Meher Ali on Jairam Ramesh’s apology for the government’s role, 23 years ago, in the clandestine transportation of toxic waste from the Union Carbide plant to a TSD.
Jairam Ramesh, India’s Union minister of state for environment, apologised on Sunday. ‘Whoops!’ he said. The Madhya Pradesh government secretly transported 40 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal to a Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSD) facility in Indore in 2008, at a time when the curfew was imposed on the riot-affected city, the Times of India reported.
What do you say to that? ‘Go Ramesh!’ ‘Champion of transparency!’ ‘Of course you are not to be blamed. We agree, you were not the environment minister at that time, so environment was probably not one of your concerns.’
So what if 23 years ago, the country shook from the impact of the Bhopal gas tragedy. So what if the government that you work for has treated the victims of the tragedy with little more than contempt. So what that the state and central governments have both tried, with all their might, to brush Union Carbide’s role in the environment disaster, under the carpet?
You probably knew about it though didn’t you? For how long?
What happens now? Another Bhopal in the making, because we know it’ll probably take you another 20 years to shift the waste (clandestinely) to some other obscure place, or maybe you’ll wait for a riot to do the trick.
The UPA-II, it seems, is getting more arrogant by the day. Instead of chalking out a clear plan of action for disposing of toxic waste which has been in the country since 1984; instead of holding those responsible for the disaster accountable; instead of using this environmental disaster as a lesson in how to avoid similar tragedies, the government says, ‘Sorry! Whoops!’
Would it have been too much to expect the environment minister to have a plan of action on how he plans to now get rid of the toxic waste in Pithampur accompany his apology? Would it have been too much to ask him to explain how exactly he came to know of this and when? (Of course he would have to tell us the truth, which may be a stretch).
We want to know why the central and state government were working so hard to cover this up, not just in the 1980s but until 2008. We want to know how many Indian citizens’ lives equal that of Warren Anderson? We want to know if the government will take environmental hazards seriously or if it is waiting for another one to happen. When will it chalk out a clear plan of action with regard to compensation for victims of environmental disasters, protocols for cleaning up and emergency responses to such disasters?
We want to know if the government is serious about governance and if it values people over profits. The last point is important, because if it does not, as we have seen in the past; if the government is callous and irresponsible towards its people, if it treats corporations as kings and the people as ‘collateral damage’ in its quest to become a ’superpower,’ then the people may not accept. Whoops!
— The writer is the Assistant Editor (print) at Himal Southasian.
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