1) The document summarizes the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India, where a leak of toxic gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant killed thousands. 2) It argues that Union Carbide is guilty for failing to provide adequate safety systems and ignoring issues at the plant. While it set up a subsidiary in India, the parent company still maintained control and responsibility. 3) The document also argues that Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide, is personally guilty for authorizing the technology transfer without ensuring proper safety measures and responding to known issues at the plant. He fled to the US to avoid prosecution in India.

1. WHY I FEEL GUILTY WHEN I THINK OF THE BHOPAL TOXIC GAS
CATASTROPHE
I was a year or so back asked about this tragedy and I found out that I knew nothing about it. So,
with the help of the net, I tried to learn the main facts. But what I knew as an accident turned out
to be a huge controversial conspiracy. I apologize to all of you who know more than me, in case
I have my facts wrong. Those of you like me, carry on reading will be my request
Environmentalists have described the Bhopal Gas
Tragedy as the worst chemical industrial accident ever
in the history of mankind (it is no 2 after Chernobyl in
the category of industrial accidents).1 In the night of 2-3
December 1984 while the people of Bhopal were in
slumber, the toxic gas MIC (Methyl IsoCyanate) started
leaking out from a storage tank. MIC being highly toxic
started to be guided by the wind over the city and
people started to die in respiratory convulsions. The
mortality value was 2000 within the first 7 hours and
increasing. Cemeteries and graveyards began to fill up,
scenes like corpses piling up due to everybody of the
family having died, mass funeral pyres, mass graves etc.
were common. (Madhya Pradesh was one of the largest
states of India and has been now split into two states i.e. itself and Chattisgarh.) As time went,
the rate of the dying abated and stopped. But taking everything including the aftermath into
consideration, the final tally was 30,000 dead and 120,000 injured and/or suffering from various
complaints approximately. This killer gas originated from a storage tank in the city fringes of the
pesticide factory of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), the Indian Subsidiary of Union
Carbide.
The problem was compounded since UCIL officials refused or professed ignorance of the exact
composition of the chemicals thereby forcing Indian Chemists, Scientists and Doctors to work in
conditions of guesswork. At post mortems and from the stool and viscera of the seriously
affected, traces of 21 chemicals were found so the various probabilities of the composition of the
gas was possible as per the laws of permutations, but which one…That was the million dollar
question. No antidotes could be developed therefore and no one understandably volunteered to
carry out any research in this regard.
1
Its stay at the top did not last long as in the same decade, the Chernobyl disaster took place,
in the earlier USSR.

2. The pesticides
plant today:
Except for
rust nothing
has been
moved
orchanged in 27 years.
The Killer Tank, which leaked
Till this day nothing has been done by Union Carbide or Dow to cleanse the site of its toxicity.
All the equipment is still there including the killer Tank

3. In 2010, representatives of a Delhi based technical consulting company found the presence of
toxins in different quantities in the lactose glands of new mothers who had been exposed to the
gaseous fumes
However, we will now stop and not describe the catastrophe in more detail lest we indulge in
titillation or provocation and forget our main topic, which is the guilt or innocence of Union
Carbide in this court of Business Ethics and its chairman Mr. Warren Anderson. It will however
be of significance here to mention that Mr. Warren Anderson was arrested under different codes
of the IPC (Indian Penal Code), released on bail and then jumping bail, fled away to the US. The
US govt. then against an extradition request from an Indian Court, refused to extradite Warren
Anderson on the strength of the weakness and vagueness of the extradition treaty between India
and the US. Lawsuits are still going on today in the US.
The FACTS as they were and STILL are
Therefore, the facts that we have with us are stated as under:
I. The Union Carbide Company, which was one of the biggest chemical companies of
the world,has since been brought by another Chemical Heavy weight Dow Chemicals
Inc. UCC decided that the Republic of India had plenty of potential for market growth
in fertilizers and pesticides, since the Indian Economy was heavily based on
agriculture, at that time. The company therefore took the decision to come to India,
and set up its own plant in Bhopal, taking the advantage of cheap labor in India to sell
its products at very competitive prices. UCC set up its own subsidiary in Indian called
Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL). The factory was set up in the outskirts of Bhopal
town and manufacture started. Within a few years, the subsidiary did very well and
expanded by setting up more and more units. In 1985, UCIL had a turnover of 2000
million USD and profits of 38 million. The parent company owned 50.9 % of the
company and the balance 49.1% was owned by the government of India.
II. For the manufacture of its branded pesticides, the manufacturing process involved the
creation and use of Methyl IsoCynate. This chemical is highly toxic and has a vapor
temperature of 100oFarenheit. With such a low vapor temperature, it is essential that
the chemical liquid is stored under refrigerated conditions. Somehow, about 1000 to
2000 gallons of water found its way into the MIC and there was a huge unwanted
chemical reaction. This resulted in abnormal increase of pressure and temperature in
the tank and finally the pressure of 180 psig forced the relief valve open (normal
pressure 15 psig max) and MIC which by then had already vaporized escaped into the
atmosphere for aburt 2 hours or 3 hours maximum(temperature 2000C estimated).
III. The release of gaseous MIC poisoned and killed about 20,000 to 25,000 humans-
adults, juveniles and babies and seriously affected another 120,000 people rendering
them handicapped to a large extent blinded. These victims also faced the punishment
of bearing mutants for another generation. Many women were rendered infertile with
the destruction of the fallopian tubes. Leaving aside humans, about 20,000 livestock
were also killed and a larger quantity was maimed. The water of that area is still
highly toxic now. Evidence of toxicity has been found even in breast milk collected
from new mothers, nursing their infants.

4. These were the facts which should have been analyzed in the context of ‘international business
ethics” and the theories thereof but were never done.
There is nothing in ethics that UCL is not guilty of.. If the question is to be asked of all social
science experts in the world today, the author is sure that everyone will be of the same opinion.
Here, we cite Appendix-I as a major source
of evidence, which is an advertisement that
appeared in all major publications of India at
that time. Here-it is easily seen that the
advertisement shows the company and the
Govt of India as partners in the path of
progress. UCIL is not mentioned anywhere in
the advertisement.
It is therefore apparent that the Indian
Subsidiary was a different entity only on
paper and was set up to avail of the tax
benefits provided by the Indian Govt. and to
circumvent the complexities, which will be
involved if, Union Carbide enters into the
agreement directly. Being the largest stake
holder, Union Carbide could have been taken
to task. But the Government of India was too
busy in protecting itself and trying to escape
from the quagmires of humiliation and
embarrassment, in front of the world community.
How could the incident happen? This is a valid question. UCC just shrugs its massive shoulders
and says that the accountability is UCIL not UCC which is rubbish. If you sell guns to someone,
it is your duty to show him how to operate it. You point out to him the stock and the nozzle and
tell him that he should hold the stock and point the barrel to what he wants to shoot or he may
hurt himself fatally-if he does it the other way around. UCC had sold the technology to UCIL on
paper and received payments towards the theintellectual cost periodically from UCIL-its
subsidiary. That, the skill of the indian operators was not sufficient to run the plant safely is
nothing but humbug-for if that really was the case, UCC should have opted out of the technology
transfer or kept its on trained operators.
UCC also claims that the Bhopal plant’s design is as per the design of its Virginia Plant design,
which has had no accidents. Again-the truth is distorted here. A point to point comparison of
both plants show the Bhopal plant lacked lots of safety systems. The operational process was
different in certain areas. Maintenance was very high in one and almost negligible in the other’s
case. Evacuation drills, Oxygen masks the entire lot was in Virginia. Bhopal had a barely
functioning speaker and amplifier. UCC or UCIL also has no defenses against the findings of
third party inspectors. After the incident-it was found that

5. I. The refrigeration was nonfunctioning for 6 months.
II. Temperature rise alarm had not been reset –this means that there will be no auto
cut as the automation was disabled.
III. The vent gas scrubber’s automation sensing did not work.
IV. The flare tower, which burned whatever gas (if any) escaped the scrubber unit, was
out of service.
UCC definitely violated business ethics here. In 1985 and 86, the company’s share prices went
down in Wall Street and there was deficit net income. The image of the company suffered all of
which affected the stakeholder. The argument that UCC increased the food problem of India is
hogwash. There was much safer technology available for pesticide manufacture in Germany.
UCC could have adopted that. In one stroke, UCC made a mockery of its image as a responsible
organization built over decades of R&D and creative thinking. Although UCC had helped India
in food self-sufficiency-it had been paid for these services. !You cannot justify taking a life by
saving the lives of 10 people. The verdict is guilty as per the stakeholder theory.
The verdict of CSR can be automatically arrived at which is guilty. True-a hospital was built but
it was a case of locking the stable door after the hose had bolted.
THE KING RAT WHO FLED THE SINKING SHIP:
And if UCC is guilty, then what about Warren Anderson? He is guilty as hell!
As the chairman of UCC, Anderson authorized the technology transfer which means that the
onus of using the technology safely/properly is Anderson’s
As the director in the UCIL board, Anderson was responsible for the safety. This is important to
mention because Anderson had ideas of the measures available in both plants. The changes were
bound to strike his attention. But he did nothing.
He is responsible for the deaths as if he drove a vehicle, which suffered a brake failure and
killed all those people. Not homicide but culpable murder or negligence leading to death.
CONCLUSION:-
The author wishes to convey here that he has wrote this paper in a lighter vein which was done to
stop the author’s mind from the atrocities carried out in Bhopal and the different photographs
which he came across in the course of the research, which were sufficient for the purpose of
churning his stomach.
On why I feel guilty, it is obvious that I was doing what other students and teenagers do –
freaking out, when mass genocide was going on n the country.
We should pledge that the flag of business ethics would always be kept flying high and stop
flogging the dead horse. Let Bhopal be an example to everyone that without business ethics, you
lose every time and how concepts of superior intellect and overconfidence can lead to disaster.
That would be their last testaments and like the eternal soldier let us salute the people of Bhopal
who gave up their todays so that we can have our tomorrows. Amen!

6. Seekers of truth are requested to go through the Amnesty International Publication “The
Clouds of Injustice” which can be read on the net. People may even be surprised to know
that UCL owns the plumb URL www.bhopal.com . Their noble intention behind this is that
they want visiting journalists to know the truth. I went to the site and posted a few
questions but got no replies.
Appendix-i