The Bhopal gas-leak disaster still haunts us with lessons left half learnt

Tens of thousands were disabled—several thousand suffered permanent injuries to the eyes and lungs. A study of its long-term health effects (1985-1994) by the Bhopal Gas Disaster Research Centre of the Indian Council for Medical Research concluded: “The results show that the toxic gas exposees, for long after the exposure, continued to suffer from multisystem involvement but predominantly from respiratory, eye and gastro- intestinal disorders.”

Four decades later, it seems as if India has been sleep-walking through this grim anniversary year after year, although, given its horror, we should have long acted upon the lessons drawn. The biggest of these today is our need to open a conversation, and then reach a consensus, on how we can make our rapid economic growth more sustainable—or green.

For, beyond corporate culpability and a stark failure of corporate governance, the Bhopal disaster was also about industrial support for agriculture. Do remember the Carbide plant produced carbaryl, a pesticide sold under the brand Sevin that’s used to kill a range of insects.

Even back then, there were companies making carbaryl without using MIC, and the leak exposed lax regulation and a lack of experts to guide what we now call green growth. India finally banned carbaryl only in 2018—34 years after Bhopal.

Have we seen the back of such disasters? Hardly so, if we take a broader view of the impact of air pollution caused by weakly regulated industrialization, transport emissions and another bad agricultural practice—of stubble burning. As with MIC gas in Bhopal, the foul air that turns hazardous every winter in northern India not only kills, but also causes health problems that can persist for years.

The high level of tiny particulate matter in the air killed 4.2 million worldwide in 2019, according to the WHO, almost 90% of them in low- and middle-income countries like India. Indeed, the toll taken by seasonal air pollution is just as uncountable as the 1984 gas leak’s. Taking a narrower view offers no great comfort.

A 2023 paper by Mausami Prasad of IIT Kanpur and Lavanya Suresh of BITS Pilani shows there were 560 industrial accidents with reported environmental damage between 2010 and 2020; about 2,500 people died and another 8,500 were injured as a result. Although green solutions have been around, they’ve been spurred lately by a global focus on climate change.

Perhaps India can borrow a leaf from the EU’s playbook to combat this man-made scourge. Its regulatory thrust is pushing industrializing countries such as India to raise their game. Be it residual pesticides in farm produce or carbon-spewing steel and aluminium, these can no longer be exported to EU markets.

Forty years ago, Bhopal’s gas-leak victims had no place to hide. Today, too, India’s worsening air quality means we are largely defenceless against a proven cause of disability and death.

As with Bhopal, this too is preventable with robust regulation and its fierce enforcement by a caring government. At the end of the day, prosperity should not come at the expense of health, livelihood and life.