Teesri Duniya Theatre commemorates the 36th anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster
Originally posted November 20, 2020
Written by Rahul Varma
The cusp between Dec 2nd and 3rd marks the 36th anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster that occurred at the Union Carbide pesticide factory in the city of Bhopal, India. Tanks containing 40 tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) exploded and cloaked the city in poisonous gas, claiming over 3,500 lives overnight and 50,000 lives and counting to date. Over half a million people suffered severe injuries and thousands of survivors continue to suffer from diseases that have yet to be diagnosed by medical science.
Today, people around the world remember the Bhopal disaster as they live through the COVID-19 pandemic that, in a span of 8 months, has claimed over 1.3 million lives, with the death toll rising day by day.
The Bhopal disaster was a willful act of corporate complicity followed by habitual denials of responsibility and retribution. In contrast COVID-19 is a human tragedy and there has been an international effort to find a vaccine to counteract it. While very different in source, the nature and effect of these two calamities are so similar that they must be examined together.
More than three-quarters of the people who died of COVID-19 in Bhopal were survivors of the poisonous MIC gas they were exposed to 36 years ago. Most of them live in shantytowns and have compromised immune systems and long-term pulmonary diseases.
Irfan Ali, a survivor, who worked at the Union Carbide factory, used to return home in pain with burning eyes, persistent cough, and respiratory discomfort. He would cry from the pain caused by working under hazardous conditions at the Carbide factory. But day after day, he would report to work because the family had to live, and Irfan Ali was the only earning member. His gallant action, while supporting his family, also exposed him to a large quantity of poisonous MIC everyday as he worked at the Carbide factory. Irfan Ali, who somehow survived MIC for 35 years, died of COVID-19 in 2020.
The pathway to Irfan Ali’s death started with the poisoning at the Carbide factory and ended in his demise due to COVID. His death is a clear example of how the pandemic exposes and exploits inequalities that impact the poor. Much like an industrial disaster, the pandemic poses the highest risk to the health and economic well-being of the most vulnerable, those that are least able to cope with it. Peoples’ ability to withstand the pandemic depends on the elimination of inequalities across class, gender, and race.
Many young girls who survived the MIC explosion are grown women today and continue to give birth to horribly deformed babies. The ability of these women to care for their children and families is severely compromised by inequalities and the economic downturn accompanying the pandemic. Now, they have to live on low paying jobs without benefits as domestic workers, casual labourers, street vendors, and caregivers, wearing masks made from rags and old fabric, risking their health so their families can live.
Clearly, the pandemic of 2020 has a distinctly female face, as did the Bhopal disaster of 1984.
With so many criminally underpaid essential service providers dying and feeling exhausted, the virus has made it abundantly clear that the status of the poor will inevitably affect the capital and health of the wealthy and upper classes. Clearly, no one will be safe until we all are safe, and none of us will be safe if we are not equals, monetarily and socially.
Industrial disasters, famine, drought, soil erosion, pandemics and climate catastrophes are a direct outcome of capitalist accumulation of wealth for the upper classes leaving ordinary working-classes in poverty and poor health. Evidently there is an urgent need to prevent this, and there is an even greater need to dismantle the system that produces such disasters and inequalities. Elimination of inequities is an act of justice.
One major difference between the Bhopal tragedy and the current pandemic is that while the pandemic has had global effects and attention, the Bhopal tragedy, which was manufactured by US-capitalism, has been largely overlooked.
Teesri Duniya Theatre has a commitment to laying bare such injustices through art and community dialogue. Artistic Director Rahul Varma’s play Bhopal first premiered in 2001, and has since been brought to audiences across Canada and the world in English, French, and Hindi, with the most recent performance taking place in February 2020 here in Montreal. We take this opportunity to look back in order to move forward. Stay tuned for our upcoming discussions surrounding various lenses on justice. In the meantime, here are some pictures from past productions of Bhopal.
