Bhopal survivor Ruby
Twenty years have passed since the world's worst industrial disaster took place in Bhopal, India. On Dec 3rd 1984, toxic gas leaked from the poorly maintained and understaffed Bhopal plant owned by Union Carbide, killing up to 20,000 people and leaving 120,000 chronically ill to date. The survivors have never received adequate compensation for their debilitating illnesses. To this day the polluted site of the abandoned factory bleeds poisons daily into the groundwater of local residents. Dow Chemical now owns Union Carbide.
Ruby was born a couple years before the Bhopal disaster. Living in the shadow of the worse industrial disaster, that one night has shaped Ruby's entire life fighting for justice for the victims in Bhopal. Here is her story:
My name is Tahira Sultan, but people affectionately call me Ruby. I am 22 years old, and I was born in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. I am a happy-go-lucky person and usually keep everyone around me in splits of laughter. I have spent all 22 years of my life here in Bhopal. At present, I am studying for my Masters in Science in Biotechnology.
We always look forward to each new day. But not just every day, but every week, every year, once in a while we sit back and wish we could wipe that one day off the calendar - it would be so wonderful if that could happen. The memory of the night of 2/3 December 1984 for us, I am sure, it is like 9/11 for Americans. For those involved, that was the most horrific day of their lives. Their most horrific day can be compared quite rationally to our most horrific night, though if you really think about it, the impact of our tragedy was far greater.
The night of the disaster
That black night of 1984 is still an open page in front of my eyes as if it were just last night that it happened. That Sunday night, half past midnight, I suddenly woke up coughing - when I looked around, the room was full of white smoke, and my eyes started to water. I asked my mother what was wrong, and she told me to wrap my blanket close around myself and go back to sleep. Meanwhile she went to the other room to check on my grandparents. My grandmother said, "We can't stay here much longer. Let's go to the Hamidia Hospital." My mother picked up my little brother and wrapped him up in her shawl while I clung to her kurta from behind, and we started running. Outside, we saw all the neighbours running. The sky over us was turning red. I hadn't been able to put on any slippers. I can still remember the blue frilly frock that I was wearing that morning.
My brother was lying absolutely still in my mother's arms, neither moving nor talking. My mother ran on desperately, with both her children. At a crossing, we got separated from my grandparents, but my mother did not give up. She kept calling out, screaming, "Somebody help us! Get us out of here!" All around us, people were running, screaming, falling over. Their eyes were swelling up, they were out of breath, and many were vomiting or had diarrhoea. I saw life ending all around me that night, but we kept running.
Suddenly, my mother spotted a rickshaw and ran towards it. She lunged at it desperately, and somehow managed to heave herself into it with both my brother and myself. But the rickshaw had gone hardly any distance when it got a puncture and it trundled to a stop. Neither my mother nor I had strength to go any further, so we just lay there, semiconscious, 'till a stranger came to our rescue.
A kind man, he took us to his own home, where his wife gave us clean clothes to wear and cups of hot tea to revive us, though I couldn't see anything clearly. We were so exhausted we just fell asleep right there in their home.
The next morning, my mother thanked them and we headed home, passing through horrific sights one after the other. The roads were lined with the swollen carcasses of all kinds of animals; dogs, goats, buffaloes, even sparrows. Worse were the human corpses - men, women, children and old people. All the corpses were swollen and people were lifting them into trucks. Some were screaming, others were crying. The sight was worse than anything you can imagine. I have no words to describe the devastation of that morning. When we reached home, I found that all the leaves and fruit of our almond tree had turned black. The fruit, suddenly rotten overnight, had fallen to the ground. We were still not able to breathe properly and our vision was blurred. A while later, my grandmother arrived and took us away from Bhopal to my uncle's home.
A life long struggle
For more than half my life, I have witnessed one simple fact of life - some people make mistakes, while others live with the consequences of those mistakes.
Nobody can forget that night of 2-3 December 1984, even if they try. I have seen how my grandmother suffered - even a year after the tragedy, she would be so ill that my mother had to spend four days a week in the hospital with her. Our neighbours too faced much the same situation. It was as though life itself had forgotten how to smile in Bhopal.
When I was in Class Seven, my favourite teacher was Malavika Joshi, she taught me environmental science. One entire chapter in my textbook was about chemical disasters, and the first example was the Union Carbide gas disaster of 1984. She gave us a whole month and 18 days to research our subject. She set us a challenge too: the pupil who presented the most detailed notes about the gas disaster would be given the opportunity to present a project at the school's Annual Day and would also win a cash award.
Fired by this challenge, I sought the help of all my family members - my mother was a great help, and thanks to her, I won the prize for the best project. Now that I look back at it that was probably when I first got drawn into the campaign, because I really did a lot of research about the gas leak.
It was around the same time that Satyu, who now runs the survivor's clinic here, came to Bhopal and stayed in my uncle's house. He told my mother that he wanted to help the gas victims, and to set up an organisation to work towards rehabilitation of their health. My mother agreed to join him, and thus began a long story.
There seemed a new hunger for the campaign - a hunger for justice, not just for one individual but for all the people of Bhopal.
As I grew up, I became a part of the struggle too. Since my handwriting and drawing were rather good, Satyu used to ask me to help the campaigners draw and paint banners. While painting the banners and posters, I would often add my own words to the slogans. Armed with those banners and posters, we'd march down to the Union Carbide factory, shouting slogans. I started enjoying the work.
When my school teachers would see my pictures in the newspaper, shouting slogans and campaigning outside Union Carbide, they would praise me and encourage me. My friends would tease me and call me a 'Leader', because in India, that is what most political leaders do - lead processions and shout slogans.
Every year, on the 2-3 December, people in Bhopal mark the anniversary of the disaster while other communities prepared for festivals like Diwali and Christmas. We make a huge effigy of Warren Anderson (CEO of Union Carbide at the time), then take it on a procession, to right outside the gates of the factory site. Once there, we would beat the effigy with gusto, then set it alight - this annual ritual was a vent for our collective anger against the corporation, the factory and its CEO.
My fight is still on - God knows how many young girls like myself have seen their dreams destroyed by the disaster. I don't want any other Ruby to have to live with a reality as grim as mine. I fight, and I wait. I wait for the time when this struggle will be over. But before it is, I have many questions that need to be answered by the people who allowed this poisonous factory into our lives.
Looking for answers, fighting for justice
What part of their conscience allows them to open such a poisonous factory in the middle of a residential area? If another such disaster is to occur, who is to be held responsible for it?
Doesn't the community (in which the factory is being set up) have the right to know what is being produced, and what the risks from the factory are? And if a disaster were to occur, then how long will it take to clean up the damage caused by the disaster?
If a disaster of this magnitude were to take place in any other country except India, they would have to answer many questions, be chased by many laws, but in India, a quick cover-up is all it takes. Why these double standards? No matter which part of the world faces such a disaster, the impact is felt by the community and the environment.
The world is progressing at a new speed these days - but does anyone stop to think what sacrifices are made at the altar of this progress? We cannot even begin to estimate the many things that we have sacrificed in the name of progress; technology may have made our lives simpler, but the very same technology can be misused for destructive purposes.
Some companies are focussed only on their profits, to the extent of being inhuman - and Union Carbide (now owned by Dow Chemical) is the prime example of these. In all its years of operating in Bhopal, the company focussed entirely on its own profits, regardless of the cost of human life.
I can only hope that in 20 years time, we can reflect on the day Dow accepted its responsibilities and did the right thing in Bhopal.
Take action against DOW - Tell them they should be taking action now in Bhopal to end the needless suffering of thousands.
View images from the world's worst industrial disaster.
