Book Review- It was five past midnight in Bhopal (English))

The beautiful part of living in India is- here the tragedies doesn’t live long, they are quickly forgotten. India is the land for victors. You either win the war or rather you don't fight. There is no better example than Bhopal. In two decades, we have only a vague memory of the tragedy. India cannot afford to live on its failures. We go to office the very next day after a disaster. More than a choice, it’s a lack of choice.

I picked up the book ‘It was five past midnight in Bhopal’ from a book exhibition. One of the reason was I wanted to know more about the Bhopal tragedy. I had also read some of La Pierre works and were quite impressed by them. The first impression came from his anti-missionary ramblings in Outlook magazine. He seemed a very pro-Hindu. But his books jolted the image a bit.

His first book I have read ‘The City of Joy’. The plot is almost same even in ‘It was five past midnight in Bhopal’. There was a co-author Javier Moro. I don’t know the extent of his creative contribution. For me the creative part entirely belonged to La Pierre. La Pierre loves to dwell on the poverty stricken country side and weave beautiful tales around it. Both the books I have read, aren’t entirely different from each other. The man who comes as anti-missionary in his magazine columns sound pro missionary in his books. The story line doesn’t vary much. Poverty, migration, rays of hope, tragedy and ultimate redemption. He has this uncanny ability to elevate the story to a cinematic melodrama and thus thrall the common man for they are not meant for intelligentsia.

The story of Bhopal kicks off from the pre-liberalisation era, post emergency when the economy was heavily dependent on the produce from the lands. The world’s second largest democracy was hit by chrony politics, bureaucratic ineptitude, pseudo socialism, unpredictable monsoons and predictable pests. The last one was a visible villain, whose evil was gazed upon with a simple helplessness. The country was plunged into famine. The rural population had to move into the cities in search for work.

La Pierre weaves a set of parallel plots which interconnects with each other. Around the same time a group of scientists come up with a pesticide which turns out to be stupendous success. The high effectiveness coupled with good marketing makes it a best seller all over the American continent. Union Carbide becomes one of the successful business models in USA. They goes around hunting for potential markets. Spotlight falls on India. A population entirely living on agriculture and suffering helplessly from the pest attacks. They spotted a sea of opportunity. A marriage between poverty and business opportunity was about to be sanctified.

The Indian Government had already begun to shed its conservative outlook for the sake of survival. When an American plant approaches you for setting up their operations, the government machinery was more than willing to help. Besides the politics at that time was purely dynastic and sycophant. The authority and power was not easy to percolate down. The land and license were two easy things to happen.

Farmers weren’t the only section who was about to be benefitted. There was a sizeable population, disadvantaged population who had their degrees but no avenues to test their knowledge. Until then the only respite for a well educated Indian was a government job which was pitifully laden with red tapism and favoritism. For them working in an American giant was a dream come true. There was ample opportunity to grow- with all the state of art technology. The plant also paid the workers very well with all kinds of benefits. Soon to work in Carbide became a matter of status.

La Pierre masterfully points out the compromises made even before the plant was set up. They seemed subtle but damaging in the long run. First of all, it was the dangerous compound Methyl Iso cyanate. MIC was initially planned to be imported from USA. Then considering the costs it was decided to manufacture MIC in India. But no pre emptive studies were done. The safety features weren’t weighed or analysed The primary question on the capability of the plant wasn’t even considered. A few wrote reports on the gravity of the idea. The reports were cremated by American bosses. More emphasis came on the revenue rather than safety.

Besides the Carbide suffered loss of reputation in USA too. MIC wasn’t an easy compound to hide from the environment. It did contaminate the surroundings plunging the entire living habitat into danger. Atleast vast tracts of land were required. But no such preliminary studies were made by the GoI. Ironically Carbide was allotted a land just in the outskirts of city and in a populated region.

The greatest danger lay in the slum in the outskirts of factory. The location was closer to danger than permissible. Concerns were raised but ironically the government granted the title deeds for the slum dwellers rather than eviction. The incumbent minister wanted to secure the vote bank. For landless title deed was a dream come true. Ideal example of opportunitism, and no prizes for guessing who lost.

Soon the officials realized the plant wasn’t earning income as expected. So much of its revenues were being eaten by the plant itself. The compromises became all the more evident. Besides the Indian workers hailed from varying backgrounds and the general laxity towards safety aggravated the situation.

The final nail came when the Americans realized the futility of their dream. They secretly decided to close down the plant. A new boss was appointed to oversee the final touchdown. But Sadly the guy was more of an economist who cut down cost by job cuts and shutting down inevitable safety process. His lack of understanding of technical functioning of the plant became all the more self evident. Everything waited for the Day of Judgement

Interestingly we get a feeling of a fairytale read while going through this. Yes it sounds a bit unrealistic. But this did happen. When I read some of the bloggers, tweeters and neo economists battling for FDI even without presenting any conclusive studies, I wonder if history will repeat.