Five Past Midnight in Bhopal (48 page)

The likely instigator of this brutal reception was absent from Bhopal. He had left the capital of Madhya Pradesh that very
morning to join Rajiv Gandhi on an electoral tour. He had, however, left instructions with his spokesman. As soon as the three
visitors had been arrested, the latter was to muster the press and deliver the news with maximum impact. Arjun Singh, though
a long-standing friend of Carbide, expected to make the most of his audacity. By having the American company’s chairman and
his Indian partners arrested, he was setting himself up as the avenger of the catastrophe’s victims, a move that could only
help him in the next parliamentary election. “The government of Madhya Pradesh could not stand passively by and watch the
tragedy,” his spokesman told journalists on his boss’s behalf. “It knows its duty to the thousands of citizens whose lives
have been devastated by the criminal negligence of Carbide’s directors.”

News of Warren Anderson’s arrest created a sensation from one end of the planet to another. This was the first time that a
third world country had dared to imprison one of the West’s most powerful industrial leaders, even if his prison was a five-star
guest house. In New Delhi there was great consternation. The Indian foreign affairs minister had promised the U.S. state department
that nothing would impede Anderson’s journey. Quite apart from wishing to avoid an overt clash with the United States, Indian
leaders were afraid that the incident would dissuade large foreign firms from setting up in India forever. The chief minister
of Madhya Pradesh would have to release his prisoners immediately. Never mind justice; matters of state required it.

Three hours later, Bhopal’s chief of police, assisted by several inspectors came to announce the release of the American prisoner.
His Indian colleagues would be set free some time later.

“A government airplane is waiting to take you to Delhi, from where you will be able to return to the United States,” he informed
him.

He then presented him with a document. To his stupefaction Anderson discovered that the sum of 25,000 rupees, about $2,000
at the time, had been posted by his company’s local office as bail. He had only to declare his civil status and give his signature
and he would be free.

“Twenty-five thousand rupees for the release of the head of a multinational responsible for the deaths of three thousand innocent
people and poisoning two hundred thousand others! What does that make an Indian life worth?” inquired the Indian press the
next day.

The news created an immediate uproar in the pack of reporters jostling with each other at the entrance to the guest house.
The most significant reaction, however, came from a crowd of demonstrators pressed to the railings of the research center.
From the car bearing him away to the airport, Warren Anderson could see a forest of placards above their heads. The sight
of the few words inscribed on the pieces of cardboard would haunt him for the remainder of his days. “Death to the killer
Anderson!” shouted the people of Bhopal.

The chairman of Union Carbide would never meet Rajiv Gandhi or any of his ministers. Only an official in the foreign office
would agree to give him a brief audience, provided the press was not informed. The man who had hoped to change the living
conditions of India’s peasants and who had wanted, as he had stated, to retire “in a blaze of glory,” left India broken, humiliated
and despondent. He still did not know exactly what had happened on the night that spanned the second and third of December
in India’s beautiful plant. As for his desire to provide the victims with aid, he had not even been able to discuss it. His
journey had been a fiasco.

A few minutes before he climbed into his Gulfstream II and took off for the United States, a journalist called out to him,
“Mr. Anderson, are you prepared to come back to India to answer any legal charges?”

Anderson turned pale. Then in a steady voice, he replied, “I will come back to India whenever the law requires it.”

In the meantime, other Americans had been landing in Bhopal. Danbury had rapidly dispatched a group of engineers whose mission
it was to shed light on the catastrophe. Naturally the factory’s last American works manager was part of that delegation.
For Warren Woomer, this return was a painful trial. “My wife Betty and I had spent two of the best years of our lives here.
But now I’d come back to examine the remains of a factory, which had in a sense been my baby,” the engineer would later say.
He had difficulty recognizing it. The ship he had left in good working order was now a spectacle of desolation that tore at
his heartstrings. He made an effort to stay calm during his first encounter with Mukund. “Why was there so much MIC in the
tanks? Why were all the safety systems deactivated?” Woomer fumed to himself. The inquiry team had agreed that they would
avoid any confrontation. The important thing was to gather as much information as possible, not to create controversy.

The task threatened to be impossible, however, because officers from India’s Criminal Bureau of Investigation had taken over
the inquiry. Their chief, V.N. Shukla, a stiff-necked unsmiling man, began by prohibiting the Americans access to the plant.

Then he told Woomer, “If I catch you, or any of your colleagues, interrogating any of the workmen, I’ll throw you in prison.”

Worse yet the CBI was also in the process of moving the factory’s archives to a secret location. What were the American investigators
supposed to do, given that they could not examine the site, question witnesses or refer to such crucial documents as reports
of procedures carried out on the fatal night? Woomer felt overwhelmed. Especially as the situation was further complicated
by the arrival of a team of Indian investigators headed by a leading national scientist, Professor Vardarajan, president of
the Indian Academy of Science. How could they cope with this competition and the police restrictions? Woomer soon passed from
feeling overwhelmed to despair.

Once again, however, the good fairy of chemistry came to the rescue of its disciples. One thing upon which they were all in
agreement was that before beginning their investigation, they needed to be certain that no further accidents could occur.
It was this concern that haunted Woomer. There were still twenty tons of MIC in the second tank and one ton in the third.
At any moment, those deadly substances could start to boil and escape in the atmosphere. On this, Americans and Indians were
in accord. Should they repair the flare and burn the gases off at altitude? Should they get the scrubber back in order and
decontaminate them with caustic soda? Should they try and decant them into drums and evacuate them to a safe place? In the
end it was Woomer who came up with the solution.

“Listen!” he said, in his nonchalant but reassuring voice. “The best way to get rid of the remaining MIC is to use it to make
Sevin.”

“But how?” asked the Indian professor, stupefied. “By getting the plant running,” replied Woomer. “After all, that was what
it was built for.”

Making Sevin meant cleaning all the pipework, pressurizing the tanks, repairing the faulty stopcocks and valves, reactivating
the scrubber and the flare, lighting the alpha-naphthol reactor again… . It meant reengaging all the systems of a plant, the
wreckage of which had just caused a catastrophe unprecedented in history.

“How long would it take you to attempt such an operation?” asked the Indian professor.

“No more than five or six days,” answered Woomer. “And what about the local people? How are they going to react when they
hear the factory’s going into operation again?”

The American engineer could not answer that question. Someone else was going to do it for him.

T
he chief minister of Madhya Pradesh was exultant. Warren Woomer’s idea would enable him to erase the memory of his surprising
absence on the night of the tragedy and win back his electorate. This time he would be seen right there on the battlefield.
To ensure that his heroism paid off, he would need to convince the people of Bhopal that restarting the factory would be extremely
dangerous. He therefore promulgated several safety measures with the purpose of creating an atmosphere of panic. He ordered
all the schools closed, despite the fact that they were in the middle of exams and most were situated outside the risk zone.
Next he called in eight hundred buses to evacuate all those living within a two-and-a-half-mile radius of the factory. Once
people were well and truly terrified, he revealed the plan from which he would emerge a great man. He dispatched an army of
motorized rickshaws equipped with loudspeakers across the city. The whole of Bhopal then heard, in his steady, reassuring
voice, “I have decided to be present in person in the Carbide factory on the day when its engineers start it running again
to remove the last drops of any toxic substances. This moment of truth will be a token of your humble servant’s dedication
to your cause. This is not an act of courage, but an act of faith, and that is why I am calling this challenge to get rid
of any residual dangers at the cursed factory, ‘
Operation Faith.
’”

As the fateful day for restarting the factory approached, businesses closed, streets emptied and life came to a halt. The
chief minister encouraged the exodus to become a torrential flood. Driven by the fear that he had so adroitly stirred up,
people threw themselves into his eight hundred buses and into any other means of transport. They abandoned their homes in
buffalo carts, rickshaws, scooters, bicycles, trucks, cars and even on foot. The railway station was taken by storm. Afraid
that their homes would be pillaged, people took with them anything they could. One woman left with her nine-month-old goat
in her arms. For the oldest Bhopalis, the sight of trains covered with people piled on the roofs, hanging from the doors and
steps, brought back sinister memories of India’s partition. “This spontaneous migration,” wrote the
Times of India
, “defies all reason.”

The newspaper was right: Bhopal had lost all reason. Yet, as Ganga Ram and Dalima were to find to their astonishment on their
return to Orya Bustee, it was not in the place worst affected by the gases that the terror raged most intensely. If anything,
the reverse was true. Their neighbors might look like ghosts with their cotton wool pads on their eyes, but they were no longer
afraid. Although the deaths of Belram Mukkadam, Rahul, Bablubhai, Ratna Nadar, old Prema Bai and so many others had created
an irreparable void in their small community, the joy of being reunited with friends was stronger than the fear of another
disaster. The reunions of Ganga and Dalima with Sheela and Gopal, Padmini’s mother and brother; with Iqbal, Salar and Bassi,
to name but a few, were occasions for celebration. What a joy it was to discover that Padmini was still alive in Hamidia Hospital
and that Dilip was with her! What a relief to find one’s hut intact when so many others had been looted!