Bhopal gas tragedy: 37-yr-long struggle for justice continues
■ 2nd gen leaders lead movement from the front
Second generation leaders have joined the 37-yearlong struggle for justice for victims of Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, billed as India’s longest movement for any cause.
The second generation leaders, offsprings of the survivor activists, have vowed to take forward the struggle till people affected by the world’s worst industrial disaster were given justice.
“Our story of struggle for justice has not ended with the death of Abdul Jabbar, the oldest survivor activist. The second generation leaders have now joined the movement to carry it forward till we get justice”, Khalida B, daughter of Hamida B, chairperson of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Samiti (BGPMUS), told this newspaper on Friday.
Late Abdul Jabbar, who was conferred Padma Shree posthumously last year, launched the BGPMUS in 1985 to ensure justice for the survivors of the tragedy.
Mr Jabbar, who suffered partial loss of vision due to the mishap, passed away in 2019 in penury.
The second generation leaders who have joined the struggle are Nasin Khan, Pramila Sharma, Shafrin Khan and Meenakshmi Verma besides Khalida B, according to Rachna Dhingra, a prominent activist fighting for the causes of the survivors.
“This is the longest agitation in the country, begun in 1985, after Narmada Bachao Andolan launched by Medha Patkar in 1986”, she said.
J.D. Jayaprakash, an activist who is fighting the legal battle for the survivors in the supreme court, said the second generation of the survivors mostly stayed away from the movement since they hailed from poor economic backgrounds and hence, they hardly have time to join the struggle.
The disaster has also seen mushrooming of organisations over the years to take up the causes of the survivors.
The number of outfits joining the movement for justice for the survivors has grown from two in 1985 to at least a dozen now.
“Many of the organisations have also disappeared during the period”, Ms Dhingra said.
In fact, the gas tragedy caused by leakage of deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) from a plant of Union Carbide here in the midnight of December two, 1984, has attracted many celebrated Bollywood directors to make documentaries and authors of national and international repute to write books.
Famed film director Muzafar Ali’s Sheeshon Ka Maseeha (The God of Glass), a 28.27 minute-documentary narrating the poignant tale of the tragedy, has been gathering dust in the archive of Madhya Pradesh public relations department since 1985.