Five Past Midnight in Bhopal

by Dominique Lapierre; Javier Moro

  It fell to the young assistant manager for safety to share what he had learned at Institute with over a thousand men, most of whom were almost oblivious to the dangers they faced every day. “Making people appreciate the danger was virtually impossible,” Pareek would recount. “It’s in the nature of a chemical plant for the danger to be invisible. How can you instill fear into people without showing them the danger?” Meetings to inform people, emergency exercises, poster campaigns, safety demonstrations in which families took part, slogan competitions … Pareek and his superior were constantly devising new ways of awakening everyone’s survival instinct. Soon, Warren Woomer was able to send a victory report to his headquarters in America: “We are pleased to announce that half a million hours have been worked without losing a single day.”

  Safety, Pareek knew, also depended upon a certain number of specific devices, such as the alarm system with which the plant was equipped. At the slightest intimation of fire or the smallest emission of toxic gas, the duty supervisor in the control room had orders to set off a general alarm siren. At the same time loudspeakers would inform personnel, first in English, then in Hindi, of the precise nature of the gas, the exact location of the leak and the direction in which the wind was blowing. This last piece of information was supplied by a wind sock at the top of a mast outside the MIC unit. In case of a major leak, staff would receive an order to evacuate the site without panic, according to the practice drills Pareek regularly organized.

  All the same, this alarm system was only intended to warn the crews working on the factory site. Though nearby residents could hear the alarm, none of the loudspeakers pointed outward in the direction of the bustees where thousands of potential victims were packed together. “From the moment I got there, the proximity of all those people was one of my major worries,” Warren Woomer would admit. “Every evening I would have our guards move away those setting up camp right along our fence. Sometimes some of them would even get over the wall, and we would have all the difficulty in the world getting them out. The plant had such magnetic appeal! So many people wanted to get a job there! That’s what drew them nearer and nearer.”

  One day Woomer decided to intervene personally with the municipal authorities to get them to force people to “move as far away as possible” from his installations. His efforts failed. None of the authorities appeared disposed to launch another eviction operation against the Kali Grounds squatters. Woomer proposed drawing up a plan to evacuate people in case of a major incident. The very idea of such a plan drew immediate resistance from the highest level of the Madhya Pradesh government. The people of Bhopal might panic, or worse yet, leave—a possibility that Arjun Singh, the state’s chief minister, found wholly unacceptable. The elections were approaching and he needed every possible vote, no matter where it came from. The portly Omar Pasha, his electoral agent in the three bustees, was already campaigning on his behalf. Astute politician that he was, he had anticipated everything to ensure his reelection. Not only would he prevent the expulsion of his electors, but he would win their votes by offering them the most spectacular present they could ever hope to receive.

  The scene that engineer Kamal Pareek imagined one day was like a clip from a horror movie. The metal in one of the pipelines had cracked, allowing a flood of methyl isocyanate to escape. Because the accident was not the kind of leak the safety equipment could contain, the ensuing tragedy was unstoppable. A deadly cloud of MIC was going to spread through the factory, then into the atmosphere. The idea for this disastrous scenario came to Pareek as he watched a train packed with passengers come to a halt on the railway line that ran between the factory and the bustees. Would it be possible for a cloud of MIC driven by the wind to hit those hundreds of poor wretches trapped in their railway cars? the engineer wanted to know. He went to Nagpur, former capital of the Central Provinces, and presented himself at India’s national meteorological headquarters. Its archives contained records of meteorological studies carried out in India’s principal cities for the last quarter of a century: temperatures, hygrometric and barometric pressures, air density, wind intensity and direction and so on. All this information was recorded on voluminous rolls of paper. After a week spent compiling data, the engineer was able to extract from this ocean a mass of information about the meteorological conditions peculiar to Bhopal. For example, in 75 percent of the cases, the winds blew from north to east at a speed of between six and twenty miles an hour. The average temperature in December was 15° C by day but only 7° C at night.

  Pareek packed this paperwork in a cardboard box and dispatched it swiftly to the safety department at Union Carbide in South Charleston to have it simulated on the computer. Taking into account the meteorological conditions prevalent in Bhopal, the technicians into the U.S. would be able to tell whether or not the toxic cloud of his scenario was likely to hit the train that had stopped next to the bustees. The reply came back three days later in the guise of a short telex. “It is not possible, even under the worst conditions, that the toxic cloud will hit the railway line. It will pass over it.”

  “It will pass over it …” the engineer repeated several times, catching his breath. A vision of horror passed before his eyes. “My God,” he thought, “so the cloud would hit the bustees.”

  The vigorous games of tennis Warren Woomer played every morning before going to his office reflected his ebullient morale. The Bhopal plant’s top man had every reason to be satisfied. After a mediocre first year, the production and sales of Sevin had taken off. In 1981, they reached 2,704 tons: half the factory’s capacity but 30 percent more than Eduardo Muñoz’s most optimistic predictions. Despite this success, however, the beautiful plant had some problems. The most serious arose from the alpha-naphthol production unit. The installation designed by Indian engineers had never, despite several modifications, been able to supply a product that was pure enough. They had therefore to resign themselves to importing alpha naphthol directly from Institute in the United States. In the end this fiasco would cost Carbide $8 million, 40 percent of the original budget for the entire construction.

  There had been an earlier misfortune. In 1978 a fire had devastated part of the unit. The gigantic column of black smoke that hid the sun before raining down foul-smelling particles on roofs and terraces had been Carbide’s first gloomy signature in the sky over Bhopal. Seeing this incredible spectacle from his house, a young journalist by the name of Rajkumar Keswani rushed to the scene of the disaster, only to find that the area had already been cordoned off by hundreds of policemen. No one was allowed near.

  Nevertheless, four years after this accident, Carbide’s star continued to shine in the firmament over the City of the Begums. The guest house’s panoramic restaurant overlooking the town had become the favorite meeting place of the political establishment and local society. Those who dined there would never forget the extravagant spectacles that formed the after-dinner entertainment, like the water ballet in the swimming pool that the wife of the managing director of Carbide’s Indian subsidiary, herself an accomplished dancer and swimmer, had arranged. The initiated knew that this luxurious residence was also used for top-secret meetings. Carbide had placed a suite at the permanent disposal of the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. In Bhopal, as elsewhere, money and power made comfortable bedfellows.

  24

  Everlasting Roots in the Black Earth of the Kali Grounds

  The word traveled from hut to shed to stall to workshop like a trail of gunpowder. The residents of the three bustees were to gather on the teahouse esplanade for a meeting of the utmost importance.

  “This is it. Carbide’s taking us all on!” shouted Ganga Ram, who had never got over being rejected because of his mutilated hands.

  “In your dreams, you poor fool!” said the shoemaker Iqbal, ever the pessimist. “It’s to inform us we’re going to be evicted. And this time, it’ll be for good!”

  The arrival of Dalima on her crutches interrupted the exchange. With a yellow marigold in he
r hair and glass bangles jangling about her wrists, the young cripple had a triumphant air about her.

  “It’s to tell us they’re going to install a drinking water supply with taps!” she announced.

  “Why, it’s obvious,” said old Prema Bai, “they need us for the elections.”

  In India, like anywhere else, it was the womenfolk who showed the most common sense.

  That was when a voice from a loudspeaker rent the sky.

  “People of Orya Bustee, Jai Prakash and Chola, hurry up!” it commanded.

  The residents of the bustees rushed from the alleyways toward the teahouse esplanade. Sister Felicity, who was in the process of giving several children polio vaccinations, paused.

  “It’s like being at home in Scotland when a storm breaks,” she told Padmini. “All the sheep start running toward the voice that’s calling them.”

  Padmini, who had never seen sheep, made an effort to imagine the scene. At that point Rahul, the legless cripple appeared.

  “Padmini! Run to the factory and tell your father and the others. Ask him to round everyone up.” Suddenly assuming the mysterious air of one who knew more, he whispered, “I think our state’s precious chief minister has a surprise for us.”

  The young girl set off for the factory at a run. Everywhere the sweatshop slaves were abandoning their tools and their machines to make for the grand gathering. As they arrived, Belram Mukkadam, his stick waving madly, directed them to sit down. Soon the entire esplanade was covered by a human sea.

  A truck appeared. It was loaded with posters that Mukkadam immediately hung all around the teahouse. On most of them people recognized the balding forehead, fleshy lips and thick glasses of the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. Other posters depicted an open hand. In the same way that Shiva had a trident as his emblem, and the religion of Islam its crescent, the Congress party, of which Arjun Singh was one of the leading lights, had chosen as its symbol the wide open palm of a hand. The truck was also carrying a collection of small fliers, which Rahul, Ganga Ram and others busied themselves distributing. “WE LOVE YOU, ARJUN!” they said. “ARJUN, YOU ARE OUR SAVIOUR! ARJUN, BHOPAL NEEDS YOU!” Some went so far as to proclaim: “ARJUN, INDIA WANTS YOU!”

  Delayed in New Delhi with Indira Gandhi, the organizer of this incredible show had entrusted his official representative in the Kali Grounds’ bustees to see that the display served his electoral interests. The fact that the guest of honor was missing made the spectacle all the more quaint, for the proceedings began with the solemn arrival of an empty armchair. Carried by two servants in dhotis, the august seat came directly from Omar Pasha’s drawing room. Encrusted with mother of pearl and ivory, it looked more like a throne. A few minutes later, a gleaming Ambassador brought the chief minister’s representative. In honor of the occasion, Omar Pasha was wearing the most legendary crown in India’s history, the white cap of those who had fought for independence. Thirty-eight years after the death of Mahatma Gandhi, the godfather of the bustees knew that the white cap was still a powerful symbol.

  At a respectful distance behind the old man walked Omar Pasha’s son Ashoka, a tall fellow with a shaven head, whom the inhabitants of the bustees had learned to fear and respect. Manager of the clandestine drink trade controlled by his father, today he carried neither alcohol nor hashish, but a small ebony chest sealed with a copper lock. Inside this casket was a treasure, possibly the most valuable treasure the occupants of Orya Bustee, Chola and Jai Prakash could hope to receive.

  Omar Pasha sat down on his throne, in front of which Mukkadam had placed a cloth-covered table, bearing a bouquet of flowers and incense sticks. Because of the brightness of the sun, the godfather’s eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, but people could tell what he was thinking by the way he wrinkled his eyebrows. Mukkadam called for a microphone, which the visitor seized between pudgy fingers dripping with gold and ruby rings.

  “My friends!” he exclaimed in a strong voice that forty years of drinking and smoking had not managed to roughen. “I have come to deliver to you, on behalf of our revered chief minister Arjun Singh.”

  At this name, Omar Pasha paused, sending a tremble through the assembly bristling with posters. Someone shouted: “Arjun Singh, ki jai!” but the cry was not taken up. The crowd was impatient to hear the rest of the speech.

  “At the request of our chief minister,” the godfather continued, “I have come to deliver to you your patta! * ”

  The echo of this unbelievable, supernatural, unhoped for word hovered in the overheated air for interminably long seconds. Surveying the stunned crowd, Sister Felicity could not help thinking of a sentence by the Catholic writer Léon Bloy: “You don’t enter paradise tomorrow, or in ten years time. You enter it today when you are poor and crucified.”

  Since the dawn of India’s history that mythical word, “patta” had haunted the dreams of millions of disenfranchised people. It had fired the hopes of all those who, in order to survive, had had no alternative but to set up their hovel wherever they could. The people who had ended up in the Kali Grounds were among those poor unfortunates: those people, whom Indira Gandhi’s son had tried forcibly to drive away, the people whom the works manager of an American plant dreaded seeing encamped against its walls, had for years been clinging desperately to the pitiful patch of dust that Belram Mukkadam had once traced out for them with his stick. And there, suddenly, was the godfather bringing them official property deeds issued by the government of Madhya Pradesh recognizing their right to occupy their miserable piece of squattered land.

  It was too good to be true. Never mind the fact that this deed would have to be renewed in thirty years’ time, never mind the fact that it was officially forbidden to pawn it or sell it, never mind the fact that their owners would be taxed thirty-four rupees each year. A frenzied cheer went up from the crowd, which rose to its feet in a single movement. People chanted the names of the chief minister, Omar Pasha and Indira Gandhi. They danced, they laughed, and congratulated one another. Caught up in a surge, Padmini suddenly found herself raised above the surrounding heads like a figurehead, the fragile emblem of a people throwing off its chains and achieving the beginnings of dignity. As far as these illiterate men, women and children were concerned, the pieces of paper Omar Pasha pulled from his chest were a gift from the gods. These deeds would remove their fears for good by allowing them to plant their roots forever in the welcoming ground, over which fluttered the flag with the blue-and-white logo.

  Every time Omar Pasha invited a beneficiary to come and collect the document inscribed with his name and the designation of his plot, a bearded character sitting at the back wagged his head and rubbed at his enormous eyebrows. For the Sikh Pulpul Singh, the neighborhood usurer, this was a fortune on a plate, an opportunity to increase his wealth, even if it would mean breaking the law against pawning the deeds. Pulpul Singh could already see each sheet of paper that came out of the godfather’s chest winding its way into his own safe. The day would come that these poor people would need to borrow money from him, and what better guarantee could he ask for than the deposit of those magical deeds, which he could always find a way of selling at a profit?

  Part Two

  A NIGHT BLESSED BY THE STARS

  25

  A Gas That Makes You Laugh Before It Kills You

  With his thick mustache, bushy eyebrows and round cheeks, the thirty-two-year-old Muslim Mohammed Ashraf was the mirror image of the Indian cinema idol Shashi Kapoor. The resemblance had made him the most popular worker in the plant. In charge of a shift in the phosgene unit, on that December 23, 1981, Ashraf had to carry out a routine maintenance operation. It was a matter of replacing a defective flange between two pieces of pipework.

  “No need to put your kit on today,” he announced to his colleague Harish Khan, indicating the heavy rubber coat hanging on a hook in the cloakroom. “The factory isn’t running. There’s no likelihood of a leak.”

  “Gases can walk about even when everything’s
stopped,” Khan retorted sharply. “Better be on the safe side. A few drops of that blasted phosgene on your pullover can hurt you. It’s not like the bangla from Mukkadam’s teahouse!”

  The two men burst out laughing.

  “I’m willing to bet Mukkadam’s rotgut is even more dangerous than this bloody phosgene,” Ashraf said, donning his mask.

  No one had ever had cause to reproach the Muslim operator for any breach of safety procedures. Ashraf was one of the most reliable technicians in the company, even if he did leave his workstation five times a day to go out into the courtyard and pray on his little mat facing Mecca, and even if he did come staggering to work in the morning because he had spent all night fishing on the banks of Upper Lake. The son of a small trader in the bazaar, he owed everything to Carbide, not least his marriage to the daughter of a cloth merchant from Kanpur, who was honored to have an employee of the prestigious multinational for his son-in-law, even if he was only a low-level employee. A graduate in economics, Sajda Bano was a beautiful young woman. She had given him two sons, Arshad and Soeb, in whom he could already see two prospective “Carbiders.”