The Bhopal heat-and-light show

Panel discussions on TV channels turn out to be  heat-and-light shows ,  ‘full of sound and fury signifying nothing’.  The  TimesNow show on Bhopal gas leak saga  last evening generated much heat, hardly any  light, and some disagreeable name-calling .  We had former CBI director Joginder Singh calling his  former colleague B R Lall  ‘ a lier’ ;  the later accusing his erstwhile boss of  foot-dragging .  Mr Lal held that  his communication to CBI director  seeking permission to prosecute important individuals  in some cases (he cites some) evoked negative response.  Mr Singh cried foul, saying, ‘don’t believe whatever he says , he’s a lier’. Mr Lall  pressed on with his charge , saying he held  copies of the d/o letters he wrote and he was prepared to send them on to Mr Singh.

Mr Lall’s credentials for inclusion in the TV show was his earlier disclosure that ,  as former CBI joint-director,  he had been privy to a communication from the external affairs ministry asking  CBI not to proceed with the case for extradition of former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson from the US.   In a different context  Mr Joginder Singh admitted , what we had suspected all along,  that CBI was not an independent agency.

A question I haven’t heard being addressed in any talk show relates to the refusal of Union Carbide to disclose the antidote to Methyl isocyanate (MIC),  the killer gas. Doctors in Bhopal, clueless and left to their own devices, administered drugs for cyanide poisoning, as gas  victims poured in at Hamidia Hospital ,  only to die  by the hundreds. Question : 1)  Does legal provision protecting trade and industrial secrets outweigh the need to share information, so essential to save lives of innocent gas victims ?  2) Isn’t Union Carbide liable to the charge of willful  disregard for human life ;  shouldn’t it  be penalised for witholding, nay,  refusing to divulge to doctors  MIC chemical code that could have saved  lives in thousands ?