The TV channels have worked themselves into a lather about Warren Anderson, and I don't see why. The then Chairman of Union Carbide need never have stepped on Indian soil after the gas leak. He obviously came with some deal having been struck in advance. Even without such a deal, he'd have been bailed after a few days of custody.
It's always convenient to blame the foreigners. So what if the Bhopal plant was entirely under Indian management, as required by Indian law? So what if we don't yet know what triggered the leak? So what if we've put no measures in place to cope with another such accident?
We've never been too fussed about safety. What sense does it make to press charges of culpable homicide when what happened was clearly negligence? Criminal negligence, no doubt, but nonetheless negligence. Unless, of course, we accept the Union Carbide theory that it was sabotage.
Intention is central to culpability. Absent an intent to kill, it makes no sense to put people away for ten years, even if their negligence resulted in 10,000 deaths. The problem lies not with the sentence but the delay in getting to this point. It has made India an international laughing stock.
The other issue relates to the compensation of 470 million dollars. I don't believe it was such a trivial amount as is being made out. The government should've accepted the initial offer of 350 million dollars and used it to build health care centres, and disbursed it quickly to victims. Instead it demanded over 3 billion and finally had to accept the 350 million plus interest. And after it got the 470 million, it kept most of it in a bank account, like it would do any good there!!!!
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