The winter night with no end…

“Mirchi mein aag lag gayi [The chillies are burning].”

It was the night of December 2, 1984 when Bhopal resident, Nusrat Jahan woke up unable to breathe, her eyes stinging and watering. In a short while her six-year-old son began crying. The noise woke her husband, Muhammad Shafeeq.

“Qayamat ka manzar tha” [It was an apocalyptic sight],” says the now 70-year-old Shafeeq, sitting in his home in Nawab Colony, recalling the events of of what is known as the Bhopal gas disaster (BGD) which took place 40 years to this day, in Madhya Pradesh’s capital city.

A daily-wage worker at a paper mill, Shafeeq would spend the next few years desperately seeking treatment for the impact of the toxic gasses on the health of his family, made worse by 18 years of exposure to the only source of water – a contaminated well. The water irritated his eyes, he says, but there was no other source. It was only in 2012 that the Sambhavna Trust Clinic tested the water and found toxic elements. Borewells in the area were subsequently closed by the state government.

That night in 1984, the toxic gas that caused distress in Shafeeq’s household came from a factory of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), then owned by the multinational Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). The leak occurred on the night of December 2 – the highly toxic methyl isocyanate leaked from the UCIL factory and caused what is considered to be the world’s worst industrial disaster.

“Official sources estimated the immediate human death toll to be about 2,500, but other sources (Delhi Science Forum’s Report) say the figure may have been at least twice as much,” says this report in The Leaflet.

The toxic gas spread over the city of Bhopal, and those like Shafeeq’s family who lived close to the factory, were among the worst hit. Almost six lakh people in 36 wards of the city were impacted.

Anxious to get his child treatment, Shafeeq first made his way to the Hamidia Hospital, about a kilometre from their home.

“Laashein padi hui thi wahaan pe [There were corpses everywhere],” he recalls. Hundreds of people had arrived seeking treatment, and the medical staff were overwhelmed, struggling to figure out what to do. 

“Maathe pe naam likh dete the [They would write the name of the dead on the forehead],” he recalls, referring to the bodies that began to pile up.

When Shafeeq stepped out to eat across the road from the hospital near Imami Gate, a strange sight met his eyes: his order of daal came, but it was blue. “Raat ki daal hai, bhaiya [it’s from last night, brother].” The toxic gas had altered its colour, and it tasted sour.

“The manner in which UCC [Union Carbide Company] officials as well as government authorities had totally ignored prior warnings about a potential disaster in Bhopal due to mass storage of ultra-hazardous toxic chemicals at the UCIL is shocking, to say the least,” says N. D. Jayaprakash, writing in The Leaflet. Jayaprakash is Joint Secretary, Delhi Science Forum and has been following the case from the start.

In the aftermath of the Bhopal gas disaster, legal battles have continued for decades, mainly seeking compensation for families of victims of the disaster, and for digitising medical records of those affected. There are two criminal cases that have been filed as well: In 1992, against Dow Chemical Company now wholly owning UCC, and in 2010 against UCIL and its officials. Both cases are pending in the Bhopal District Court, says Jayaprakash.

Shafeeq had taken part in the Dilli Chalo Andolan by the survivors of the disaster who walked from Bhopal to Delhi, in 2010. “Ilaaj [treatment], muafza [compensation] aur saaf paani [clean water] ke liye tha,” he says. They sat for 38 days at Jantar Mantar in the capital, and also tried to enter the Prime Minister’s residence where they were arrested by the police.

“There are mainly two cases being fought by the victims and their families. One case before the Supreme Court of India (SC) and the other before the Madhya Pradesh High Court of Jabalpur,” confirms N.D. Jayaprakash, Co-Convenor of the Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (Coalition for supporting the Cause of the Bhopal Gas Victims).

“Ped kaale ho gaye the, patte jo hare the, neele ho gaye, dhoova tha har taraf  [The trees had turned black, green leaves had turned blue, there was smoke everywhere],” says Tahira Begum, recalling how the city had turned into a graveyard.

“He [my father] was sleeping on the verandah of our house,” she recalls about that night. “When the kharab hawa [bad air] began to blow, he woke up coughing, and was taken to Hamidia Hospital.” Although discharged after three days, “the breathing problem never really went away and he died within three months,” Tahira adds. The family received Rs. 50,000 in compensation, and is unaware of the battles being fought in court.

After the tragedy, residents of the city dug mass graves to bury the dead. Her paternal aunt was found alive in one such grave. “One of our relatives identified her and pulled her out,” she recalls.

Tahira has been working for almost 40 years at an anganwadi in Shakti Nagar, just a short distance from the UCIL factory. She joined here a year after the disaster to which she lost her father.

After her father’s funeral, the family left for Jhansi. When they came back 25 days later, Tahira says, “sirf murgiyan bachi thi, baaki janwar sab mar gaye the [only the chicken had survived, all the other animals had died].”

The cover feature is by Smita Khator.

PARI would like to thank Prof Seema Sharma and Prof Mohit Gandhi of Azim Premji University, Bhopal for their help with this piece.