It is not enough that the judicial process in the Bhopal tragedy was more than a travesty in dispensation but the political grandstanding in demanding the extradition of Warren Anderson, the 91 year old former chief of Union Carbide is absurd. Not because it should have been done with a seriousness nearly two decades ago but because it trivializes 23,000 deaths and becomes a tasteless demand. The sheer insincerity of it all is insulting to even the average Indian who can see through this gimmick.

Forget the man’s age. There is no one who believes that the government of the United States will extradite Anderson to India to stand trial for the corporate culpability in the worst industrial disaster of the 20th century.

Rather than fast track the compensation and attempt to build the shattered lives of the survivors, many thousands of them severely maimed and blinded, the Indian authorities are playing these games for the TV cameras and the media who need to come together and denounce this pathetic attempt to deflect the real issues.

Warren Anderson is not coming to India. Not voluntarily and certainly not under armed guard as a gift from President Obama to the Indian government…that is just not going to happen. Somewhere the politicians seem to think they are impressing the Indian people with cleverly contrived imagery of a shackled and repentant American big boss being brought to justice and therefore deserving of applause. This is not cinema and there is no Rambo. The righteousness is not going to fly and the pressure should be on the government to right the wrongs on the victims rather than indulge in such blindsiding.
Mr. Anderson could well argue that unless India can frame a charge of murder, the statute of imitations has run out. Corporate liability also has limitations and Union Carbide is now a defunct entity. What is most disturbing about this tack to extradite him is it that since it has a dramatic texture to it and makes for great sound bites there are enough people who may feel the government is doing something tangible. There is so much such hypocrisy in this stance. Even if the US Courts were to allow such an appeal to be entered on the docket the procedure involved in extraditing a US citizen from US territory would take no less than 10 years and would only go on stream as a legal case after the initial charge was substantiated.

Also, New Delhi has to ask itself what it was doing these 24 years in trying to get Warren Anderson to answer charges.

Time to stop chasing ghosts and engaging in self-serving publicity that has no validity at all. If these leaders are really intent on doing good, they should give the compensation and rebuild the lives not monkey about on the microphone.

(Courtesy Khaleej Times)