Over 25 years ago on a cold winter’s night, thousands of sleeping people died after inhaling toxic gas escaping from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal. A train full of passengers at the nearby Bhopal station never moved.

Nobody on it woke up. More than 10,000 men, women and children went in the first three days of the gas leak, and in the following years, another 15,000 died of complications. Deaths and debilitating physical and mental impairments still continue, for water and ground remain contaminated by the deadly methyl isocyanate gas, 40 tonnes of which seeped out into a still, windless night. Even today, about 120,000 people lead a life of suffering. Bhopal is the worst industrial tragedy in the history of mankind.

Yet, those guilty of being responsible for this have not been punished, not really. On June 7, after 25 years, a court found eight men accountable and sentenced them to two years in jail. But they walked out of prison within a few hours, having paid paltry bail money. All these men were senior officers of the Union Carbide when the disaster struck.

But a far greater mockery pertains to the company’s then chief executive officer in India, Warren Anderson. An American citizen, he remains free and is reportedly living in New York. Admittedly, he was arrested a few days after that fateful December night, but was freed on bail a couple of days later. He jumped it and fled to the U.S., his neat getaway having been facilitated, if reports are to be believed, by the Government of Madhya Pradesh, (whose capital city is Bhopal), which even gave him a private aircraft.

Anderson never appeared in any court after that. He never bothered to answer why his company never applied the same safety standards in India that it did in a sister plant in West Virginia, USA. A Greenpeace International report states: “On the night of the disaster, when an explosion at Union Carbide's pesticide plant caused 40 tonnes of lethal gas to seep into the city of Bhopal, six safety measures designed to prevent a gas leak had either malfunctioned or were turned off or were otherwise inadequate.

In addition, the safety siren, intended to alert the community should an incident occur at the plant, was turned off…Union Carbide responded to the disaster by paying survivors inadequate compensation (some USD 550 for each) and abandoning the plant, leaving tonnes of dangerous toxic chemicals strewn around the site, and the people of Bhopal with a toxic legacy that is still causing injury today. In 2001, the company shed its name by merging with Dow Chemical”.

Obviously, money must have changed hands, thought unfortunately it must have gone to the wrong hands. Six months before the night of lethal horror, the Madhya Pradesh Government had given a clean cheat to the Union Carbide’s safety net. The inquiry, if all there was a real one, was prompted by reports of the company’s inadequate or non-existent safety measures. Some papers had headlined to say that there was a catastrophe waiting to happen. The Union Carbide’s cost-cutting steps had disabled safety procedures, and there were minor leaks between 1981 and 1984 when employees had to be rushed to hospital. Some even died.

And those who died or were maimed for life in December 1984 were mostly poor people, for the pesticide plant was located in a crowded, lowly area, mostly inhabited by workers and their families. Obviously, their voices were weak. Otherwise, how does one explain India’s Supreme Court ruling in 1996 that “diluted charges against the guilty from culpable homicide to criminal negligence, which carries a maximum jail sentence of two years”. In India, death by negligence is slapped against those responsible for causing road accidents. Shockingly, the world’s most devastating industrial calamity has been reduced to a traffic mishap!

It is clear that a political will was lacking then, is lacking now. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement, delivered last December to mark the 25th anniversary of Bhopal, that “the tragedy continues to gnaw at our collective conscience", sounds as hollow as empty rhetoric.

Apparently New Delhi is anxious not to displease American giant corporations. Just days after the horrifying incident, India’s Ambassador to the U.S. quickly made a declaration to say that it would not affect his country’s policy on foreign investments.

In the meantime, there are growing fears that Bhopal will repeat, given that India is opening up its nuclear energy industry to foreign corporates. Washington has been pressing New Delhi to pass a law that will keep the liability of American nuclear firms in India to a bare minimum. The brunt of the financial burden would be borne by the Indian State operator! A Minister, not named, was quoted as having said that the nuclear bill would "indemnify American companies so that they don't have to go through another Union Carbide in Bhopal".

However, under widespread criticism by the media (still largely independent and thankfully so) and Opposition parties, the Bill is now being reworked. Bear-hugged by corporate America, New Delhi’s recklessness is indeed appalling.