“Bhopal: Vulnerability, Routinization, and the Chronic Disaster”

By: S. Ravi Rajan

S. Ravi Rajan attempts to systematically analyze the roles of different actors and the impacts of their actions (or inaction) in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster. Rajan divides the article into sections focusing on each actor: the Union Carbide Company, the Rehabilitation Bureaucracy, and the Activists. By analyzing these groups, Rajan seeks to explain how this disaster was handled so poorly that it created a state of extreme vulnerability within Bhopal. Union Carbide’s role in Bhopal was one of erasure and denial, as they attempted to remove themselves from the reality of gross negligence. The company operated from a standpoint of managing shareholders interests, and by doing so, continued the cycles of neglect that brought about this disaster in the first place. The government systems and rehabilitation bureaucracy were also unequipped to handle a disaster of this scale, where there was permanent damage over a long-term time frame. Meanwhile, the activist community tried to harness the power of injustice to mobilize the community to action, but failed to address the need for rehabilitation amongst an increasingly vulnerable community. The management of an environmental disaster such as this bring to light several ethical questions. The repercussions of environmental disasters often negatively impact the most vulnerable groups and identities, and post-disaster reconstruction often occurs in states of poor infrastructure with little corporate accountability. These narratives of accountability frame the environment and the poor as ecological subsidies, and the repetition of this story perpetuates the structural acceptability of continued environmental neglect.