the value of S can be associated with changes to the safety culture at the plant. By changing safety culture, safety experts can change the probability of the effect associated with E occurring. Changes in the value of S lead to subsequent changes in the probability of a change in the value of E, that is, the probability of a chemical being released or not.

Interventions on systemic properties are one means of controlling behaviors of sociotechnical systems and the likelihood of certain types of events occurring within them. While systems approaches are founded on this possibility, experts can also intervene on systems in other ways. Before the development of systems-based approaches, most safety practices focused on proximate factors as the primary points of intervention. Safety was understood primarily in terms of controlling human errors and component failures. Approaches like Leveson’s are an alternative to these traditional approaches based on emphasizing different causal factors to use controlling systems. Hence, figures 1 and 2 represent different causal relationships emphasized by alternative approaches.

So far it is still not clear why one of these models is more predictive or offers better interventions for prevention. The two models show that both proximate and systemic causes offer causal control over disasters. They do not indicate much else and do not elucidate why systemic interventionist causes may be more important than proximate ones for preventing disasters. To understand the causal selection surrounding cases such as the Bhopal disaster, analysis of these causal relationships needs to go deeper. More nuanced causal concepts like Woodward’s notion of causal stability, and a new concept I begin to develop here, fill out a richer philosophical analysis. When considered together with the pragmatics of selection they give a principled account of why systemic causes are more important than proximate causes in complex sociotechnical systems.

In complex systems like the one in the Bhopal disaster, no proximate or systemic causes invariably cause accidents. For example, human errors or component failures in sociotechnical systems, such as the ones that occurred in the plant at Bhopal, do not always lead to accidents. A wide range of other circumstances must have obtained in order for them to have actually brought about their effects. Consequently, proximate causes like those in figure 1 must be understood as causes strictly in relation to a background of other causal factors within which they cause their effects. The same goes for most causes involved in disasters, including systemic causes, and most causes of anything represented in Woodward’s interventionist framework. Interventionist causes almost always require some range in the values of other causal variables to obtain in order to bring about their effect.

For Woodward, unlike Mill, this is not problematic. Causes need not be invariable but can come in degrees of invariance. For example, consider the causal relationship between the temperature of water and the effect of changes to phase state. The relation holds within certain ranges of temperature changes. The relation also only holds within particular ranges of values in other variables (e.g., ambient pressure). The variables of temperature and pressure, among others, create a multidimensional space. Within that space, there are regions within which changes to temperature bring about changes to the effect. This region in the multidimensional space under which the relation holds is the invariance space of the cause. Woodward ( Reference Woodward 2010 ) sometimes refers to this concept as the ‘background conditions’ of a cause. I choose not to use this term because the term conditions can suggest that the background is not causal. While some parts of a background are not causally relevant, much of it is in Woodward’s account. The causally relevant background is what I refer to when using the term invariance space . All the causal relations represented in figures 1 and 2 should be conceived as holding only within some invariance space of other causal factors.

The size of invariance spaces varies for different causal relations. In other words, some interventionist causes hold under larger invariance spaces than others. In Woodward’s framework, the relative sizes of invariance spaces for different causal relations can be analyzed and compared using the concept he calls causal stability (Woodward Reference Woodward 2010 ). Minimally stable causes hold under small regions. Maximally stable causes hold across wider ranges of circumstances. Causes are more or less stable, depending on the relative sizes of their respective invariance spaces. This kind of conceptual tool that distinguishes causes in terms of the features they possess, and to what degree, is essential for analyzing causal selection.

While Woodward develops the concept of causal stability for analyzing explanations of biological phenomena, the concept can also help elucidate causal selection that is aimed at preventing rather than explaining. The causes of the Bhopal disaster with the most stability are systemic causes. The proximate causes hold only under highly specific circumstances. As I explain below, systemic causes hold across a wide range of different circumstances. Hence, the concept of stability offers a clear basis for analyzing why some causes are more useful for the purposes of predicting and preventing accidents than other causes.

Recall, a key consideration in Leveson’s claims about the importance of systemic causes is that proximate causes make the Bhopal disaster appear contingent and unpredictable. Yet, she argues systemic causes make it clear that a disaster was bound to happen. For these reasons, Leveson thinks systemic causes are more important for the purpose of predicting disasters. Another key consideration in her reasoning was that systemic causes offer more important means of intervening on a system to prevent disasters, while proximate causes such as human error are less effective means. These pragmatic considerations can be analyzed in terms of differences in causal stability and used to give a principled analysis to the selection of systemic causes as more important for achieving these epistemic and technical aims.

Had the causal circumstances surrounding the maintenance error and leaky valve been even slightly different at the plant in Bhopal, then they likely would have had much different effects. For example, had the maintenance error occurred elsewhere in the plant, or at different time during its operation, then it would not have had the kind of disastrous effects safety experts are interested in preventing. Had the plant been organized and operating more safely, then these variables would no longer bear a causal relationship to disaster. The variables represented in figure 1 stand in a causal relationship under a relatively small invariance space compared to systemic variables, as I show next. Proximate causes are weakly stable causes.

Systemic causes increase the probability of a disaster in a system like the one in Bhopal across many different circumstances. For example, the poor safety culture could have caused a disaster at the plant under many different possible proximate causal events. Had the maintenance error occurred differently or not at all, the probability of disaster would have remained high because of the state of the systemic factors. Changes to these systemic factors would have lowered the probability of a disaster under the actual circumstances and many others. Excellent safety culture lowers the probability of disaster across many different proximate causal events. In sum, changes to value of systemic causal variables in figure 2 control the probability distribution of an effect variable under a large invariance space. Systemic causes of disasters have strong causal stability.

Relative differences in stability give systemic causes and proximate causes different epistemic and technical functions. Causes with less stability are useful for predicting effects in narrow sets of changes to a system. In contrast, more stable causes predict their effect across a larger set of changes a system does or may exhibit, even for changes that are difficult to predict or observe. Highly stable systemic causes offer an epistemic advantage for safety experts to achieve their goal of assessing the risk of disastrous effects in large, complex systems that exhibit many unpredictable changes over time.

Causes with increased stability offer interventions on a system more conducive to the task of preventing disasters. Systemic causes can suppress their effects under many perturbations to a system. This kind of control is advantageous when the effects are disasters. Toward the technical ends of safety experts, systemic factors have an additional causal feature offering complementary advantages. The feature can be further analyzed by looking closer at the interrelations of proximate and systemic causes.

There are at least two ways proximate and systemic causes might relate in systems like the Bhopal disaster. Figure 3 represents one way they are related. Systemic factors can have control over the values of many different possible proximate causes of an accident effect. For example, improved safety culture at the plant in Bhopal would lower the probability of the maintenance error. It also would lower the probability of a number of other possible human errors. This models one aspect of Leveson’s reasoning in which she points out that even if the exact maintenance error had not occurred in Bhopal, given the systemic causes involved, some other human error was likely to cause a disaster anyway. By controlling a systemic cause, engineers can decrease the probability of many different human errors occurring and consequently decrease the likelihood of an accident (see fig. 3 ). This feature explains why systemic causes are important for the purpose of preventing disasters.

Figure 3. One way systemic and proximate causes relate is through a systemic variable having control over the probability of many different proximate causal chains leading to the effect.

In addition to having control over the value of proximate causes, there is reason to think systemic causes bear a second kind of causal relationship with the probability of accidents and disasters. Some safety scientists think human errors and component failures are inevitable in complex systems (Reason Reference Reason 1990 , 409). If proximate causes are inevitable, then systemic causes do not have complete control over their occurrence or the values they take on. Nevertheless, these safety experts think systemic causes offer causal control needed to prevent accidents and disasters. Consequently, systemic causes do not just relate to proximate causes by controlling changes to their values (as represented in fig. 3 ). Furthermore, the causal relation between systemic variables and their effects ( fig. 2 ) is not necessarily a mere abstraction of the intermediate control of proximate causes ( fig. 3 ). The interrelationships of systemic and proximate causes, and their effects, are more complicated. To this point, I propose that systemic causes exhibit an interesting causal feature that has not been analyzed in terms of Woodward’s interventionist framework.

Some changes to systemic factors, such as when safety culture is improved, weaken the stability of proximate causes. Yet, when the systemic factor is changed in another way, such as when safety culture is worsened, then the stability of proximate causes is strengthened. Systemic causes have control over the strength of other causal relations. For example, human errors cause disasters under a wider range of circumstances when systemic factors are at a certain value (e.g., when safety culture is poor). When those systemic factors are changed (e.g., when safety culture is improved), then the same proximate factors cause disasters under a smaller range of circumstances. Systemic factors bear a damping and amplifying relation, a relation not to their effects but to the strength of other causal relationships around them, that is, other causal relations in their invariance space. I represent this relationship in figure 4 with the wavy line and in figure 5 in the standard framework for directed acyclic graph.

Figure 4. Wavy line represents another way systemic and proximate causes interrelate. This amplifying/damping relation holds when changes in a variable influence the strength of other causal relations, rather than the values the variables take on. The wavy line is not part of standard method of constructing directed acyclic graphs.

Figure 5. Amplifying/damping relation can be represented as collider structures in a standard framework for directed acyclic graphs. In this simplified form, this structure does not evoke the distinctive nature of the amplifying/damping relation systemic causes bear on proximate causes.

This relation is not a relation of cause and effect, but it is nevertheless causal in nature. It can be understood similar to a moderating variable as discussed in the context of some social sciences. Footnote 5 Suppose occurrences of human errors can be reduced but not eliminated. If so, then changes in systemic factors do not produce changes in the values of these ineliminable human errors (as in fig. 3 ). Put in more interventionist language, if particular proximate causes are inevitable, then changes to systemic variables do not have control over the values that these proximate causes take on. Systemic factors are not interventionist causes of ineliminable proximate causes. Nevertheless, changes in systemic factors do influence whether these proximate causes can actually bring about accidents and disasters. One way they do this is through altering the background circumstances a proximate cause continues to bring about its effects. Changes to some systemic factors can increase or decrease the range of circumstances in which the occurrence of a human error stands in a causal relation with disasters. Hence, changes to this type of systemic factor appear to change the size of the invariance space of some proximate causes. In other words, some systemic causes can influence the stability of other causes. I call this relationship amplifying/damping .

This causal feature further fills out the analysis of why systemic causes are important for preventing disasters by showing again how they are more useful means of preventing certain types of effects from coming about in complex systems. This causal concept also offers a way to enrich Woodward’s framework further, raising an underexplored aspect of causality. More detailed exploration and analysis can be pursued beyond this preliminary presentation. However, this should point to the importance of digging deeper into details, rather than retreating to generalities or ending analysis when pragmatics arise.

The disagreement surrounding Bhopal is over what the most important causes are for the purpose of predicting and preventing disasters. All agree what the causes are but disagree which are most important. Stripped of pragmatic considerations, it was unclear how to analyze the disagreement. Once these details were considered, analysis could continue to show why more stable systemic causes that control many proximate causes, and amplify/dampen others, are better predictors and means of intervening for preventing disasters in complex sociotechnical systems. As Mill thought, the pragmatic details of Leveson’s reasoning matter for understanding how selections are made. However, he was wrong to think that this precludes philosophical analysis. As this section shows, analysis can go deeper. When embraced, the kind of multifarious pragmatic details of causal selection that worried Mill actually provide a basis for deeper analysis.

8. The Philosophical Importance of Pragmatic Details

The history of philosophical interest in causal selection is largely defined by skepticism about the pragmatics this reasoning involves. The literature tends to follow the general tenet that causal details (types of causes and their features, properties, structures, interrelationships, etc.) are important for analysis, but pragmatic details (different purposes, rules, reasons, activities involved in how people reason about and use causes) can and should be avoided. Many consider these details to be “mere pragmatics,” and their inclusion is assumed to give less rigorous analyses, or anything goes. Philosophers who acknowledge some role for pragmatics mostly do so narrowly, trying to minimize their significance. However, the Bhopal case study implies pragmatic details are crucial for analyzing causal reasoning about important causes.

Some readers might nevertheless still question the significance of pragmatics in my analysis. They might claim that the philosophically interesting aspects of this case of causal selection are exhausted by purely causal concepts. They might argue that the world contains more or less important causal features, stability among the important ones. They could accept the idea that considering pragmatics helps uncover these important features but argue that whether a cause has those features does not depend on whether humans are interested in using them for their purposes. They could conclude that pragmatics offer a window into interesting aspects of causality, but specific details about our purposes can ultimately be disregarded in favor of general concepts about objectively important causal details. I close by showing the adverse philosophical and social consequences of this view and how they are resolved by embracing pragmatics in their rich detail.

Recall, Hart and Honoré ignore the diverse pragmatic details that worried Mill by circumscribing causal selection to a problem unique to history and law. For Mill, the consequences of this approach are part of why causal selection is philosophically problematic. Construing a single principle as a general solution, Mill says, results in a lot of faulty causal reasoning. The Bhopal case study confirms the adverse epistemic consequence of disregarding pragmatic details in favor of generality. The case also shows potentially pernicious social consequences of ignoring Mill’s warnings.

Hart and Honoré’s abnormalism principle selects the maintenance error as the important cause of the Bhopal disaster, since it deviates from normal circumstances and is associated with a human act. Their principle deems systemic causes quite unimportant, since they are remote, mostly fixed aspects of the causal process. Section 7 shows this is an ineffective selection for preventing disasters. However, even for questions about liability that Hart and Honoré develop their account to answer, their selection is dubious.

Assigning legal or ethical responsibility to a mistake made by a poorly trained and weakly managed worker is contentious. Even more so is minimizing responsibility for the systemic deficiencies of the plant. Maintaining that this analysis is endorsed by the general solution to this kind of question is more problematic still, easily bolstering denials of culpability by corporate actors involved in the tragedy and working against activists seeking justice and reparations for the suffering it created. These controversial results needlessly arise from ignoring pragmatics.

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy involves complex causal details and pragmatic details. Considering them in their rich complexities allows philosophers to ask and answer more precise questions about the case. For assigning liability, philosophers can ask whether responsibility should be afforded to those with better control over preventing disasters or those with less control. Causal and pragmatic details taken together provide more nuanced answers. While section 7 has an epistemological focus, the analysis could be expanded to give principled answer to legal and ethical questions. If liability ought to be afforded to the agents most capable of preventing tragic disasters, and systemic causes are most important for preventing them, then those closely associated with systemic causes should be held most responsible. This gives a principled basis for assigning greater responsibility to the corporate actors who controlled the systemic causes than to workers associated with proximate causes less important for prevention. Embracing causal and pragmatic aspects of causal selection in their fuller detail clarifies reasoning about these cases and helps philosophers and society avoid many needless, and potentially harmful, confusions.

While Hart and Honoré’s account is not useful for analyzing which causes are important for preventing the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, or determining liability in the case, their analysis is based on cases in which it makes effective selections. Readers might correctly note the analysis in section 7 has similar limitations. The analysis of why systemic causes are important in the Bhopal case study does not necessarily provide a general analysis that applies across all kinds of systems or purposes.

In simpler systems than the one in Bhopal, systemic causes may be less important than proximate causes for prediction and prevention. Proximate causes also figure prominently in methods of “root-cause analysis” used to reconstruct how accidents occur. For engineers, such contexts in which proximate causes are important can undermine the need for the methodological changes Leveson proposes. For philosophers, cases in which proximate causes are important may appear to generate a contradiction or reintroduce the specter of caprice. However, in a robustly pragmatic perspective apparent contradictions and caprice are illusory and ripe sources of insight.

Safety scientists use causal knowledge to assess the risk of certain behaviors and identify effective interventions to prevent them. For complex sociotechnical systems, they do so with limited means of making interventions and with limited knowledge of the types of behaviors a complex sociotechnical system will exhibit over time. Given their purposes, and the epistemic and technical methods and constraints they have for achieving them, the stability and amplifying/damping of systemic causes make them important tools. However, for different purposes and practices, it makes sense why proximate causes may be more useful tools.

In early stages of investigation, root-cause analyses are the principal method safety experts use to piece together what happened. They consist of ways to trace sequences of proximate causes backward from an accident. Because accidents are complex, difficult to observe, and often destroy physical evidence of their causes, chains of proximate causes occurring close to an accident are important causes in such investigatory practice. Knowledge of proximate causes that have occurred or are most likely to occur within a system are also important for inferring time-sensitive decisions about how to prioritize interventions. The importance of proximate causes for these practices does not contradict the analysis of their unimportance for prevention in systems like in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Rather, it is further evidence of the value of analyzing causal selection in terms of the diverse pragmatics guiding it.

Causes are important for some purposes and not for others. This depends on how the causal details of a case (the types of causes present, what features they have, their interrelations, etc.) relate to details about the types of activities (epistemic, technical, etc.) used to pursue certain purposes. Keeping these pragmatic details in the forefront of analysis transforms apparent contradictions and caprice into revealing contrasts for philosophers to examine. Contrasting how and why causes with certain features are useful for different purposes, and how this changes across different types of systems, offers insight for developing a richer picture of how causal selection works. Pragmatics illuminate how causal reasoning adapts to different circumstances. Ignoring pragmatics obscures this.

Finally, readers might challenge the analysis in section 7 with the following kind of counterexample. They might argue that, if increased causal stability is why causes are important for preventing disasters, then there is a more important cause than systemic causes. The cause with maximally stable control over the Bhopal Gas Tragedy is the existence of the plant in Bhopal. Intervening on its existence prevents disasters across the widest range of possible circumstance. Within some approaches to philosophy of causation, philosophers might claim this is a trivial consideration and is as a counterexample along the lines of a “problem of profligate causes” (Menzies Reference Menzies, Collins, Hall and Paul 2004 ). They might claim endorsing the existence of the plant as an important cause is an absurdity similar to endorsing the queen’s failure to water my plants as causally relevant to their deaths and contend this forms a reductio ad absurdum to the analysis in section 7 . However, accepting this requires unjustifiable oversimplification.

Safety experts like Leveson are tasked with developing causal knowledge and methods to improve the safety of systems without eliminating them. Outside of these pragmatic constraints, the existence of the plant is far from a trivial causal consideration. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy raises a real question of whether the best intervention to prevent horrific disasters is to eliminate chemical processing plants. This consideration is not an instance of a tried-and-true philosophical counterexample. It is a live option, depending on the details of what we choose to achieve and how best to pursue it. Ignoring pragmatic details obscures this perspective. It may also inadvertently ally philosophers with those who dismiss as meaningless questions about whether some system’s existence is a cause of suffering. Analyses of causal selection that are sensitive to diverse pragmatic details make this clear and enable philosophers to play a more active role in socially important debates.

I received invaluable feedback and support from many individuals and communities in the course of writing this article. Thank you to Ken Waters for working with me through so many drafts, discussions, and difficulties; to my family, and to Mariesa, for everything; to my University of Calgary community, especially Ananya Chattoraj, Oliver Lean, and Timothy “TJ” Perkins, for help with several drafts; and to Niall Roe for countless formative discussions, as well as Beige Lussier, Jeremy Chapdelaine, Alison McConwell, Justin Caouette, and Denise Retzlaff. Finally, thank you to the anonymous referees, for comments that significantly strengthened the article, and to Susan Sterrett and Marc Johansen, for their thoughtful commentary at the American Philosophical Association Central Division meeting in Denver. Research for this article was supported in part by grant 50191 from the John Templeton Foundation: From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics.

1. In System of Logic , Mill describes other types of everyday reasoning as “capricious.” Within his philosophical methodology this is not necessarily problematic. Capriciousness implies that philosophy is needed to refine and retool that reasoning to better serve certain epistemic ends. It does not imply pessimism or wholesale dismissal. However, Mill thinks the capriciousness of causal selection is uniquely problematic. Mill’s claims, and the problem he identifies, are more nuanced and challenging than most philosophers have appreciated (Hanley Reference Hanley 2021 ).

2. Safety experts sometimes refer to this class of accident models as “linear causal models.” However, as an anonymous reviewer notes, this term has a narrower technical meaning in causal modeling literature. For clarity, I refer to the models used by safety experts as causal chain models.

3. Conceptual issues involving systemic causes and complex sociotechnical systems merit further philosophical attention (Noy et al. Reference Noy, Hettinger, Dainoff, Carayon, Leveson, Robertson and Courtney 2015 ). The concept of a systemic causes can be given fuller analysis, but for this article they can be conceived in the rough way safety scientists discuss them: as causal properties of a system distinct from proximate causes.

4. An anonymous reviewer correctly points out that this example is first found in Collingwood ( Reference Collingwood 1957 ). Unlike Carnap, Collingwood thinks there is a principle guiding selections of different causes of a crash. He explains different selection in terms of what the selector is “able to produce or prevent” (302–4). Like Carnap, Collingwood’s analysis of selection does not go deeper. As the next sections shows, there is more to the pragmatics of selecting important causes for preventing accidents than Collingwood’s notion of selecting what a person can “put right.”

5. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this similarity and for suggesting the form of representation in fig. 5 . Amplifying/damping causes may be a type of moderating cause in the sense discussed by Kincaid ( Reference Kincaid and Kincaid 2012 , 59–60), but here they have a narrower sense set in terms of Woodward’s concepts of stability and invariance space. I agree with Kincaid that there are limitations representing moderating causes with acyclic graphs; hence, I offer the nonstandard representation in fig. 4 .

Figure 2. Systemic variables have causal control over the release of chemicals. Changes in the value of S are associated with the probability distribution of changes to the value of the same effect variable, E, as in figure 1.

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• Volume 88, Issue 4
• Brian J. Hanley
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/713902

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THE BHOPAL DISASTER: HOW IT HAPPENED

By Stuart Diamond

• Jan. 28, 1985

The Bhopal gas leak that killed at least 2,000 people resulted from operating errors, design flaws, maintenance failures, training deficiencies and economy measures that endangered safety, according to present and former employees, company technical documents and the Indian Government's chief scientist.

Those are among the findings of a seven-week inquiry begun by reporters of The New York Times after the Dec. 3 leak of toxic methyl isocyanate gas at a Union Carbide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal produced history's worst industrial disaster, stunning India and the world. Among the questions the tragedy raised were how it could have happened and who was responsible.

The inquiry involved more than 100 interviews in Bhopal, New Delhi, Bombay, New York, Washington, Danbury, Conn., and Institute, W. Va. It unearthed information not available even to the Union Carbide Corporation, the majority owner of the plant where the leak occurred, because the Indian authorities have denied corporate representatives access to some documents, equipment and personnel.

Evidence of Violations

The Times investigation produced evidence of at least 10 violations of the standard procedures of both the parent corporation and its Indian-run subsidiary.

Executives of Union Carbide India Ltd., which operated the plant, are reluctant to address the question of responsibility for the tragedy, in which about 200,000 people were injured. The plant's manager has declined to discuss the irregularities. The managing director of the Indian company refused to talk about details of the accident or the conditions that produced it, although he did say that the enforcement of safety regulations was the responsibility of executives at the Bhopal plant.

When questioned in recent days about the shortcomings disclosed in the inquiry by The Times, a spokesman at Union Carbide corporate headquarters in Danbury characterized any suggestion of the accident's causes as speculation and emphasized that Union Carbide would not ''contribute'' to that speculation.

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The World’s Worst Industrial Disaster Is Still Unfolding

In Bhopal, residents who survived the massive gas leak and those who arrived later continue to deal with the consequences.

I n old Bhopal , not far from the small Indian city’s glitzy new shops and gorgeous lakes, is the abandoned Union Carbide factory. Here, in one ramshackle building, are hundreds of broken brown bottles crusted with the white residue of unknown chemicals. Below the corroding skeleton of another, drops of mercury glitter in the sun. In the far corner of the site is the company’s toxic-waste dump, shrouded in a sickly green moss. Not 15 feet away, a scrawny boy of about 6 tries to join a game of cricket. A few skinny cows graze next to a large, murky puddle. Strewn on the ground are torn plastic bags, yellowed newspapers, stained paper cups. And in the air, the pungent fumes of chlorinated hydrocarbons.

On December 3, 1984, 40 tons of a toxic gas spewed from the factory and scorched the throats, eyes, and lives of thousands of people outside these walls. It was—still is—the world’s deadliest industrial disaster. For a brief time, the Bhopal gas tragedy, as it became known, raised urgent questions about how multinational companies and governments should respond when the unthinkable happens. But it didn’t take long for the world’s attention to shift, beginning with the Chernobyl nuclear accident a little more than a year later.

In the decades since, many other sites of industrial waste—in New Jersey , Missouri , Ohio —have been cleaned up. But this 70-acre site in Bhopal has, apart from the riotous jungle basil, remained mostly unchanged. Union Carbide Corporation (UCC); its former Indian subsidiary; its current owner, DowDuPont; the state government of Madhya Pradesh; and the central Indian government have all played an endless game of pass the buck. While this charade plays on, and people continue to think of Bhopal’s tragedy as one horrific night in 1984, the site still hosts hundreds of tons of contaminated waste. The Bhopal disaster is, in fact, still unfolding.

From the wooden bed outside her two-room house, Munni bi, the grande dame of Annu Nagar, has a wide lens on the devastation. Munni bi’s bed is less than 200 feet from a massive pit that UCC filled with toxic sludge, close enough to witness the damage the ganda pani —dirty water—has wrought.

Right next door is 15-year-old Fiza, who didn’t speak for the first five years of her life, and still has heart palpitations, dizzy spells, and headaches. The young woman who grew up two doors down, Tabassum, now has a toddler who doesn’t eat much or speak or cry and has seizures. Down the street is Obais, a spindly legged 13-year-old with black pustules all over his body—so painful and grotesque that he rarely leaves the house. Across the street from him is 12-year-old Tauseeb, who is intellectually disabled. And there’s Najma, the sweet, young woman who lost her mother to tongue cancer and now sits in front of her house all day, smiling and occasionally shouting out guttural gibberish to passersby. And then there is the house where one daughter has fused bones in her legs, and another has a hole in her heart.

If people were to paint a red cross on every door that harbors illness, as they did during the bubonic plague in England, few doors in Annu Nagar, a small slum in Bhopal, would remain unmarked. The houses of Munni bi’s two sons would each display a cross—in the house behind her bed is Bushra, her 14-year-old granddaughter, who is “not quite right” and whose “eyes hurt.” Across the street, her grandson, Anees, was born with skin that looked burned and limbs that lay flaccid and useless; he died five years ago at age 4, never having spoken a word. Three years ago, Munni bi was diagnosed with bladder cancer, a common complaint in these parts. When I visit her on a blisteringly hot day in March of last year, her cancer is temporarily under control, but the diabetic sores on her thighs keep her in bed, where she can do little but lie still, rail against fate, and survey the desolation.

“This is all because of the water,” Munni bi told me that day. “They have made us drink poison.”

Annu Nagar is one of 22 communities where the groundwater has been known for nearly 20 years to contain toxic levels of chlorinated solvents. Six years ago, responding to relentless efforts from activists, the Indian Supreme Court ordered the city to install pipes that bring in clean water from the Narmada River. But the pipes coming into some houses run right through sewers, and on rainy days, filth and feces mingle with the clean water. In the meantime, each monsoon may be carrying this toxic plume farther. The most recent survey suggests there are 20 more communities where the water is contaminated. In March of this year, the Supreme Court ordered that the city ensure clean water to these areas, too—and that it undertake a project to lay down sewage and drainage networks for the entire city.

These are reactive solutions to an enduring—and expanding—problem, but the bigger question is: What would it take to clean up the waste?

When I posed this question to Vishvas Sarang, the state minister charged with caring for these communities, he told me plans for the cleanup are underway. He said he had written to the Central Pollution Control Board, India’s equivalent of the EPA, and that he was confident it would be finished quickly. “It’s just a matter of two, three months. It will get done, it’s not a big job.”

That was more than a year ago.

T he factory in Bhopal launched at a time when India was facing severe food shortages. The country launched its Green Revolution in the early 1960s in an urgent bid to feed its growing population. UCC was one of the early beneficiaries of this new commitment to technology, and began marketing its pesticides with the slogan “Science helps build a new India.” In 1969, UCC built a plant in Bhopal to manufacture carbaryl (sold under the brand name Sevin) and alidcarb (Temik). At first, the company imported methyl isocyanate, the toxic gas required to make the pesticides, but by 1980, it had begun manufacturing the gas on site. MIC is colorless and heavier than air, is extremely toxic, and irritates the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes of the respiratory tract.

The company proceeded carefully, ensuring that the Bhopal plant had all the same modern technologies as its sister plant in West Virginia. The staff held rigorous training sessions for the workers, and installed a sophisticated, computerized system, just like the one in West Virginia, to alert workers to a leak. They set up loud alarm systems that could be heard for miles, distributed fact sheets about MIC to all the local hospitals, and held seminars for medical personnel on treating MIC exposure. By 1984, even as sales of Sevin tanked and the plant was operating at a loss, the company retained the full number of skilled workers and kept up its safety systems.

At least, that would have been the responsible way to run a plant producing a highly toxic substance. But UCC didn’t do any of this.

In fact, says Kumkum Modwel, a physician based in Connecticut who was a medical officer at the factory from 1975 to 1982, UCC’s operation “was a case study in how not to do things.” (When reached for comment, the company’s current owner, DowDuPont, directed me to previous statements on their website .) Modwel (née Saxena) joined the company as a starry-eyed youngster, excited to be a part of this booming American company in her sleepy hometown. Things were sunny at first, but then small accidents and safety lapses began niggling at her. She was troubled by the company’s cutbacks on safety as profit margins plunged and truckloads of unsold pesticide returned to the factory. Her turning point came in 1981, when a worker she knew well, Ashraf Mohammed Khan, died horribly after being drenched in phosgene, a precursor to MIC. Shaken, Modwel says she tried to get her superiors to improve the safety procedures, but to no avail. “I left because no one would listen to me. I left in utter disgust,” she says. “This is not the way you run a huge corporate plant handling lethal chemicals. This is how not to do things.”

Even more damning is the account of T. R. Chouhan, an MIC plant operator at the time of the disaster and a vocal critic of UCC. Chouhan and others told government investigators that months before the leak, managers shut down a refrigeration unit that was intended to keep the MIC tank cool enough to prevent accidents. One of the three safety systems in place had been out of service for weeks; the other had broken down days before the accident. Small leaks of MIC had become so commonplace that on December 2, a supervisor discovered a leak of MIC around 11:30 p.m., and put off dealing with it till after his tea break. The alarm that did sound was the same one the workers heard many times a week for other reasons, so they paid it no heed. Within an hour, the runaway reaction had generated enough pressure to break open the safety valve and release 40 tons of MIC and other chemicals into the air.

The swift wind that blew that night delivered the lethal fumes to an area of 40 square kilometers near the site. Those who didn’t choke to death woke gasping for breath, their eyes burning from the toxic gas and their mouths frothing. If only they had known, all they had needed to do was climb to a higher spot. Or covered their faces with a wet cloth. As it was, because MIC is twice as heavy as air, children were affected most. With no training and no knowledge of what they were treating, the doctors could do little to help. Overnight, the city turned into a mausoleum.

No one knows exactly how many people died that night. The official government estimates began around 3,000 and have since been revised to 5,295. (Officials from India’s Central Pollution Control Board did not respond to numerous requests for interviews.) But other sources, including Amnesty International, say at least 7,000 people died just within the first three days, and about 25,000 people overall have succumbed to MIC exposure. Another 500,000 have lingering health problems.

The government’s estimates for deaths makes no sense, notes Rachna Dhingra, who has been an activist in Bhopal since 2003. “Look at it this way,” she says: The government has approved pensions for 5,000 widows. “If you are giving pensions to 5,000 widows, then how can the figure of deaths be only 5,295 overall? It’s not just that only men died, yeah? Women too must have died, young children would have died.”

Against this chaotic backdrop, UCC settled in 1989 for $470 million in damages, with each gas-exposed person getting 25,000 Indian rupees (roughly $2,200 at the time). Under the terms of the settlement, UCC continued to deny liability for the incident. Dhingra and others have been trying ever since to get more compensation for those affected, to get the site cleaned up, and to prevent the devastation from spreading.

So far, they’ve had little luck. Dow Chemical Company acquired UCC in 2001. But Dow, which in September 2017 merged with DuPont to form a $130 billion behemoth, says its purchase of UCC excludes liabilities from Bhopal. In a series of statements addressing the disaster, Dow says responsibility for the cleanup really lies with UCC’s Indian partner at the time of the leak, Union Carbide India. That company, now called Eveready Industries India, places the blame squarely at UCC’s feet, saying, “The obligation and liability of the cleanup, if any, should be that of the erstwhile owners of UCIL, viz, UCC U.S. ” UCC, for its part, says UCIL really owned and managed the factory (even though UCC owned 50.9 percent of UCIL), and that the state of Madhya Pradesh, which owns the land, is responsible for cleaning up the site. The state of Madhya Pradesh says it is unequipped for cleanup and defers to the federal government. The federal government has named Dow in a “curative petition” intended to make up for the inadequate 1989 settlement, and is asking for $1.2 billion (compared with the $8 billion the activists are demanding). And around it goes.

Every few years, a new character enters this theater of the absurd. Two years ago, that was Sarang, the now-46-year-old minister of gas-tragedy relief and rehabilitation—that’s really his title, though most people drop the tragedy when talking about him—and a native Bhopali. His job is to make sure that people exposed to the gas, and those still affected by the disaster, are taken care of. (Most people who live in Annu Nagar and thereabouts are Muslim, and Sarang’s group, an ardent champion of Hindus, is often vehemently anti-Muslim.) Sarang is not the first gas-relief minister, but unlike his predecessors, he tweets, holds frequent press conferences, and loves to engage with the public. “Sarang is a different creature altogether,” says Dhingra. “He is very concerned about his image—very, very … and he has big political aspirations.”

When I asked for a meeting with Sarang, he summoned me to his house. Raj Sarma, the photographer I was traveling with, and I arrived at Sarang’s house on a balmy evening to find a horde of people waiting to speak to him. An aide showed us into a spacious room with bright-pink seats. When Sarang joined us about 20 minutes later, he was polite and charming: He insisted I have some food and tea, worried the snacks were too spicy for me, and complimented me on my Hindi—my protestations that I was not hungry, am no stranger to spicy food, and am fluent in Hindi because I grew up in India seemed to make no difference.

Every Bhopali older than 33 has a story about the leak, so I wasn’t surprised when Sarang told me his: He and his parents escaped to safer grounds in one car, but a mob hijacked the car his sisters were in, leaving them exposed to the gas; they survived. (In India, in those days especially, only wealthy families could afford two cars.) Because he is also a gas victim, Sarang said, he understands the plight of the people in the affected communities, and is committed to bettering their lives. He has made many promises along these lines: to introduce “smart cards” for everyone so that the local hospitals can track and coordinate their care; to renew the widows’ pensions, which stopped arriving around the time he began, then restarted for a limited number of widows this January; to build roads and parks in the neighborhoods and improve their quality of life; to offer better jobs and economic opportunities.

I told Sarang about Munni bi’s problems with getting medicines she needed from the hospital intended to serve that community. He immediately called an aide, threatened to fire whoever was in charge at the hospital, and told me Munni bi would get her meds. (When I went back to Annu Nagar the next day, her neighbor Sakina had been able to pick up the medicines.)

Not all of Sarang’s promises come true, however. In a follow-up phone interview in December, Sarang told me that the pensions were starting up again, that parks were under construction, and that gas-exposed people who needed bone-marrow transplants would soon be able to get them for free at private hospitals in Bhopal. When I asked Dhingra about this, she laughed outright. “What lies he’s spreading,” she said. The hospitals are nowhere near sophisticated enough to offer bone-marrow transplants, she said, and apart from the inaugural “prayers” offered at the sites of construction, nothing new had sprung up. When Sarang first became minister, she said, she and other activists were optimistic that this savvy, energetic young man could shake up the status quo. “We were fooled for many months, too” she says. “It’s all a big facade he puts up.” When I asked Sarang about skepticism about these projects from locals, he insisted that the initiatives were all moving forward.

At his house that evening in March 2017, every time I probed why the site hasn’t been cleaned up yet or what his plans are for remediation, Sarang asked me to turn off my recorder. On the record, he told me his main goal is to establish a Hiroshima-like memorial on the factory site—because, he said, that would first require a cleanup. He lamented how difficult it can be to get things done in India. But he also told me I have a responsibility to make India look good in the world press. He said the cleanup could be dealt with quickly, but also that it’s extremely complicated. Like a skilled politician, he supplied different answers at different junctures, and seemed to believe himself each time. But he became visibly agitated when I questioned his sincerity. “Do you know who I am? You don’t know who I am,” he said. “I am a man of the land.”

T he gas leak and its aftermath have split Bhopal’s residents: those who could afford to get away, either that night or later; and those who stay bound to the soil by their financial circumstances. At the boutique inn we stayed in, about a 20-minute drive from the factory, the air was fresh and there was mineral water aplenty. The proprietor’s daughter-in-law, a fashionable young woman in her 20s, laughingly told us she had never been to the site and wasn’t sure where it was.

Munni bi is the richest of her neighbors, but that’s not saying much. The houses her sons built are small and dark, with an inescapable stench of sewage and sickness. Like many of Annu Nagar’s residents, Munni bi was never exposed to the gas. Her family moved in years after UCC decamped, lured by the cheap land. At first they lived in makeshift homes of corrugated metal and tarps. But several years ago, they saved enough money to build pukka homes of cement and concrete.

She and her neighbors quickly realized that the soil around the solar evaporation pond is dangerous: People who tried to make stoves from the mud broke out in horrific rashes and spiked fevers. “If you dig there in the evening, you’ll be sick at night, you’ll get fevers; there’s that much poison in the mud,” says Sakina, 38, who lives three doors down from Munni bi. “Some kids died in that pond, too, so our kids don’t go there.”

Sakina, her husband, and her three children live in a small shack with walls painted purple and white, and a bright-purple door that’s always open. The family moved to the neighborhood about a decade ago, when their daughters Sana and Shamaiya were 5 and 3. A year later, Sakina gave birth to a son. From the start, the boy seemed ill and threw up constantly; he died before he was a year old. The following year, she had another boy, Aris. This child, too, developed “brain fever” two days after birth and, although he recovered, is still often sick. Soon after the family moved to Annu Nagar, little Sana had slowly begun losing her voice. She spoke softer and softer, until one day, when she was 8, her parents found her with big blisters all over; she had been scalded, but hadn’t been able to cry out.

With help from Munni bi and other neighbors, Sakina gathered money to take her daughter by train to New Delhi. Doctors there diagnosed Sana with respiratory papillomatosis—a rare condition in which a virus infects the voice box—and inserted a tube through a hole in her neck to help her breathe.

Like Munni bi, Sakina is convinced that the water she and her children drank for many years is to blame for all these ills. “When we brought normal kids here who had no problems before, and then we drank the water and this happened, of course we think it’s because of the water,” she says.

Munni bi’s relative affluence and age may have given her pole position in the neighborhood, but Sakina’s physical stamina and fearlessness make her formidable. In 2008, Sakina was one of the women who, along with Dhingra, marched 700 kilometers (about 435 miles) to New Delhi. The women fasted outside the prime minister’s house until he listened to their demands. It took the government many more years to take action. In 2014, in response to an order from the Supreme Court, the city finally installed pipes that bring clean water to these communities.

“The water before was really dirty,” says Nasreen, 38, who lives down an alley across from Munni bi’s house. After Nasreen moved to Annu Nagar about 15 years ago, she had one child who was stillborn; the other, 12-year-old Tauseeb, has a low IQ and attends a special school. Nasreen recalls that the water was often yellow, sometimes red, and smelled foul. It looks and smells better now, but comes for only an hour a day. “Sometimes it’s 2 p.m., sometimes 12, sometimes in the evening … the tap has no time,” she says. “We have to sit and wait.”

On days when the pipes don’t sing at all, people still boil the contaminated water from the hand pumps to bathe and wash clothes—as they were doing on one of the days I visited Annu Nagar. “The clean water hasn’t come for three days,” Mohammed Akhtar, 56, told me. “We drink this because we have no choice.”

When I asked Sarang about this, he flatly denied any problems with the water supply. “Pipes break sometimes,” he said. “That happens even in my house. This is not America.” He also told me he does not believe any of the reports of water contamination, and has asked the Central Pollution Control Board to conduct a fresh analysis. As of late May, they had yet to respond.

There’s also little official attention to the health effects of the gas or water. The only large epidemiological project on people exposed to the gas was abandoned for 15 years. The project changed hands several times and so the scientists lost track of 88 percent of the initial cohort. Activists were able to prove that some of the people who were sent out to conduct government health surveys never did so, and instead filled out the forms with bogus answers.

There is one rigorous study underway that might provide some answers. Over the past five years, the Canadian researcher Shree Mulay and volunteers working with Sambhavana, a nonprofit clinic set up by activists, have been collecting data on mortality, birth defects, fertility, cancer, and many other aspects of people’s health. The study includes data from people exposed to the gas who then moved away and did not drink the water; those who, like Munni bi and Sakina, moved into the neighborhoods after the leak and so were only ever exposed to the water; those who were exposed to both; and those who were exposed to neither. The researchers also tried to include controls matched by socioeconomic class, income, level of education, and family size. With about 5,000 families in each group, the study includes 100,000 people in all. Mulay’s team is still analyzing the data, but preliminary results indicate that people exposed to the gas or the water or both have a higher incidence of cancer, tuberculosis, and paralysis than those exposed to neither. They also suggest that gas-exposed people have 10 times the rate of cancer, particularly liver, lung, abdominal, throat, and oral cancers, compared to the other groups.

Mulay declined to discuss these results because they are being submitted for publication—and because she first wants to make sure the analysis accounts for all the confounds that may skew the data. “One has to be able to say, ‘What is due to the general poverty of the entire population and what is specifically due to the gas or the water that they have been exposed to?’” Mulay says. “That’s why it is such a complicated study.”

For example, Mulay notes that in the heart of Bhopal is a metalworks factory that likely spews toxic gases. It might be difficult—if not impossible—to tease out how much exposures like that contribute to the illnesses in Annu Nagar.

Still, it’s hard to ignore the most obvious possibility—the cesspool of toxic sludge right next to the neighborhood.

I n the early years of the factory, UCC dumped its waste into 21 unlined pits within the site. This was not, at the time, an unusual practice, although companies in the United States had begun to move away from it. In 1977, UCC built three solar evaporation ponds about 400 meters north of the factory, and piped untreated waste directly into the ponds. Thin liners were put in to keep the chemicals from seeping into the ground, and the strong Bhopal sun was supposed to take care of the rest. But the liners quickly fell apart. Memos in 1982 from the Bhopal plant to the company’s headquarters warned that the ponds were leaking, and might contaminate the groundwater. And local farmers lodged complaints that the company’s runoff was killing their cattle and their crops. The 1984 disaster derailed the conversations. After the tragedy, UCC closed down the factory. The tanks and vats on the site were finally emptied in 1989, and about 360 tons of the most hazardous waste was locked up in 2005. But the rest—corroding pipes, bottles of unnamed chemicals, and the massive waste pit—have remained untouched.

Today the factory is guarded by a staff of 14, although they only see a few visitors a month—except in December, around the anniversary of the disaster. When Sarma and I visited the site in March 2017, two guards accompanied us on the tour. For 200 rupees (about $3), they looked the other way as we took photos. Chouhan, who gave us a tour of the site, pointed out the drops of mercury sparkling in the soil. He gestured at the brush all around and said: “If you cut down this grass, you’ll find a pond of mercury.”

As we approached the farthest corner of the site from its entrance, we discovered several visitors—men and cattle—who were smarter than us and had simply walked in through gaping holes in the wall. One of the young men playing cricket was 22-year-old Zubaid, who said he has been sneaking into the site since he was a child. “There isn’t really anywhere else for us to go,” he said. His parents had both been exposed to the gas. His father died years ago of respiratory problems; his mother still struggles to catch her breath. I asked him whether he knew that the soil and water might be dangerous. He shrugged and said, “We’re all fine.”

Everyone knows that the gas left a lasting mark on people’s health. But it took years for people to acknowledge that the water may be contaminated. In the mid-1990s, the solar ponds were once again covered with a plastic liner and topped with soil in an attempt to convert them into primitive landfills. But the liner is visibly torn in multiple spots, and they turn into cesspits with every monsoon.

Since 1990, multiple organizations have documented unsafe levels of pesticides and chlorinated solvents in the soil and water. Unfortunately, none of the reports validates the others; each sampled different locations at different times.

The lack of consensus even within the government agencies stalled all talk of the key problem: who should clean up the site, how, and when. The government’s response to the disaster has been slow, inept, and crippled by corruption—predictably so for this country. But administration after administration has also been bafflingly resistant to offers of help from international groups.

Experts in waste management are flabbergasted to learn that the site of the world’s largest industrial disaster has yet to be decontaminated. “Hoo boy, it sounds like somebody with some money and some understanding has to come in there and clean the place up,” says Robert Chinery, who served as acting director of the Center for Environmental Health at the New York State Department of Health.

At least some of the problems have clear solutions, based on experiences at other sites. In 2004, Greenpeace commissioned waste-management experts based in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, who came back with a plan for cleaning up the soil.

One possible solution is simply to move the waste to a secure landfill, but no such location exists in India. Another is to incinerate the waste in a plant set up to handle this sort of material—a plan under discussion for the Bhopal waste for more than a decade. Done right, the waste would need to be burned at an extremely high temperature, say 800 degrees Celsius, then the gases given enough time to decompose, mostly into carbon dioxide. An air-pollution control system would trap particulates that are given off during the process. And the air would be closely monitored afterward for hazardous emissions.

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This was a common way to deal with industrial waste until the 1990s, but the fear of hazardous emissions has almost put a stop to it in the United States, says Jurgen Exner, a waste-management expert and one of the authors of the Greenpeace report. There are only a few such plants remaining in the United States and elsewhere. Over the years, many plans have been proposed and halted: shipping the waste to Germany or to a site in the neighboring state of Gujarat, neither of which happened because of protests in those areas.

In 2015, the government conducted a test run of incineration with 10 tons of the locked-up waste at a plant in Pithampur, about a three-hour drive from Bhopal. There are serious concerns about the plant’s ability to handle this waste, and the report from that test is not public (similar tests in the United States usually are)—but Sarang says it was a success. In fact, he told me in March 2017, the rest of the waste would also be incinerated in a matter of two to three months. “That’s not an issue,” he said. “It’s not a big job.” As of December, there had been no progress on this front.

Sarang was speaking about the 360 tons of locked-up waste. There’s still the matter of all of the soil, not to mention the groundwater.

To assess the scale of the groundwater contamination, what’s required is a geological study. The way to do that is to sink several wells around the site and sample the wells both vertically and laterally to analyze the water and the toxic plume. “If you just go out and take random samples from existing wells, maybe even drinking-water wells, then that doesn’t necessarily tell you what’s going in the groundwater,” Chinery says. “It’s usually the job of the government to make sure that’s done correctly.”

Chinery and Exner both say it would not be at all surprising if, as the activists say, the chemicals have traveled as far as three kilometers from the site. If there are fissures in the ground under the surface, chlorinated solvents would collect in those fissures and slowly dissolve into the groundwater. Exner says he once saw chlorinated solvents three miles from where they had been dumped at a site in Missouri. “That’s why chlorinated solvents in groundwater are such a big problem,” he says. “It takes years and years for it all to dissolve out of there.” For example, he says, a small amount of carbon tetrachloride can contaminate millions of gallons of water.

Cleaning up the water is a daunting task. These chemicals would be difficult to treat in the ground, so the solution—once the source and the direction of the plume are known—would be to pump it all out and treat it, says Chinery. That process could take many years and run up to millions of dollars. But “if the source is still there, and the plume is still there, it’s just going to keep moving.”

All told, the Greenpeace report estimated that it would cost $30 million over four years. DowDuPont’s revenue for 2017 was $62 billion.

The people of Annu Nagar, meanwhile, stay rooted to their homes, unable to muster the money or resources to move their families out of the danger zone. With help from Dhingra and other activists, Sakina and the other women and children are learning how to fight for their rights—either by calling bureaucrats repeatedly, protesting on the streets, or talking to the press.

For Munni bi, however, it is all already too late.

“What will you do for me? You won't come back; 50 people have come and gone,” she told me last year. “From drinking the water, the public is dying, that’s what’s happening. Our suffering is slowly killing us. And I don’t want to die.”

Munni bi died five months later.

This article was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review

Edward broughton.

1 Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, 600 W 168th St. New York, NY 10032 USA

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

On December 3 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, immediately killing at least 3,800 people and causing significant morbidity and premature death for many thousands more. The company involved in what became the worst industrial accident in history immediately tried to dissociate itself from legal responsibility. Eventually it reached a settlement with the Indian Government through mediation of that country's Supreme Court and accepted moral responsibility. It paid $470 million in compensation, a relatively small amount of based on significant underestimations of the long-term health consequences of exposure and the number of people exposed. The disaster indicated a need for enforceable international standards for environmental safety, preventative strategies to avoid similar accidents and industrial disaster preparedness.

Since the disaster, India has experienced rapid industrialization. While some positive changes in government policy and behavior of a few industries have taken place, major threats to the environment from rapid and poorly regulated industrial growth remain. Widespread environmental degradation with significant adverse human health consequences continues to occur throughout India.

December 2004 marked the twentieth anniversary of the massive toxic gas leak from Union Carbide Corporation's chemical plant in Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India that killed more than 3,800 people. This review examines the health effects of exposure to the disaster, the legal response, the lessons learned and whether or not these are put into practice in India in terms of industrial development, environmental management and public health.

In the 1970s, the Indian government initiated policies to encourage foreign companies to invest in local industry. Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) was asked to build a plant for the manufacture of Sevin, a pesticide commonly used throughout Asia. As part of the deal, India's government insisted that a significant percentage of the investment come from local shareholders. The government itself had a 22% stake in the company's subsidiary, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) [ 1 ]. The company built the plant in Bhopal because of its central location and access to transport infrastructure. The specific site within the city was zoned for light industrial and commercial use, not for hazardous industry. The plant was initially approved only for formulation of pesticides from component chemicals, such as MIC imported from the parent company, in relatively small quantities. However, pressure from competition in the chemical industry led UCIL to implement "backward integration" – the manufacture of raw materials and intermediate products for formulation of the final product within one facility. This was inherently a more sophisticated and hazardous process [ 2 ].

In 1984, the plant was manufacturing Sevin at one quarter of its production capacity due to decreased demand for pesticides. Widespread crop failures and famine on the subcontinent in the 1980s led to increased indebtedness and decreased capital for farmers to invest in pesticides. Local managers were directed to close the plant and prepare it for sale in July 1984 due to decreased profitability [ 3 ]. When no ready buyer was found, UCIL made plans to dismantle key production units of the facility for shipment to another developing country. In the meantime, the facility continued to operate with safety equipment and procedures far below the standards found in its sister plant in Institute, West Virginia. The local government was aware of safety problems but was reticent to place heavy industrial safety and pollution control burdens on the struggling industry because it feared the economic effects of the loss of such a large employer [ 3 ].

At 11.00 PM on December 2 1984, while most of the one million residents of Bhopal slept, an operator at the plant noticed a small leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and increasing pressure inside a storage tank. The vent-gas scrubber, a safety device designer to neutralize toxic discharge from the MIC system, had been turned off three weeks prior [ 3 ]. Apparently a faulty valve had allowed one ton of water for cleaning internal pipes to mix with forty tons of MIC [ 1 ]. A 30 ton refrigeration unit that normally served as a safety component to cool the MIC storage tank had been drained of its coolant for use in another part of the plant [ 3 ]. Pressure and heat from the vigorous exothermic reaction in the tank continued to build. The gas flare safety system was out of action and had been for three months. At around 1.00 AM, December 3, loud rumbling reverberated around the plant as a safety valve gave way sending a plume of MIC gas into the early morning air [ 4 ]. Within hours, the streets of Bhopal were littered with human corpses and the carcasses of buffaloes, cows, dogs and birds. An estimated 3,800 people died immediately, mostly in the poor slum colony adjacent to the UCC plant [ 1 , 5 ]. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed with the injured, a crisis further compounded by a lack of knowledge of exactly what gas was involved and what its effects were [ 1 ]. It became one of the worst chemical disasters in history and the name Bhopal became synonymous with industrial catastrophe [ 5 ].

Estimates of the number of people killed in the first few days by the plume from the UCC plant run as high as 10,000, with 15,000 to 20,000 premature deaths reportedly occurring in the subsequent two decades [ 6 ]. The Indian government reported that more than half a million people were exposed to the gas [ 7 ]. Several epidemiological studies conducted soon after the accident showed significant morbidity and increased mortality in the exposed population. Table ​ Table1. 1 . summarizes early and late effects on health. These data are likely to under-represent the true extent of adverse health effects because many exposed individuals left Bhopal immediately following the disaster never to return and were therefore lost to follow-up [ 8 ].

Health effects of the Bhopal methyl isocyanate gas leak exposure [8, 30-32].

Immediately after the disaster, UCC began attempts to dissociate itself from responsibility for the gas leak. Its principal tactic was to shift culpability to UCIL, stating the plant was wholly built and operated by the Indian subsidiary. It also fabricated scenarios involving sabotage by previously unknown Sikh extremist groups and disgruntled employees but this theory was impugned by numerous independent sources [ 1 ].

The toxic plume had barely cleared when, on December 7, the first multi-billion dollar lawsuit was filed by an American attorney in a U.S. court. This was the beginning of years of legal machinations in which the ethical implications of the tragedy and its affect on Bhopal's people were largely ignored. In March 1985, the Indian government enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act as a way of ensuring that claims arising from the accident would be dealt with speedily and equitably. The Act made the government the sole representative of the victims in legal proceedings both within and outside India. Eventually all cases were taken out of the U.S. legal system under the ruling of the presiding American judge and placed entirely under Indian jurisdiction much to the detriment of the injured parties.

In a settlement mediated by the Indian Supreme Court, UCC accepted moral responsibility and agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government to be distributed to claimants as a full and final settlement. The figure was partly based on the disputed claim that only 3000 people died and 102,000 suffered permanent disabilities [ 9 ]. Upon announcing this settlement, shares of UCC rose $2 per share or 7% in value [ 1 ]. Had compensation in Bhopal been paid at the same rate that asbestosis victims where being awarded in US courts by defendant including UCC – which mined asbestos from 1963 to 1985 – the liability would have been greater than the $10 billion the company was worth and insured for in 1984 [ 10 ]. By the end of October 2003, according to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, compensation had been awarded to 554,895 people for injuries received and 15,310 survivors of those killed. The average amount to families of the dead was $2,200 [ 9 ].

At every turn, UCC has attempted to manipulate, obfuscate and withhold scientific data to the detriment of victims. Even to this date, the company has not stated exactly what was in the toxic cloud that enveloped the city on that December night [ 8 ]. When MIC is exposed to 200° heat, it forms degraded MIC that contains the more deadly hydrogen cyanide (HCN). There was clear evidence that the storage tank temperature did reach this level in the disaster. The cherry-red color of blood and viscera of some victims were characteristic of acute cyanide poisoning [ 11 ]. Moreover, many responded well to administration of sodium thiosulfate, an effective therapy for cyanide poisoning but not MIC exposure [ 11 ]. UCC initially recommended use of sodium thiosulfate but withdrew the statement later prompting suggestions that it attempted to cover up evidence of HCN in the gas leak. The presence of HCN was vigorously denied by UCC and was a point of conjecture among researchers [ 8 , 11 - 13 ].

As further insult, UCC discontinued operation at its Bhopal plant following the disaster but failed to clean up the industrial site completely. The plant continues to leak several toxic chemicals and heavy metals that have found their way into local aquifers. Dangerously contaminated water has now been added to the legacy left by the company for the people of Bhopal [ 1 , 14 ].

Lessons learned

The events in Bhopal revealed that expanding industrialization in developing countries without concurrent evolution in safety regulations could have catastrophic consequences [ 4 ]. The disaster demonstrated that seemingly local problems of industrial hazards and toxic contamination are often tied to global market dynamics. UCC's Sevin production plant was built in Madhya Pradesh not to avoid environmental regulations in the U.S. but to exploit the large and growing Indian pesticide market. However the manner in which the project was executed suggests the existence of a double standard for multinational corporations operating in developing countries [ 1 ]. Enforceable uniform international operating regulations for hazardous industries would have provided a mechanism for significantly improved in safety in Bhopal. Even without enforcement, international standards could provide norms for measuring performance of individual companies engaged in hazardous activities such as the manufacture of pesticides and other toxic chemicals in India [ 15 ]. National governments and international agencies should focus on widely applicable techniques for corporate responsibility and accident prevention as much in the developing world context as in advanced industrial nations [ 16 ]. Specifically, prevention should include risk reduction in plant location and design and safety legislation [ 17 ].

Local governments clearly cannot allow industrial facilities to be situated within urban areas, regardless of the evolution of land use over time. Industry and government need to bring proper financial support to local communities so they can provide medical and other necessary services to reduce morbidity, mortality and material loss in the case of industrial accidents.

Public health infrastructure was very weak in Bhopal in 1984. Tap water was available for only a few hours a day and was of very poor quality. With no functioning sewage system, untreated human waste was dumped into two nearby lakes, one a source of drinking water. The city had four major hospitals but there was a shortage of physicians and hospital beds. There was also no mass casualty emergency response system in place in the city [ 3 ]. Existing public health infrastructure needs to be taken into account when hazardous industries choose sites for manufacturing plants. Future management of industrial development requires that appropriate resources be devoted to advance planning before any disaster occurs [ 18 ]. Communities that do not possess infrastructure and technical expertise to respond adequately to such industrial accidents should not be chosen as sites for hazardous industry.

Following the events of December 3 1984 environmental awareness and activism in India increased significantly. The Environment Protection Act was passed in 1986, creating the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and strengthening India's commitment to the environment. Under the new act, the MoEF was given overall responsibility for administering and enforcing environmental laws and policies. It established the importance of integrating environmental strategies into all industrial development plans for the country. However, despite greater government commitment to protect public health, forests, and wildlife, policies geared to developing the country's economy have taken precedence in the last 20 years [ 19 ].

India has undergone tremendous economic growth in the two decades since the Bhopal disaster. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has increased from $1,000 in 1984 to $2,900 in 2004 and it continues to grow at a rate of over 8% per year [ 20 ]. Rapid industrial development has contributed greatly to economic growth but there has been significant cost in environmental degradation and increased public health risks. Since abatement efforts consume a large portion of India's GDP, MoEF faces an uphill battle as it tries to fulfill its mandate of reducing industrial pollution [ 19 ]. Heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants and poor enforcement of vehicle emission laws have result from economic concerns taking precedence over environmental protection [ 19 ].

With the industrial growth since 1984, there has been an increase in small scale industries (SSIs) that are clustered about major urban areas in India. There are generally less stringent rules for the treatment of waste produced by SSIs due to less waste generation within each individual industry. This has allowed SSIs to dispose of untreated wastewater into drainage systems that flow directly into rivers. New Delhi's Yamuna River is illustrative. Dangerously high levels of heavy metals such as lead, cobalt, cadmium, chrome, nickel and zinc have been detected in this river which is a major supply of potable water to India's capital thus posing a potential health risk to the people living there and areas downstream [ 21 ].

Land pollution due to uncontrolled disposal of industrial solid and hazardous waste is also a problem throughout India. With rapid industrialization, the generation of industrial solid and hazardous waste has increased appreciably and the environmental impact is significant [ 22 ].

India relaxed its controls on foreign investment in order to accede to WTO rules and thereby attract an increasing flow of capital. In the process, a number of environmental regulations are being rolled back as growing foreign investments continue to roll in. The Indian experience is comparable to that of a number of developing countries that are experiencing the environmental impacts of structural adjustment. Exploitation and export of natural resources has accelerated on the subcontinent. Prohibitions against locating industrial facilities in ecologically sensitive zones have been eliminated while conservation zones are being stripped of their status so that pesticide, cement and bauxite mines can be built [ 23 ]. Heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants and poor enforcement of vehicle emission laws are other consequences of economic concerns taking precedence over environmental protection [ 19 ].

In March 2001, residents of Kodaikanal in southern India caught the Anglo-Dutch company, Unilever, red-handed when they discovered a dumpsite with toxic mercury laced waste from a thermometer factory run by the company's Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Lever. The 7.4 ton stockpile of mercury-laden glass was found in torn stacks spilling onto the ground in a scrap metal yard located near a school. In the fall of 2001, steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center was exported to India apparently without first being tested for contamination from asbestos and heavy metals present in the twin tower debris. Other examples of poor environmental stewardship and economic considerations taking precedence over public health concerns abound [ 24 ].

The Bhopal disaster could have changed the nature of the chemical industry and caused a reexamination of the necessity to produce such potentially harmful products in the first place. However the lessons of acute and chronic effects of exposure to pesticides and their precursors in Bhopal has not changed agricultural practice patterns. An estimated 3 million people per year suffer the consequences of pesticide poisoning with most exposure occurring in the agricultural developing world. It is reported to be the cause of at least 22,000 deaths in India each year. In the state of Kerala, significant mortality and morbidity have been reported following exposure to Endosulfan, a toxic pesticide whose use continued for 15 years after the events of Bhopal [ 25 ].

Aggressive marketing of asbestos continues in developing countries as a result of restrictions being placed on its use in developed nations due to the well-established link between asbestos products and respiratory diseases. India has become a major consumer, using around 100,000 tons of asbestos per year, 80% of which is imported with Canada being the largest overseas supplier. Mining, production and use of asbestos in India is very loosely regulated despite the health hazards. Reports have shown morbidity and mortality from asbestos related disease will continue in India without enforcement of a ban or significantly tighter controls [ 26 , 27 ].

UCC has shrunk to one sixth of its size since the Bhopal disaster in an effort to restructure and divest itself. By doing so, the company avoided a hostile takeover, placed a significant portion of UCC's assets out of legal reach of the victims and gave its shareholder and top executives bountiful profits [ 1 ]. The company still operates under the ownership of Dow Chemicals and still states on its website that the Bhopal disaster was "cause by deliberate sabotage". [ 28 ].

Some positive changes were seen following the Bhopal disaster. The British chemical company, ICI, whose Indian subsidiary manufactured pesticides, increased attention to health, safety and environmental issues following the events of December 1984. The subsidiary now spends 30–40% of their capital expenditures on environmental-related projects. However, they still do not adhere to standards as strict as their parent company in the UK. [ 24 ].

The US chemical giant DuPont learned its lesson of Bhopal in a different way. The company attempted for a decade to export a nylon plant from Richmond, VA to Goa, India. In its early negotiations with the Indian government, DuPont had sought and won a remarkable clause in its investment agreement that absolved it from all liabilities in case of an accident. But the people of Goa were not willing to acquiesce while an important ecological site was cleared for a heavy polluting industry. After nearly a decade of protesting by Goa's residents, DuPont was forced to scuttle plans there. Chennai was the next proposed site for the plastics plant. The state government there made significantly greater demand on DuPont for concessions on public health and environmental protection. Eventually, these plans were also aborted due to what the company called "financial concerns". [ 29 ].

The tragedy of Bhopal continues to be a warning sign at once ignored and heeded. Bhopal and its aftermath were a warning that the path to industrialization, for developing countries in general and India in particular, is fraught with human, environmental and economic perils. Some moves by the Indian government, including the formation of the MoEF, have served to offer some protection of the public's health from the harmful practices of local and multinational heavy industry and grassroots organizations that have also played a part in opposing rampant development. The Indian economy is growing at a tremendous rate but at significant cost in environmental health and public safety as large and small companies throughout the subcontinent continue to pollute. Far more remains to be done for public health in the context of industrialization to show that the lessons of the countless thousands dead in Bhopal have truly been heeded.

Competing interests

The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

J. Barab, B. Castleman, R Dhara and U Misra reviewed the manuscript and provided useful suggestions.

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Bhopal Gas Tragedy after 38 years: Why the govt is demanding compensation now

In october, the government told the supreme court that it is “keen to pursue” a petition for additional compensation in the bhopal gas tragedy case, saying it “cannot abandon” the people. what is the case about, and what does the petition demand.

On the night of December 2, 1984, one of the biggest industrial disasters to ever take place began unfolding in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Harmful Methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas started leaking from a nearby Union Carbide pesticide plant, eventually resulting in the Bhopal Gas tragedy, where an estimated 3,000 people died within the first few days. Over time, similarly horrifying numbers of those who suffered life-long health issues would become known.

For the first time in India, the case led to a focus on the need for protecting people and the environment from industrial accidents, with new laws introduced by the government afterwards. But those who suffered the effects firsthand have continued insisting that the company at the centre of it all – Union Carbide, now a part of Dow Jones – has not fulfilled its responsibility in terms of providing just compensation.

Around 19 years after compensation was agreed upon, the Indian government filed a curative petition in 2010 to seek additional compensation from Dow, of more than ten times the amount it gave in 1989. Last month, the government told the Supreme Court that it is “keen to pursue” it, saying it “cannot abandon” the people.

How did the industrial disaster occur, and what is the recent demand for compensation? We explain.

The night of December 2, 1984

Union Carbide (India) Ltd. (UCIL) was a subsidiary of the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), a US corporation. The UCIL pesticide manufacturing factory was located on the outskirts of Bhopal . On December 2, highly toxic MIC gas escaped the plant. People living in nearby areas reported a burning sensation in their eyes and difficulties in breathing, with many also losing consciousness.

Its effects were such that apart from killing thousands of people in a short span of time, it led to disease and other long-term problems for many who inhaled the gas. The scale of environmental pollution also became clearer only later. For example, the sources of water around the factory were deemed unfit for consumption and many handpumps were sealed. To date, the reproductive health of many of Bhopal’s women has been affected, and children born to those exposed to the gas have faced congenital health problems.

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The aftermath

A 2019 report by the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) said at least 30 tonnes of the poisonous gas affected more than 600,000 workers and nearby inhabitants. It added the disaster was among the world’s “major industrial accidents after 1919”.

Multiple analyses have alleged that the leak was a result of general laxity in safety rules, and in the training of the workers, most of whom were unaware of the MIC’s dangers. Dr S Varadarajan, director general of the Government’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said at the time that the MIC gas in its plant was being handled without adequate safety measures or plans for emergencies.

The incident also pointed to the lack of specific laws in India at the time for handling such matters. As a PRS Legislative Research article points out, this changed after Bhopal. Major laws passed since 1984 include the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which authorised the central government to take relevant measures and regulate industrial activity for environmental and public safety.

The Public Liability Insurance Act of 1991, which provides public liability insurance for providing immediate relief to the persons affected by an accident occurring while handling any hazardous substance, was also passed.

The demand for compensation

After the disaster, the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act was passed in 1985, giving certain powers to the Indian government for settling claims. It said the Central Government would have the “exclusive right” to represent, and act in place of every person connected with the claims.

A case was lodged against Union Carbide. Warren Anderson, the Chairman of UC, was arrested when he visited India but was shortly released on bail, after which he left the country. Other high-level executives were also released on bail.

The case was also in a US court for some time but was later transferred to India. By December 1987, the CBI filed a charge sheet against Anderson. Two years later, a non-bailable warrant of arrest against Warren Anderson was issued, for repeatedly ignoring summons. Anderson never returned to India and died in 2014.

In February 1989, the Indian government and Union Carbide struck an out-of-court deal and compensation of $470 million was given by UC. The Supreme Court also upheld it in a judgement. Over the years, the government gradually released the money, but the delay led to frequent protests by those affected.

Many of those people continued petitioning on the matter. The CBI, in 2010, sought reconsideration of a 1996 Supreme Court judgement, which had whittled down the charge against the company to ‘causing death due to rash and negligent act’.

The new petition

With the billion-dollar corporation Dow Jones taking control of Union Carbide in 1999, it became the focus of proceedings. It has opposed the reopening of compensation claims. “Dow has long maintained that it has no connection to the incident and does not belong in any legal proceeding involving Bhopal,” it said.

It emphasised the SC’s earlier judgements, claiming since the government agreed to the earlier compensation there is no case now. It has said of the 2010 petition, “The Government’s ill-advised action puts at peril the image of India as a nation committed to promoting and adhering to accepted legal principles and the rule of law, with the inevitable result that confidence in investing in India will be undermined.”

Attorney General R Venkataramani told a five-judge bench in October 2022 that he had looked into examples elsewhere and has considerable literature on where the courts have gone beyond the already conducted settlement. But a delay of many years since the judgment was passed has reduced the chances of any change in the status quo. As University of Warwick Law professor Upendra Baxi wrote in The Indian Express , a “heroic effort” would be needed to enforce any ultimate result.

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Bhopal at 40: Remembering and storytelling

Call for Papers: 'Bhopal at 40: Remembering and storytelling'

Special Issue of South Asian Review (Taylor & Francis)

Guest editors: Clare Barker (University of Leeds), Antara Chatterjee (IISER Bhopal) and Lynn Wray (University of Leeds)

The evening of 2 December 2024 will mark 40 years since a gas leak from a Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India, caused the world’s worst industrial disaster, which has killed 25,000 people to date and left more than 120,000 people with continuing health effects, including respiratory problems, blindness, and reproductive disorders. Less well known than the gas disaster is the ongoing ‘second disaster’ in Bhopal: the contaminated groundwater supply, caused by the unsafe disposal of chemical waste from the factory from the 1970s onwards, which is gradually spreading through surrounding communities and producing untold environmental damage as well as high rates of congenital disabilities in what is now the third generation to be affected by the Union Carbide disasters.

For survivors of the gas leak, the last 40 years have seen ongoing legal action and campaigns for justice, compensation, clean water and adequate healthcare. Most recently, in March 2023 the Supreme Court of India dismissed a curative petition for compensation from Dow Chemical (who bought out Union Carbide in 2001) for survivors of the 1984 disaster. This latest ruling means Dow Chemical continues to evade justice and emphasises the power and impunity of transnational wealth in this ongoing fight against corporate negligence. The Bhopal disasters mark a particular moment in uneven transnational corporate relations – a consequence of the Green Revolution – while also exemplifying many of the most urgent environmental concerns of the present moment: increasing levels of chemical toxicity, persistent organic pollutants, and the human right to safe drinking water. The health and environmental impacts of both the 1984 gas disaster and the ‘slow and silent’ groundwater contamination are both still unfolding, entangled with one another in a continuing story that becomes more complex as the years go by.

This special issue of South Asian Review  explores the manifold ways in which the Bhopal gas and water disasters have been represented, narrativised, visualised, imagined, interrogated and remembered in cultural and creative productions over the past 40 years. Certain cultural texts have become iconic in local and global representations of Bhopal, from Raghu Rai’s haunting 1984 photograph, ‘Burial of an Unknown Child’, ubiquitous in survivor group campaign materials and international mobilisations, to Indra Sinha’s 2007 novel Animal’s People , shortlisted for the Booker Prize and widely discussed within academic literary criticism. But the disasters have also been the subject of countless other storytelling and awareness-raising initiatives, by survivors and campaigners and by global writers, artists and photographers: to name just a few, the Remember Bhopal Museum; the campaigns of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal and the Bhopal Medical Appeal; photography by Micha Patault, Alex Masi, Judah Passow and Francesca Moore; fiction by Arundhati Roy and Megan Delahunt; and films including the Hollywood take on the story of 1984, Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain  (2013), documentaries including Van Maximilian Carlson’s Bhopali (2011) and Bala Kailasam’s Where Do the Children Play? (2019), and most recently the 2023 Netflix drama The Railway Men . The narrativisation and temporalities of the disaster have necessarily shifted over time, after 40 years now often encompassing impacts across generations, the Bhopal ‘marathon’ of endurance and suffering, slow violence, and ‘forever’ chemicals.

In this issue we want to turn critical attention to Bhopal storytelling over the last four decades, inviting articles on the disasters’ representations across art forms. We are interested in how cultural commentators and creative practitioners choose to engage with or frame this complex story spanning decades, the strategies used to keep Bhopal in global public consciousness in a world facing the compassion fatigue associated with frequent environmental disasters and climate crises, and in what is remembered and commemorated. We welcome articles in English exploring representations of the Bhopal disasters that are in Hindi, English or other languages and that are produced for local and/or global audiences. Critical approaches from the environmental humanities, medical humanities, disability studies, memory studies, legal studies, gender studies and other fields are welcome, as are creative submissions (poetry, short fiction, visual art, photography) that engage with the history of Bhopal. 

Topics for consideration may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Representations or narratives of the Bhopal disaster and/or groundwater contamination in fiction, photography, film, poetry, visual art, music and other forms.
• Memory and its politics: remembering, memorialisation, commemoration, forgetting.
• Health, disability, debility, care. 
• Environments, pollution, chemicals, toxicity, waste.
• Time and temporality: slow violence, anniversaries, the Bhopal ‘marathon’, forever chemicals.
• Subalternities and intersectionalities: transnational power and subaltern narratives.
• Storytelling or campaigning for local and/or global audiences; solidarity, empathy, humanitarianism.
• Comparative studies of the Bhopal disaster and other industrial disasters, acts of corporate crime, or water crises.
• How the disasters frame the urban imaginaries and memoryscapes of the city of Bhopal.

To submit a proposal for the special issue, please send an abstract of 250 words and a bionote of 100 words to  [email protected] by 15 August 2024. Selections will be made by 30 September and full manuscripts will be due by 28 February 2025. 

The editors will be hosting an online workshop to commemorate Bhopal at 40 in November 2024 and will invite potential contributors to present and gain feedback on works in progress. Further information about this event will be circulated once abstracts have been reviewed. Please note that South Asian Review ’s peer review protocols will be followed and   participation in the workshop does not guarantee publication in the special issue.

Please direct all queries about the issue to [email protected]

Guest Editors: 

Clare Barker (University of Leeds): [email protected] , 

Antara Chatterjee (IISER Bhopal): [email protected] 

Lynn Wray (University of Leeds): [email protected]