Unanswered question: Was Bhopal gas disaster a failure of industrial safety, or was it sabotage?

Safety must have a humanitarian aspect. Mr. K.C. Gupta, Director- Genera
l of the National Safety Council, speaking at the last meeting

How does one view the Bhopal gas disaster that occurred in the Union Carbide plant in 1984 and killed and maimed thousands? Was it an unmitigated industrial disaster waiting to happen? Was it the result of the chalta hai safety culture that pervades the country? Or was it just an accident?

One would probably say yes to all three propositions. But there is yet another angle to the sordid saga. According to this take, the Bhopal gas tragedy was an act of sabotage.

Moreover, this view is held not by certain vested interests alone, but also by some experts at India.s elite technological institutions, the IITs.

This shocking revelation was made by Mr. K.C. Gupta, the Director- General of the National Safety Council (NSC), in the course of his talk on .Safety Challenges and the Four-Way Test. at the last meeting.

So was safety a lost cause? No, asserted Mr. Gupta, who gave the example of the inferno at Bada Bazaar in Calcutta sometime back to drive home the point about the need for a collaborative approach to engender a culture of safety in society.

In the case of the Bada Bazaar fire, the following irrefutable facts had been culled from the media:

(a) Of the 42 fire engines pressed into service to fight the flames, only one or two could be used because of the lack of water;

(b) A total of 112 fire-fighters were put on the job . but a large majority of them (70%) were more than 41 years old and they simply could not fight the fire;

(c) Two turntable ladders were deployed at the site of the fire . but only one of these was operational;

(d) There were illegal constructions galore; and the goods stored included hazardous chemicals and combustible materials;

(e) Nobody followed any safety norms; and

(f) The roads leading to the bazaar were narrow and lacked modern pumping facilities.

If one applied the Four-Way Test to the Calcutta fire, then it became clear that all the parties involved were at fault and no one was concerned about the possibility of a disaster.

There was a lack of capacitybuilding of emergency services (a failure of the municipal corporation); the community was responsible for the illegal constructions and hazardous storage; and there was just no .partnership. with the community.

Each one of these was a major issue and could not be handled by one stakeholder alone.

.You cannot leave it to the authorities. The people and groups committed to humanitarian values have to take the initiative and put pressure (as well as provide support) to ensure that these issues are resolved in the interest of society.

.There is a need for collaborative projects between industry, business, institutions and government to resolve the (safety) issues that we face today,. Mr. Gupta emphasised.

Mr. Gupta, who helped bring about three ILO (International Labour Organisation) Codes of Practice, has been associated with other UN projects as well. He has also worked with the Asia-Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organisation for 15 years. (Its members include 34 organisations from 25 countries; and he has been its Hon. General Secretary.)

Interestingly, the NSC is one of the rare institutes in the country being run as a three-way venture by labour, management and government. And despite three institutions being involved, it is a non-profit-oriented, financially independent body.

Mr. Gupta said he was speaking just a day after the end of the 37th National Safety Week, celebrated from March 4 to 10. In fact, March 4 was NSC.s Foundation Day. It was set up by the government of India and its birth in 1966 marked a significant turning point in the national approach to accident prevention.

Far from being merely regulatory in nature, the NSC played a comprehensive role, with the central focus being on the development of voluntary action.

In the course of his talk, Mr. Gupta held up a mirror to the media for ignoring campaigns to foster safety. And he knocked it for dwelling exclusively on accidents, .because such reports make news. But when you (organise) a campaign on safety, then the media is indifferent and the campaign fails to create a buzz..

This was just one of the challenges to the human spirit which, since times immemorial, had always emerged victorious. Things were no different today because of complex technologies, high speeds, high energy, large systems (with multiple sub-systems), all chipping in with challenges.

The first challenge was hazard identification and risk assessment. Although these were the very foundation of all safety measures, they were not an exact science. Hence, it was difficult to predict the probability of a (disaster) scenario.

Second, there were critical gaps in communication about risks even from the experts involved with them.

A third challenge was inadequate and ineffective enforcement. In most Asian countries, except Japan and Singapore, enforcement was very weak, compared to Europe and USA.

Fourth, woefully inadequate institutional infrastructure; for example, Mr. Gupta said, he was heading the NSC but there was only one such body at the national level. Although it had a network of 17 chapters in 22 States and 31 action centres, in a huge country like India these were not sufficient.

A pinch of fellowship can generate a lot of fun. (Dr.) Sonya Mehta tells
Nelum Gidwani and First Lady Pervin. In the second picture,
President Dr. Rumi Jehangir seen with new member Poonam Lalwani
and Rotaryann Preeti Tankha

A fifth hurdle was the inability to learn lessons from major accidents in the past. It was here that Mr. Gupta spoke about the Bhopal gas disaster and its description as .sabotage. by an IIT professor (see above). The reason for this blinkered approach was failure to propagate the Indian version of the event and the tendency to accept even biased views (from the West) as the truth.

The sixth issue was the absence of a collaborative approach. With the potential for major accidents and disasters being huge, it was essential to have a collaborative approach between the government, the various authorities, industry, institutions and NGOs. But this was a weak link here.

What about the .risk-taking compulsions . of the community? Mr. Gupta noted that the people of Bombay were forced to risk their life and limb every day while travelling by train because there was no better, and safer, option. This happened even in the interiors, where people clung on to overcrowded buses for dear life.

A part of the blame for this had to be placed at the door of the government. For example, with high-rises mushrooming in Bombay, the risk potential had multiplied but little had been done .to strengthen the response agencies. capabilities in terms of equipment, manpower training and so on; this is an issue not only in Bombay but in other cities, too..

Then, the role of the media. As already reported, the speaker criticised the media for reporting accidents because they made news, but ignoring campaigns on safety.

He reminded both his audience as well as the media, that 93% of the workforce in India was in the unorganised sector. It did not have any kind of protection, whether safety, health or environmental. Therefore, when people talked of creating a culture of safety in the country, it seemed to him to be a far-fetched thing.

At the same time, Mr. Gupta answered those who questioned the idea of .zero accidents.. It was not a mere slogan, he asserted. It had been demonstrated repeatedly that the goal of zero accidents was achievable.

For example, the award-winning organisations which received the National Safety Awards given by the NSC. all the 16 winners for 2006 had achieved zero accidents during the three-year assessment period. They had achieved up to 29 million accident-free man-hours. In fact, one organisation had achieved 19 years of accident-free work.

Even in the construction sector, which was comparatively disorganised, all 16 award-winning organisations had achieved zero accidents during the assessment period of one year. A few of them had achieved five million accident-free man-hours.

The NSC was attempting to honour not only the main contractors but also the clients because it was the clients who motivated the contractors.

Mr. Gupta then turned to the question, just what was the case for safety? He said it had been proved all over the world that safety made sound business sense even on economic grounds by eliminating wastage, damage and downtime; it also helped achieve higher productivity and efficiency. Thus, even on purely economic grounds, safety made good business sense.

But in the ultimate analysis, the case for safety had to rest on humanitarian and societal concerns, not just economic concerns, .because it will be a sad day for society when safety measures are linked merely with economic costs and to commercialise the approach to safety..

It was here that dicta such as the Four-Way Test came into play. It was a statement of humanitarian and societal values propounded by Rotary. But what about non-Rotarians? They also needed an equally motivating statement to reflect their commitment.

Mr. Gupta recalled the words of Albert Einstein: .Concern for man himself and his safety must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours. Never forget this in the midst of you diagrams and equations..

Perhaps he had realised that there was scope for misuse of the research being done in his time and also that the ultimate objective of all scientific research was the good of society.

Nearer home, Jamsetji Tata, the veritable founder of Indian industry, had said: .In a free enterprise, the community is not just another stakeholder in business, but it is the very purpose of its existence..

.This, too, was a statement of humanitarian value. And let us not forget what the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi had said about the concept of trusteeship and about safety issues and industry.

.Now, this strong case for safety rests on humanitarian values (which are propounded by the Four-Way Test),. Mr. Gupta concluded.

Answering a poser about the huge number of road accidents, he agreed with Burjor Poonawala that the attempts to combat the problem were poor. But the NSC was not charged with safety on roads. There was a separate Road Safety Council and there were many players involved in it, but the focus on road safety was not adequate. There were 80,000 deaths on the roads every year and more than three lakh people were injured.

When Dr. Nayna Dastur asked whether anyone had been held responsible for the Bada Bazaar fire in Calcutta, Mr. Gupta was at a loss for words.

He said society had to decide .whether to focus on punishing a few people or on taking measures to make sure that this does not happen in future..

Nayna said both steps could be taken simultaneously. Mr. Gupta agreed but pointed out that in the .Uphaar. fire tragedy in Delhi, the families had to fight for many years to get justice.

.Enforcement cannot be done in isolation. It has to be improved with the co-operation of those who have to comply with it..

Nayna made one last attempt: .My question is, has anything been done?.

Mr. Gupta replied that investigations were on.

He thanked Sitaram Shah, a member on the Board of Governors of the National Safety Council, for providing him with the opportunity to interact with the Club. He also lauded Sitaram for his interest in safety both as a member of the NSC Board and as a Rotarian.

While Sitaram Shah introduced the guest speaker, the vote of thanks was proposed by Nandan Maluste.