Surviving Bhopal: Dancing Bodies, Written Texts, and Oral Testimonials of Women in the Wake of an Industrial Disaster

217 Pages·2010·3.358 MB·English

by  Suroopa Mukherjee (auth.)

PALGRAVE
Series Editors: Linda Shopes and Bruce M. Stave
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Surviving Bhopal
Dancing Bodies, Written Texts, and Oral
Testimonials of Women in the Wake
of an Industrial Disaster
Suroopa Mukherjee
SURVIVING BHOPAL
Copyright © Suroopa Mukherjee, 2010.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-60811-5
All rights reserved.
First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-0-230-10041-1 ISBN 978-0-230-10632-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230106321
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mukherjee, Suroopa.
Surviving Bhopal : dancing bodies, written texts, and oral testimonials of
women in the wake of an industrial disaster / Suroopa Mukherjee.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Bhopal Union Carbide Plant Disaster, Bhopal, India, 1984.
2. Pesticides industry—Accidents—India—Bhopal—Political aspects.
3. Methyl isocyanate—Environmental aspect—India—Bhopal. I. Title.
HD7269.C452I5266 2010
363.17(cid:2)91—dc22 2009039977
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: April 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For the wounded generation . . . the children of Bhopal survivors
Contents
Series Editors’ Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1
The Killer Factory: A Disaster Waiting to Happen 17
CHAPTER 2
Monstrous Memories: “Reliving” the Night of the Disaster 41
CHAPTER 3
Bhopal Lives On: The Many Faces of the Continuing Disaster 61
CHAPTER 4
Women as Bread Earners: Shattered Lives and
the Relentless Struggle for Survival 81
CHAPTER 5
“We Are Flames Not Flowers”: The Inception of Activism 101
CHAPTER 6
“No More Bhopals”: Women’s Right to Knowledge
and Control of Their Bodies 131
CHAPTER 7
“Dancing in the Streets”: Protest, Celebration, and
Modes of Self-Expression 159
Notes 185
Bibliography 197
Index 209
Series Editors’ Foreword
If not for the events of December 3, 1984, modern Bhopal would be known to the
world, if it was at all interested, as a provincial capital in India with a somewhat
interesting history. But, when 42 tons of toxic gas escaped that December into
the atmosphere from a Union Carbide plant, it marked that city as site of what
many consider the world’s worst industrial disaster. Without agreement on the
final number of fatalities and lesser casualties, estimates range from the official
estimate of 5,000 initially dead to 4 times that amount. More than 550,000
are thought to have suffered aftereffects, some dying from gas-related illnesses
such as lung cancer, kidney failure, and liver disease, with others suffering birth
defects as a result of genetic mutations in their parents’ reproductive systems.
The effect continued to resonate long after the event. In 2009, 25 years after it
happened, a victims’ group successfully persuaded an Indian magistrate to again
order the arrest of the head of Union Carbide at the time of the accident, who
left for the United States after an initial arrest in 1984. Although he now had safe
harbor in the United States, his wife explained that Warren Anderson, 89 and in
poor health, had “been haunted for many years” by what happened in Bhopal a
quarter of a century earlier.1
The former corporate mogul was not the only one haunted. Thousands and
thousands of victims, many of them women, suffered even more. It is their story
that Suroopa Mukherjee, a literary scholar with an interest in oral history, brings
to us. She employs oral history to probe beyond the often-obfuscating official
record and reveals the special impact on women, often-illiterate women, who
bore children with physical or mental defects, who lost spouses and faced uncer-
tain economic futures, who were failed by a faulty medical and rehabilitation
system, who were harried by bureaucracy, but who organized in action groups
and unions in an effort to assert their agency. Mukherjee is fully engaged with her
subject and places the narrative of Bhopal’s women within a framework of global
corporate development. Like those she studies, the author seeks that justice be
done in the face of corporate greed.
This volume, our twentieth, not only adds environmental history to the
subjects covered by the Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Oral History series, but
1 Frank Eltman, Associated Press, “Warrant: 25 Years Later,” Hartford Courant, August 2, 2009.
x / Series Editors’ Foreword
also enhances its international reach to include India along with studies that
have focused on Italy, Argentina, China, and Iraq. Other books address various
dimensions of U.S. history. All strive to place oral history in a broad historical and
methodological context and give voice to those who live in interesting times.
Bruce M. Stave
University of Connecticut
Linda Shopes
Carlisle, PA
Acknowledgments
I wish to extend my thanks to: Hindu College, University of Delhi for granting
me academic leave to pursue a Fellowship at Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library (NMML) for three years.
To all the staff of the library at NMML, the office and the annexe building.
This book would not have been possible without my stint at NMML.
To my students and members of We for Bhopal for being a constant source
of inspiration.
To the Bhopalis for their hospitality, for sharing their thoughts and
experience of life. It has changed the way I read, write, and teach.
To Anil Sadgopal, N. D. Jayprakash, Sadhna Karnick, and Alok Pratap
Singh for giving their valuable time to educate me on various aspects of the social
movement.
To group leaders Rashida Bi, Champa Devi Shukla, Jabbar Khan, B. Namdeo,
Shahid Noor, Irfan Khan, and Nawab Khan for their insights and opinions.
To all the staff of Sambhavna Trust for allowing me to use the documentation
center and for providing me with valuable data. There is a treasure trove
of information that is available there for anybody who is interested in future
research.
To Eurig, Dharmesh, and Tarunima saying thank you is not enough. They
will discover how much of my writing owes to their valuable input.
To Rachna, Nity, Madhu, Sweta, Shalini, Gurpreet, Nimmi, Deena, Ravi,
Vinuta, Nishant, Sheri, Terry, Bridget, Maud, Ryan, Gary, Indra, Ward, Tim,
Aquene, and Shana—I salute your work.
To all my friends and colleagues—Brinda, Tapan, Rekha, Partho, Charu,
Nonika for providing such a wonderful support system. To Prakash, special thanks,
for lending books and shaping my thoughts over morning cups of coffee.
To my family—Gautam, Anasuya—for myriad things big and small. To my
sister Suparna for her unstinted support for the Bhopal cause.
Finally, to Sathyu—his vision for justice in Bhopal goes way beyond Bhopal
and therefore needs to be written about.