Such has been the horrible
dimension of the role of foreign
private capital in India, which
aspect has to be noted and
recognised as an unpardonable
evil attached to foreign capital. This
is a sacrilege against the very
humanity. With its creation of
Bhopal gas disaster the U.C.C has
brought this evil dimension of the
role of foreign capital, besides it’s
already noted features of ruthless
exploitation, loot of natural and
human resources, drain of capital
to the parent corporate organisation
under various pretexts undermining
the sovereignty of the borrowing/
permitting developing country for
business and reducing the local
governments in to subservience
by controlling their economies, as
well through nurturing the local
(indigenous) capitalist class,
which also happens to be the
ruling-class. This is another
serious aspect of foreign capital
which is not only abominable but
also obnoxious which has to be
fought against uncompromisingly.
U.C.C to cover-up its
treacherous monstrosity of
experimenting on Indian people to
find out the effects of chemical
weapons, had skilfully diverted the
attention of the world towards the
issue safety arrangements, safety
regulations and machinery of
safety control at U.C.I.L. plant of
Bhopal impressing that the
occurrence of gas disaster was
only due to breach of safety
regulations at Bhopal plant.
In this connection it is
noteworthy that the giant
transnational DOW chemical
corporation, which is the present
owner of Bhopal U.C.I.L. plant
premises by its own self had
sponsored two French writers who
had written “FREEDOM AT
MIDNIGHT”(Dominique Lapero
January - 2018
and Javier More) to visit India-
Bhopal-and write a book on the
Bhopal disaster, who in turn using
their talents and skills of fictional
writing had written book called
“FIVE PAST MID NIGHT AT
BHOPAL” in an attractive fictional
form implying that U.C.C. has
given highest importance to safety
standards and safety arrangements
with rigorous safety regulations;
and gave the best safety training
and provided a safety manual to
the concerned Indian safety
supervising staff. Despite these
arrangements sophisticated
safety equipment, training and
regulations, the Indian staff had
failed in understanding and
following the safety precautions on
the night of 2/3 December 1984,
which led to the industrial disaster.
Thus U.C.C has designed a
perfect plan to absolve itself from
its criminality of causing the worst
industrial disaster at Bhopal.
It is a well-known fact even
from the time of the famous
American writer, Jack London who
in his famous novel “IRON HEEL”
had vividly described how the big
capitalist industrialists at the time
of an industrial accident, to evade
their responsibility of payment of
compensation to injured workmen,
argue about the negligence of
workmen, which the bourgeoisie
law accepts. Even in the different
conspiracy case in India, the
communists raised this issue of
industrialists arguing the
‘negligence’ of workers to evade
compensation, which is being
accepted by the colonial law which
was nothing but an unequal law.
Now the same tricky argument
was put forward by U.C.C to
absolve itself even from a minimal
liability of its creation of the Bhopal
disaster.
According to an advice note
given by Attorney general
K.Parasaram “If by American
standards it is not a big amount
and union carbide deposits the
amount in the court without
contesting the suit in full settle-
ment but only pleading that they
do not accept any negligence
on their part..”
To support its litigative and
false argument, U.C.C has hired
the voices of prominent officials
from the Indian administration and
mediators and make believe the
world that U.C.C was in no way
responsible for the disaster.
One Mr Ashok S.Kelkar,
senior vice president of the U.S.
based Arthur D Lithe inc. written a
note to Rajiv Gandhi, P.M. of India
stating that “I know and have had
several inter-actions with Mr.
Warren Anderson, chairman of
U.C.C. I and my staff visited
dozens of U.C. facilities and not
met with their plant personnel and
evaluated their operations from
safety perspective. Through this
interaction with both the senior
management and the plant
management of U.C.C., I have
formed the following personal
opinion: UCC is a decent and
honourable company. From top
to down it is a caring company
which places safety concerns
on even footing with financial
ones. Mr Anderson and his
senior management team are
interested in a rapid and fair
settlement of Bhopal litigation.
In this letter dated 22-01-1986
Mr.Kelkar also reminded Rajiv
Gandhi that he was his Doon
school batch mate and that his
father was advisor to Indira
Gandhi.
Again another one called Mr.
Paul Srivatsav, executive director
industrial crises institute, New
York wrote a letter on 3-2-1986 to
S.Singh, Joint secretary in ministry
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