Hello,

The Reporters’ Collective is back with an investigation, this time related to a historical tragedy that is almost as old as this writer and older than the reporters behind the scoop. It was a challenging assignment because most of the transgressions had been swept under carpet, accounts of pain had become clichés and time blunted the memories of the silent massacre that began ‘five past midnight in Bhopal’ on December 2, 1984.

Union Carbide Corporation, an American giant famous for its role in the atomic bomb project, installed an insecticide factory in Bhopal in 1980. It was a ticking time bomb stuffed with the deadliest chemicals the world had ever seen. On the apocalyptic night of December, a cocktail of gases leaked from the plant, killing an estimated 15,000 people and injuring over 5,00,000. But Union Carbide, its subsidiaries and then CEO Warren Anderson never appeared before Indian courts in the criminal trial initiated against them. They were declared ‘absconders’ and their properties in India were seized.

A trove of internal company records, accessed by The Reporters’ Collective from a US court, now reveals that even as Union Carbide continued to evade the criminal trial in the Indian courts, it discreetly traded its products from the US in the Indian market, including with the Indian government firms. The government clearly knew it was shaking hands with the devil of Bhopal. What’s more outrageous is that the government of Madhya Pradesh was also a customer of the company that inflicted death upon its people and poisoned the country’s soil, water and air.

The story by my colleagues Shreegireesh Jalihal and Kumar Sambhav brings to light how an international corporation accused of killing thousands continued to make profits hiding in plain sight while successive governments looked the other way. While it has been reported that Dow, which brought Union Carbide in 2001, relabeled its products and sold in India through a front company for a year, it has not come to light that the Indian government agencies knowingly traded in Carbide products through this backdoor channel.

 Union Carbide created a shadowy backend channel of “front” and “dummy” companies in India, the US and Singapore to facilitate the trade. These companies took orders on UCC’s behalf, relabelled its products, routed them through multiple ports, and supplied them to customers in India.  The dummy companies hid their association with Union Carbide as a “legal requirement to help UCC” to keep its distance from India but in reality were its “extended arm”, its officials admitted in internal correspondence. At least two government companies knew about this arrangement.

Major private firms like Reliance Industries, Sterlite, Finolex and Castrol were also among those who bought products through the secret channel dug by the Union Carbide that drowned Bhopal in pain and chaos.

This backdoor arrangement continued until 2002, a year after American giant Dow Chemical bought all assets of Carbide for $9.3bn. The period saw Union governments of all colours, ranging from Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Read the story published by Al Jazeera that reveals Carbide’s elaborate discreet channels - the network of front and dummy companies - and information on Carbide customers, including government companies that knowingly bought products through this shadowy channel.

Bye

Anoop George Philip

Member and Editor, The Reporters’ Collective.

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