THE debate on the Bhopal gas tragedy has tended to focus almost exclusively on Warren Anderson and who allowed him to get out of the country. A case could possibly be made out for such a narrow focus on the basis of the need to send out a clear signal to foreign companies that criminal negligence on safety related issues will no longer be tolerated in India. This is a message that is particularly important at a time when companies around the world, such as BP, are showing increasing insensitivity to the environmental and safety risks of their operations. But, perversely enough, reducing the debate to the actions of an individual, however guilty he may be, deflects attention away from a number of other critical questions including those related to the prevention of such accidents.
The low priority that is given to prevention is perhaps best reflected in the course the debate has taken when it has been able to pull itself away from Warren Anderson. On such occasions the emphasis has been predominantly on issues related to punishment after criminal negligence rather than the prevention of such disasters. Thus there has been some talk, though desperately little action, on the question of why the judiciary took 25 years to come out with its verdict.
Debate
There has also been some outrage over a verdict that gave the guilty sentences that were clearly unrelated to the lives lost or the other effects of the disaster.
But there has been little or no attention paid to the general failures in safety standards that caused the disaster in the first place. The possibility that the basic management failures that caused the Bhopal disaster could be relevant even today has not been provided a significant role in the debate.
Even when the debate has moved beyond Bhopal in search of the larger lessons to be learnt, the emphasis on punishment over prevention has remained.
This is perhaps best reflected in the course the debate on the nuclear liability Bill has taken. The main focus of that debate has been on the maximum amount that will have to be paid for criminal negligence after the event. There is very little discussion on the measures needed to prevent such a nuclear disaster.
Is it alright, for instance, to have a nuclear plant in the middle of Mumbai, our biggest city? One reason why punishment after the event has gained such precedence over prevention of disasters is that the debate has, almost inevitably, sunk deep into the emotive response to large foreign companies investing in India. There are a variety of sentiments that influence this response. There is national pride telling us that it is important to tell the big bad foreign companies that they cannot get away.
This pride is also stoked when the maximum financial liability fixed in the nuclear liability Bill is only a fraction of what would be payable for a similar disaster in the United States. And in calmer times there is a fall back to a version of the deterrence argument. The promise of strong action is expected to deter companies from taking environmental and safety risks.
There are bound to be questions about whether such deterrence can actually work. Within the large corporations the possible costs of a disaster have to compete with the overall emphasis on profit.
Since an individual is only at the helm for a limited period there is a temptation to go by the lower probability of a disaster occurring during that period. Combined with the pressure on generating growth and profits, the preference tends to be for glory- generating profitable growth rather than expensive safety precautions.
The preoccupation with Anderson and foreign companies converts the dilemma in this trade- off into one of foreign versus Indian capital. But the costs- of- prevention- versus- the- glory- of- rapid- growth dilemma is not confined to foreign companies.
Time
There are now Indian multinationals that face the same challenges all over the world. Within India too Indian companies are not known to be generous in their spending on safety. Indeed, it is not even certain that the Indian public sector places the necessary emphasis on safety, even when they do not show any great profit.
In theory this choice can be tilted in favour of safety by raising the punishment to levels that no CEO can ignore even if she is at the helm for the shortest of periods. The price of a failure to maintain safety standards paid by the individual in charge can be made so high that even the most profit- oriented manager will be forced to adhere to these norms.
But in practice the need for investment usually tempers this urge to raise the cost of failure on the safety front.
Rajiv Gandhi, his party and his government were all clearly very sensitive to any adverse impact their treatment of Anderson would have on foreign investment. It is important to remember that at the time of the Bhopal gas tragedy the Indian economy was just beginning to take off.
While some Indian businesses like Reliance had made promising starts they were still far from the kind of prominence they have today.
The information technology services revolution too was in its infancy and it would be more than a decade before Wipro, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services would make their presence felt. At a time when the economy looked set to take off and Indian capital was yet to demonstrate that it could play a prominent role in this process, there was a dominant belief that India had to rely on foreign capital to do the bulk of the job.
And attracting foreign capital would have been even more difficult than it proved to be if the head of a foreign company was serving time in Indian jails.
Standards
Twenty- six years after Bhopal, Indian capital may have the confidence to step into any place foreign firms vacate. But there is little guarantee that their choice between profit and safety would be better than that of a foreign firm. This is particularly true since the overall business and work environment in India does not place a premium on safety. Even industries like information technology that should normally be considered very safe are sometimes housed in buildings that do not have basic fire- escape infrastructure.
Indeed, with the current preoccupation with high growth rates, there is little time for debate on whether safety standards in India are at an appropriate level and whether these standards are implemented effectively. The felt need for a review of such standards, irrespective of whether a company is owned by foreign capital, Indian capital or the Indian state, has not emerged even after all the outrage the Bhopal verdict has generated.
