By Pervez Bari

Bhopal, December 03: Bhopal, the state capital of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which was the scene of world’s worst industrial disaster in December 1984, remembered its victims and sympathized with the survivors on its 29th anniversary.

      The day was marked by prayer meetings, protest rallies and burning of effigies of Dow Chemical, Union Carbide and its erstwhile chairman Warren Anderson in the town wherein toxic gas leak killed thousands and left nearly half a million maimed for life who still continue to suffer.

       According to reports reaching here Harvard students and community organizations in the United States launched a 365-day relay fast today in support of survivors of the Bhopal Gas Disaster. A candlelight vigil and protest attended by several dozen people was organized at Harvard Square, Cambridge on Sunday to commemorate the 29th anniversary of the disaster. The goal of the fast is to draw attention to key survivor demands: clean-up of the contaminated site, medical relief and economic rehabilitation of all survivors, and prosecution of Dow Chemical, whose subsidiary Union Carbide's pesticide factory was the site of the 1984 disaster.

       Sunday’s candlelight vigil and the relay fast was organized by students from the Harvard Kennedy School in coordination with the Association for India’s Development (AID) and the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB).

       It may be recalled here that on the midnight of December 3rd, 1984 in Bhopal 27 tons of Methyl Iso-cyanate, a lethal gas, leaked from a pesticide plant owned by the Union Carbide Corporation, killing 8,000 people instantly, poisoning and blinding thousands. Now, 29 years after the disaster, the death toll is above 25,000 and counting, while 150,000 people suffer from chronic, debilitating, exposure-related illnesses. In 1989, UC negotiated a secret deal with the Indian government paying about $400 for each victim. The deal was struck with no consultation with survivor groups and also vastly undercounted the people affected.  In 2001 UC was acquired by Dow Chemical which has since refused to acknowledge any responsibility for the actions of its subsidiary.

       Abdul Jabbar, convener of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udhyog Sangathan, (BGPMUS), lamented the neglect of the gas victims by the successive governments, both state and federal, over the years. He bemoaned that neither the Congress nor the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, (BJP), mentioned a single word about the gas victims, who are leading a pathetic existence, in their election manifestoes.

       Meanwhile, in a jointly released statement to the media on the 29th Anniversary five organizations of survivors of have demanded apologies from the governments of USA, India and the State of Madhya Pradesh for the ongoing medical and environmental crisis affecting half a million people. They called upon these governments to end the disaster in Bhopal before it enters its fourth decade next year.

       The organizations led a rally of survivors of the disaster and those exposed to contaminated groundwater to the Union Carbide factory at the end of which they set an effigy of Dow Chemical on fire. The marchers carried picture of US hacker activist Jeremy Hammond, sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, who exposed Dow Chemical’s snooping on Bhopal activists. The effigy, that of a corporate executive with horns and a forked tail, bore marks of damage caused to Dow Chemicals in India including the criminal case on bribery, the blacklisting of Dursban, the cancellation of the joint venture in Gujarat and the gutting down of its proposed R & D Centre at Chakan near Pune.

       Ms Rashida Bi, who has lost 6 members of her family in the disaster and is the president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, said “The President of United States must summon the courage to express remorse for the US Government’s financing of the world’s worst industrial disaster through the EXIM bank as revealed through Wikileaks documents. He must apologize for the blatant double standards of his government’s responses to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the continuing disaster in Bhopal that involves two of USA’s largest corporations.” she said.

       She said that a closure of the Bhopal disaster was not possible without the US government agreeing to send Warren Anderson, former Chairman of Union Carbide and chief accused in the criminal case to face trial in India.

       Balkrishna Namdeo of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogi Sangharsh Morcha sought apologies from the Prime Minister on behalf of the Indian Government for taking away victims’ legal rights to adequate compensation through the Bhopal Act and then continuing to downplay the health and environmental damages caused by Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals.

       He said that the Prime Minister should personally apologize for appointing two known Dow Chemical supporters, Kamalnath and Chidambaran to the Group of Ministers on Bhopal that has failed to bring about any improvement in the situation in Bhopal.

       “The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh must express regret for failing to keep the three promises he made to the delegation of survivors on December 3, 2011 exactly two years back” said Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha’s president Nawab Khan.

       He said that the Chief Minister has not set up any independent inquiry in to the violence during the rail roko agitation and innocent people are facing trumped up criminal charges. The CM has also failed to keep his promise regarding revision of figures and extent of injuries caused by the disaster and that of joining a delegation of survivors to meet the Prime Minister on the lingering issues of Bhopal, he charged.

       “The Prime Minister and the Chief Minister should also say sorry for their failure to provide proper medical care, employment, social support and environmental remediation even after 29 years of the disaster”, said Ms Safreen Khan of Children Against Dow Carbide.

       Meanwhile, a condolence meeting marking 29th anniversary of Bhopal gas tragedy was held at Barkatullah Bhavan, Central Library here. Representatives of Sanatan Dharm, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism and Bohra sect recited their Holy scriptures at the meeting in the presence of Madhya Pradesh Government Chief Secretary Anthony de Sa. A 2-minute silence was also observed to pay tributes to deceased of the gas tragedy.