“A sentence of merely two years for those responsible for the world's worst chemical disaster is outrageous. All those responsible for this disaster, including Warren Anderson, former chairman of Union Carbide, should stand trial in India and receive punishment that reflects the devastation and pain they have caused for thousands of people.... Warren Anderson absolutely deserves to be extradited from the US and punished for the full extent of his crimes.”

Despite all the sound and fury over the tragic verdict that came more than 25 years after the Bhopal gas leak, the demand for Anderson's extradition quoted above did not emanate from the Indian government. Neither it did from the principal Opposition. Yes, Indian politicians did sense the public mood well enough to join the chorus and slam the verdict in television studios.

But it took a US Congressman, Frank Pallone, Jr to demand Anderson's extradition and best articulate the pain and outrage at the sentence that only added insult to the injury inflicted by the compensation handed out earlier.

The question therefore arises whether the Indian government, failing which, the Opposition, shouldn't have demanded Anderson's extradition. Why did both the Congress party and the Bharatiya Janata Party stop well short of making this specific demand? Again, would the Left parties have bothered to do so if Anderson had not been an American and had been a Chinese national, for example?