Five Past Midnight In Bhopal Part 14

Under the great tamarind tree in Kamla Park on the narrow strip of garden separating the Upper Lake from the Lower, a sadhu looked on impa.s.sively as people fled the deadly cloud. All through that night of panic, the Naga Baba, or naked holy man, as the Bhopalis called him, remained cross-legged in the lotus position. For thirty-five years he had lived there ever since a five-day samadhi, a spiritual exercise in which he was buried alive, had turned him into a holy man. Half-naked, with his body covered in ashes and his long mop of hair divided into a hundred tresses, a pilgrim's stick topped with s.h.i.+va's trident and a bowl in which he collected food provided by the faithful as his only possessions, the Naga Baba, detached from all desires, material things, appearances and aversions, spent his days meditating, in quest of the absolute. With prayer beads in his fingers, and his gaze seemingly vacant behind his half-closed lids, he seemed indifferent to the chaos that surrounded him. Overtaken by small, eye-level pockets of monomethylamine and phosgene borne along by the breeze, dozens of men and women whose lungs were dilated from running, collapsed around him. Trained to breathe only once every three or four minutes by his ascetic exercises, the Naga Baba did not inhale the vapors from the pa.s.sing cloud. He was the only person to survive in Kamla Park.

43.

The Dancing Girl Was Not Dead The dead were everywhere. In the corridors, in the consulting rooms, in the operating theaters, in the general wards, even in the kitchens and the nurses' canteen. Laid out on stretchers or on the bare floor, some looked as if they were sleeping peacefully; others had faces deformed by suffering. Strangely, they gave off no smell of decomposition. It was as if the MIC had sterilized anything in them that might rot. Removing these corpses became as pressing a problem as caring for the living. Already the vultures had arrived. Not the carrion birds, but the professional body riflers for whom the catastrophe was a G.o.dsend. Dr. Mohammed Sheikh, one of the two doctors on duty, surprised a pillager with a pair of pliers in his hands, preparing to yank gold teeth from the mouths of the dead. One of his accomplices was stripping the women of their jewels, including those embedded in their noses. Another was recovering watches. Their harvest was likely to be a thin one, however; Carbide's gases had primarily killed the poor.

Once alerted, Professor Mishra sent some students to stand guard over the corpses and telephoned the two forensic pathologists at the medical college. The collector of vintage cars, Heeresh Chandra and his young colleague who loved roses, Ashu Satpathy, were already on their way to the hospital. Chandra knew that the autopsies he and Satpathy would perform that night could save thousands of lives; the bodies of the dead could yield definitive information about the nature of the killer gases and might enable them to find an antidote.

What the two doctors saw on their arrival chilled them to the bone. "We were used to death, but not to suffering," Satpathy would later recount. The hundreds of bodies they had to step over to gain access to the medical college looked as if they had been tortured.

"What chemical substances could be capable of doing that kind of damage?" wondered Chandra as he hurried first to the faculty library. His colleague Mishra had mentioned methyl isocyanate. The pathologist leafed frantically through a toxicology textbook. The entry on the molecule did not contain much information, but Chandra suspected that it was capable of breaking down into highly toxic substances like hydrocyanide acid. Only hydrocyanic acid would be likely to inflict such deadly marks.

As for Dr. Satpathy, he went first to the terraces, to make sure that his roses had not been damaged by the toxic cloud. After examining every pot, plant, leaf and bud with all the concern and tenderness of a lover at his endangered mistress's bedside, he heaved a sigh of relief. The Black Diamonds and Golden Chryslers he had so lovingly grafted appeared to have survived the pa.s.sing of the deadly fog. In two days' time, Satpathy would be able to exhibit them as planned at the Bhopal Flower Show. Before returning to the inferno on the ground floor, he telephoned the third member of his medical team, the photographer Subashe G.o.dane.

"Get over here quickly, and bring a whole suitcase full of film with you. You're going to have hundreds of photos to take."

The young man who had dreamed of making his name photographing glamorously dressed women, hurriedly threw on his clothes, loaded his Pentax and hopped on his scooter.

Before beginning the autopsies, it was essential that the two forensic pathologists devise a system for identifying the victims. Nearly all of them had been caught in their sleep and had fled their homes half naked. Satpathy enlisted the help of a squad of medical college students.

"Examine each corpse," he told them, "and jot down its description in a notebook. For example, 'circ.u.mcised male, approximately forty, scar on chin, striped underpants.' Or again, 'little girl aged about ten, three metal bracelets on right wrist, etc.' Make a note of any deformities, tattoos and any distinctive features likely to facilitate identification of the victim by their next of kin. Then place a card with a number on it on each body."

The doctor turned then to G.o.dane. "You photograph the numbered bodies. As soon as you've developed your negatives, we'll put them on display. In that way families will be able to try and find anyone they've lost."

Next, addressing himself to everyone, he added, "Get a move on! They'll be coming for the bodies!"

Soon the shutter on the Pentax was firing like a tommy gun over the stiffened bodies. Although he had spent years immortalizing the victims of minor accidents on glossy paper, Subashe G.o.dane was suddenly face to face with a wholly different form of death: industrial death, death on a huge scale. While he was working, he found himself wondering whether he had not photographed a particular young woman in a multicolored sari, or a particular little girl whose long braids were adorned with yellow marigolds, on a previous occasion. Perhaps on Hamidia Road, or in the jewelry market at the great mosque, or near the fountain in Spices Square. But that night his models' eyes had rolled back into their skulls, the amber tint of their skin had turned the color of ashes and their mouths had set into dreadful rictuses. G.o.dane had difficulty continuing with his macabre doc.u.mentary. All at once he thought he was seeing things. By the light of his flash, he saw the features of a face twitch. Two eyes opened. "This man isn't dead!" he yelled to Satpathy who came running with his stethoscope. Sure enough, the man was still alive. The doctor called for a stretcher and had him taken to a recovery ward where he regained consciousness. He was wearing a railway worker's tunic. It was V.K. Sherma, the deputy stationmaster who had saved hundreds of pa.s.sengers by risking his life to get the Gorakhpur Express to leave.

There were other shocks in store on that tragic night. Two female corpses were brought in by unknown persons. When Satpathy examined them, he realized that they had not been killed by gas but murdered. One had a deep wound to the throat, the other had burns to a substantial part of her body. The catastrophe had provided the killers with the perfect alibi. The doctor also saw the corpse of the same little boy three times, labeled with three different numbers. It was a fraudulent act that would enable his family to claim three times the insurance compensation the American multinational might pay.

Other parents refused to accept the awful reality. A young father placed his son's corpse in the arms of Dr. Deepak Gandhe, one of the doctors on duty.

"Save him!" the stranger pleaded. "Your child is dead!" replied Gandhe, trying to give the little body back to his father.

"No! No! You can save him!"

"He's dead, I tell you!" insisted the doctor. "There's nothing I can do for him."

"Then the man ran off, leaving the child in my arms," Deepak Gandhe would recount. "In his heart of hearts he was convinced that I could bring him back to life."

On dissecting the first corpses, the two forensic pathologists could hardly believe what they found. The blood of a gray-goateed Muslim, into which Satpathy dipped his finger, was as viscous as currant jelly. His lungs were ash-colored, and a mult.i.tude of little bluish-red lesions appeared in a grayish frothy liquid. The man must have died by drowning in his own secretions. Hearts, livers and spleens had tripled in size, windpipes were full of purulent clots. Without exception, all the organs seemed to have been ravaged by the gas, including the brains, which were covered with a gelatinous, opalescent film. The extent of the damage was terrifying even to specialists as hardened as old Chandra and his young colleague. A smell confirmed their suspicions as to the nature of the agent responsible-a smell that was unmistakable. All the bodies they autopsied gave off the same smell of bitter almonds, the smell of hydrocyanide acid. Here was the confirmation of what Jagannathan Mukund had let slip to Bhopal's commissioner. When it broke down, MIC released hydrocyanide acid, which instantly destroyed the cells' ability to transport oxygen. It was hydrocyanide acid that had killed the great majority of Bhopalis who died that infernal night.

The pathologists' discovery was vitally important, because hydrocyanide acid poisoning had an antidote: a commonplace substance, sodium thiosulfate or hyposulfate, well known to photographers who use it to fix their negatives. Ma.s.s injecting with hyposulfate might possibly save thousands of victims. Chandra and Satpathy rushed to Professor Mishra who was coordinating the medical aid with his team. Strangely, the professor refused to believe his colleagues' findings and follow their recommendations. As far as he was concerned, the presence of hydrocyanide acid was an invention of the forensic pathologists' overactive imaginations.

"You take care of the dead and let me take care of the living!" he told them.

No one would really be able to account for this reaction on the part of the ill.u.s.trious professor. It would deprive the victims of a treatment that might have saved their lives.

Dawn broke at last on that apocalyptic night: a crystal clear sunrise. The minarets, cupolas and palaces were lit up by the sun's rays and life a.s.serted itself once more in the entanglement of alleyways in the old part of town. Everything seemed the same. And yet some places looked like war zones on the morning after a battle. Hundreds of corpses of men, women and children, cows, buffaloes, dogs and goats were all over the place. Deeply alarmed by the situation, Commissioner Ranjit Singh went to the nearby colleges in areas that had been spared and enlisted students to pick up bodies. At the Maulana Azad Technical College, he found dozens of volunteers.

"Divide yourselves up into two teams," he told them. "Muslims in one, Hindus in the other, and each can look after their own dead."

His suggestion provoked a vehement reaction. "Is there any difference between Hindus and Muslims at a tragic time like this?" objected one student.

"Is there even a G.o.d when such a catastrophe is allowed to happen?" said another.

"I made myself very small," the commissioner said afterward. "I was trying to think of the strongest possible terms in which to thank them."

With bandannas over their mouths and noses, the students set off on scooters for the slums that Colonel Khanuja and his trucks had partially evacuated during the night. There were still a few survivors left among the ma.s.s of bodies. Student Santosh Katiyar was party to a scene that touched him deeply. While he was preparing to remove the body of a Muslim woman from one of the huts in Chola, a hand stopped him. A woman, whom he recognized by the red dot on her forehead as a Hindu, slipped all her bracelets off her wrist and slid them onto her dead neighbor's arm.

"She was my friend," she explained, "she must look beautiful to meet her G.o.d."

A little farther on, Santosh noticed four veiled Muslim women, sitting under the porch roof to a small Hindu temple. They were consoling a woman who had lost her entire family. In such extreme distress, distinctions of religion, caste or background vanished. Very swiftly, however, the sordid took its place alongside the sublime. No sooner had Rajiv Gandhi announced over the radio that all families would be compensated for the loss of their loved ones, than people began to squabble over the corpses. Outside the medical college Colonel Khanuja saw two women pulling the body of a man by his arms and legs in opposite directions. One was a Hindu; the other Muslim. Both were claiming that the deceased was her relative. They were pulling so hard that the poor man's body was in danger of being torn in two. The colonel decided to intervene.

"Undress him! Then you'll see whether or not he's circ.u.mcised."

The two women tore off his lunghi and underpants and examined his p.e.n.i.s. The man was circ.u.mcised. Furious, the Hindu woman got up and set off in search of another corpse.

The number of expressions of solidarity multiplied. Never before had the India of a thousand castes and twenty million divinities shown itself so united in adversity. Tens of organizations, inst.i.tutions, a.s.sociations, hundreds of entrepreneurs and businessmen, thousands of private individuals of all social cla.s.ses, the Rotarians, the Lions, the Kiwanis and the scouts, all came rus.h.i.+ng to the rescue of the survivors. Many towns in Madhya Pradesh sent truckloads of medicines, blankets and clothing. Volunteers of different religious faiths spread out cloths on the corners of avenues, in squares, all over the place, onto which people threw mountains of rupees.

That day after the catastrophe was also a time for anger. A policeman came to warn Mukund, who had remained closeted in his office, that thousands of rioters were heading for the factory, yelling, "Death to Carbide!" After trying all night to get hold of his superiors in Bombay, the works manager finally got through by telephone to one of them.

"There's been an accident," he informed his boss K.S. Kamdar. "An MIC leak. I don't know yet how or why."

"Any fatalities?" Kamdar asked anxiously. "Yes."

"Many?"

"Alas! Yes."

"Two figures?"

"More."

"Three?"

"More like four, Kamdar."

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Kamdar was stunned. At last he inquired, "Do you have the situation in hand?"

"Until the crowd invades the factory. Or the police come and arrest me."

Just then, they were interrupted by several uniformed policemen and two plainclothes inspectors from the Criminal Bureau of Investigation. They carried a warrant to detain Mukund and his a.s.sistants.

Outside the situation was growing worse. Police chief Swaraj Puri, who had seen so many of his men disappear the previous night, feared violent action. With no means to oppose it, he decided to resort to a stratagem. He summoned the driver of the only vehicle left to him with a loudspeaker.

"Drive all over town," he ordered the officer, "and announce that there's been another gas leak at Carbide."

The effect of the ruse was miraculous. The rioters who had been about to overrun the factory scattered instantly. In a matter of minutes the city was empty. Only the dead remained.

The fatal cloud had spared the vast enclosure at the end of Hamidia Road where, in the shade of century-old mango and tamarind trees, generations of Muslims had been laid to rest. The man in charge of the place was a frail little individual with dark skin and a chin studded with a small salt-and-pepper goatee. Abdul Hamid had been born in that cemetery. He had grown up there and become its master. It was a position that enabled him to live in comfort; for every burial he received a hundred rupees and he oversaw two or three each day. Abdul Hamid was a central and familiar figure in the Muslim community. They all, at one time or another, had to deal with him. Although he was no stranger to death, the poor man could never have antic.i.p.ated the spectacle that awaited him that morning at the entrance to his cemetery. Dozens of bodies wrapped in shrouds were piled up like parcels outside the fence. "It was the first time I'd ever seen so many corpses at once," he said later.

Hamid called his sons and set to work digging graves. Volunteers came to help him. But how was he to give so many dead a decent burial? How was he to receive their families appropriately? In the absence of any members of the clergy, it was Abdul himself or one of his grave diggers who recited a namaz, or prayer, for the dead. In a few hours there was nowhere left to dig fresh holes and the men had to stop for fear of disturbing the remains of earlier burials. "I was the guardian of the dead," Abdul Hamid was to say. "I had no right to violate tombs. If I did no one would trust me anymore."

In the two other Muslim cemeteries, the congestion was even worse, a fact that forced the city's grand mufti, the venerable Kazi Wazid ul-Hussein, to issue an urgent fatwa authorizing the disturbance of old tombs in order to make room for Carbide's victims. The fatwa stipulated that some ten bodies could be buried in the same grave. Soon a flood of trucks, cars and handcarts turned up with their macabre loads. The deceased were deposited at the entrance to Abdul Hamid's cemetery in the columned building set aside for preparation of the dead. In the absence of relatives, this ritual was carried out by volunteers, who undressed the bodies and washed them in tepid water. Men and women were dealt with separately. The elderly Iftekar Begum, the eighty-year-old dowager who directed operations, marveled that so many of the deceased were wearing embroidered burkahs and flowers in their hair.

"Last night was Sunday," a friend explained to her, "they died while they were celebrating."

Other surprises awaited those dealing with the burial of the dead. Under pressure from the gases produced by the chemical decomposition of MIC, the corpses were subject to strange twitches. Here an arm stretched itself out, there a leg. Some bodies buried near the surface of the earth seemed to want to stand up. Terrified by these extraordinary "resurrections," some people fainted, others shouted at the ghostly apparitions and yet others ran away screaming. Abdul Hamid was struck dumb; his cemetery had become a theater of ghosts.

Bhopal's most celebrated restaurateur had been obliged to hand over control of his ovens to his two sons and two sisters while he arranged for the Hindu funeral pyres. His a.s.sociates from the Vishram Ghat Trust, the group in charge of cremations, were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. The Hindu religion ordains that, with the exception of children, the bodies of the deceased must be burned. For that they needed firewood, but how were they to find enough for thousands of corpses? Shyam Babu worked a miracle. In the s.p.a.ce of a few hours, he managed to fill fifteen trucks with enough wood to incinerate several hundred bodies. Cloth-makers brought him miles of linen with which to make shrouds.

While he prepared to set light to the first pyre, two envoys of the mufti appeared. They had come to make certain that no Muslims would be burned by mistake. It was almost impossible to confuse men from the two communities; the followers of Allah wore a characteristic goatee, amulets around their necks, and bore marks left on their foreheads by their repeated prostrations. Not to mention the fact that they were circ.u.mcised. Unless they were veiled with their burkahs, women were more difficult to distinguish. Nevertheless, the mufti's envoys left rea.s.sured. Shyam Babu was just about to plunge his torch into the pile of wood when someone grabbed his arm. The student Piyush Chawla had spotted a little gold cross around one young woman's neck.

"This woman isn't a Hindu!" he cried. He extricated the body and placed it to one side of the pyre.

Then he noticed an almost imperceptible quivering of her eyelids. Intrigued, he bent over the body. The hands and feet were neither rigid nor cold. This woman with bells on her ankles was not dead, he was sure of it. He put her on one of the trucks that was going to bring back more corpses from Hamidia Hospital and climbed up beside her. Frothy bubbles were coming out of her half-open mouth. Piyush Chawla could not help wondering whether he was witnessing some supernatural phenomenon.

It was exactly two in the afternoon by the clock in Spices Square on that Monday the third of December when the smoke from the first funeral pyre rose into the sky over Bhopal, reducing to ashes those people whom Carbide's beautiful plant had promised happiness and prosperity. Blowing now from the south, a light breeze carried away the last traces of deadly gas and replaced them with a smell even more appalling: the aroma of burning flesh.

44.

"Death to the Killer Anderson!"

Tuesday December 4, eight-thirty A.M. The athletic figure of the CEO of Union Carbide made his entrance into the boardroom at the company headquarters in Danbury, Connecticut. Since the previous day, Warren Anderson had been given hourly reports on the situation in Bhopal. For a son of immigrants who had managed to haul himself up to the top of the world's third largest chemical giant, the tragedy was as much a personal disaster as a professional one. Anderson had set his sights on making Union Carbide an enterprise with a human face. Of his 700 industrial plants, employing 117,000 people in 38 countries, the Bhopal factory had been his favorite. It was he who had inaugurated it on May 4, 1980. The first drops of MIC that emerged from its distillation columns that day had been his victory. Thanks to the Sevin thus produced, tens of thousands of Indian peasants would be able to conquer the menace of famine.

As soon as he heard about the tragedy, he had set up a special team to deal with events in total transparency. He had arranged for the media to maintain a constant link to the company spokespeople. Then he had shut himself away in his home office in Greenwich to think about what his initial reaction should be. Having made his decision, he called his closest a.s.sistants. Despite the terrified entreaties of his wife Lilian, he would leave immediately for Bhopal. His place was there, among the victims. He wanted to see for himself that everything that could be done was being done. His gesture would help underline the fact that the company he controlled was not a faceless, soulless giant, and that the recent tragedy was just one accident along a path intended to create a better, more just world. In short, his presence at the scene of the catastrophe would be an expression of the ideal that inspired him.

In addition to a sense of moral obligation toward the victims, he also felt a responsibility to the company's shareholders. Doubtless Carbide had the financial means to survive the worst possible disaster. But if the terrible news he had received was accurate, his duty was to do everything in his power to prevent his company from appearing cruel or irresponsible to its shareholders.

By the somber faces that greeted him that Tuesday morning in the presidential boardroom at Danbury, Warren Anderson could tell that his colleagues were hostile to his plan. There was no shortage of arguments against it. First, he would be risking his life: India was an unpredictable country. One month earlier, Indira Gandhi had been a.s.sa.s.sinated because her army had killed far fewer people than had died at Bhopal. Some grief-crazed survivor might make an attempt on his life. Then again, under pressure from outraged public opinion, the Indian government might imprison him on arrival. Either way, his journey risked giving the unnecessary impression that the multinational was directly responsible for the tragedy, when it would be better to let its Indian subsidiary take all the blame. There was also the fact that there was every likelihood that the visit would be perceived as a provocation. Finally, it would expose the company's chairman to dangerous confrontations with India's new political authorities, and with the press, lawyers, judges, diplomats... . Even those in charge of the Indian subsidiary who had been consulted over the telephone showed little enthusiasm for the idea of having their top man arrive at the scene of the accident. Anderson, however, had made up his mind.

"I've weighed all the risks," he declared, "and I'm going."

On Thursday December 6 at five o'clock in the morning, a Gulfstream II twin-engine jet plane landed at Bombay's Santa Cruz airport. No one took any notice of the three initials engraved on its crest, yet they belonged to the American company that had just inflicted death upon the country. Suffering from the flu, exhausted after the twenty-hour flight, Warren Anderson traveled discreetly to the luxurious Hotel Taj Mahal opposite the symbolic arch of the Gateway of India, where a suite had been reserved for him. The two Indian gentlemen there to welcome him, Keshub Mahindra, President of Union Carbide India Limited, and V.P. Gokhale, its managing director, brought him up to date with the latest figures from the accident. By then people were talking about three thousand dead and two hundred thousand people affected. Fortunately, the two Indians also had some good news: Arjun Singh, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, and Rajiv Gandhi, head of the country's government, had agreed to see Carbide's chairman. That was one source of satisfaction for Anderson; he could at least convince them that his company was ready to compensate the victims, starting with at least five million dollars' worth of emergency medical aid.

In an effort to be discreet, Anderson and his two partners flew to Bhopal the next day in the Boeing 737 of a regular Indian Airlines flight. The company jet would rejoin the chairman in Delhi to take him back to the United States.

On landing, the American noticed a small group of policemen on the tarmac. "How tactful of the local authorities to have sent us an escort," he thought. As soon as the staircase was in position, two officers climbed on board and a voice came over the cabin address system. "Mr. Anderson, Mr. Mahindra and Mr. Gokhale are invited to leave the aircraft first."

Ah, the wonders of Indian hospitality! Police Chief Swaraj Puri, who on the night of the tragedy had watched his policemen flee, was at the foot of the plane in the company of the city's collector to welcome the visitors with warm handshakes. All that was missing was the traditional garland of flowers and a pretty hostess to give them a welcoming tilak. Anderson and his companions took their seats in an official Amba.s.sador brought to the foot of the steps. The car took off like the wind and left the airport via a service gate to avoid the pack of journalists waiting in the arrivals hall. The police chief and the collector followed in a second car.

"Thank you for having gone to the trouble of fetching us," Anderson said to the uniformed inspector sitting beside the driver.

"It's standard procedure, sir. There's considerable tension in the city. It's our duty to look after your safety."

Despite the tragic circ.u.mstances, the American took pleasure in being back in the city, the beauty of which he had so admired when the factory was inaugurated four years earlier. The minarets of the mosques casting their reflections in the waters of the lake, the numerous parks br.i.m.m.i.n.g with flowers, the picturesque old streets bustling with activity; everything seemed so normal that he found it difficult to believe that the city had just been through so dreadful a nightmare.

The car climbed toward the Shamla Hills, entered the grounds of the research center and stopped in front of the company's splendid guest house. Anderson was astonished to find two squads of policemen a.s.sembled on either side of the door to the establishment. An officer was waiting on the steps. As soon as the three visitors got out of the car, he stepped forward, came to attention and saluted. Then he announced, "I regret to inform you that you are all three under arrest."

Anderson and his partners started with surprise. The policeman continued, "Of course, this is a measure primarily for your own protection. You are free to come and go about your rooms, but not to go out or use the telephone, nor to receive visitors."

At that moment the police chief and the collector arrived. They were accompanied by a magistrate in his distinctive black robe. The American felt rea.s.sured; certainly there had been some misunderstanding. The officials were coming to set them free. In fact, the magistrate had been summoned to notify the three visitors of the reasons for their arrest. He informed them that by virtue of articles 92, 120B, 278, 304, 426 and 429 of the Indian penal code, they were accused of "culpable homicide causing death by negligence, making the atmosphere noxious to health, negligent conduct with respect to poisonous substances and mischief in the killing of livestock." The first charge was punishable with life imprisonment, the others carried sentences of between three and six months.

"Naturally, all those charges carry the right to bail," intervened Keshub Mahindra, president of Carbide's Indian subsidiary.

"I'm afraid that is, unfortunately, not the case," the magistrate replied.

"So what about our meeting with Chief Minister Arjun Singh?" asked the American anxiously.

"You will be notified about that as soon as possible," the police chief informed him.

The likely instigator of this brutal reception was absent from Bhopal. He had left the capital of Madhya Pradesh that very morning to join Rajiv Gandhi on an electoral tour. He had, however, left instructions with his spokesman. As soon as the three visitors had been arrested, the latter was to muster the press and deliver the news with maximum impact. Arjun Singh, though a long-standing friend of Carbide, expected to make the most of his audacity. By having the American company's chairman and his Indian partners arrested, he was setting himself up as the avenger of the catastrophe's victims, a move that could only help him in the next parliamentary election. "The government of Madhya Pradesh could not stand pa.s.sively by and watch the tragedy," his spokesman told journalists on his boss's behalf. "It knows its duty to the thousands of citizens whose lives have been devastated by the criminal negligence of Carbide's directors."

News of Warren Anderson's arrest created a sensation from one end of the planet to another. This was the first time that a third world country had dared to imprison one of the West's most powerful industrial leaders, even if his prison was a five-star guest house. In New Delhi there was great consternation. The Indian foreign affairs minister had promised the U.S. state department that nothing would impede Anderson's journey. Quite apart from wis.h.i.+ng to avoid an overt clash with the United States, Indian leaders were afraid that the incident would dissuade large foreign firms from setting up in India forever. The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh would have to release his prisoners immediately. Never mind justice; matters of state required it.

Three hours later, Bhopal's chief of police, a.s.sisted by several inspectors came to announce the release of the American prisoner. His Indian colleagues would be set free some time later.

"A government airplane is waiting to take you to Delhi, from where you will be able to return to the United States," he informed him.

He then presented him with a doc.u.ment. To his stupefaction Anderson discovered that the sum of 25,000 rupees, about $2,000 at the time, had been posted by his company's local office as bail. He had only to declare his civil status and give his signature and he would be free.

"Twenty-five thousand rupees for the release of the head of a multinational responsible for the deaths of three thousand innocent people and poisoning two hundred thousand others! What does that make an Indian life worth?" inquired the Indian press the next day.

The news created an immediate uproar in the pack of reporters jostling with each other at the entrance to the guest house. The most significant reaction, however, came from a crowd of demonstrators pressed to the railings of the research center. From the car bearing him away to the airport, Warren Anderson could see a forest of placards above their heads. The sight of the few words inscribed on the pieces of cardboard would haunt him for the remainder of his days. "Death to the killer Anderson!" shouted the people of Bhopal.

The chairman of Union Carbide would never meet Rajiv Gandhi or any of his ministers. Only an official in the foreign office would agree to give him a brief audience, provided the press was not informed. The man who had hoped to change the living conditions of India's peasants and who had wanted, as he had stated, to retire "in a blaze of glory," left India broken, humiliated and despondent. He still did not know exactly what had happened on the night that spanned the second and third of December in India's beautiful plant. As for his desire to provide the victims with aid, he had not even been able to discuss it. His journey had been a fiasco.

A few minutes before he climbed into his Gulfstream II and took off for the United States, a journalist called out to him, "Mr. Anderson, are you prepared to come back to India to answer any legal charges?"

Anderson turned pale. Then in a steady voice, he replied, "I will come back to India whenever the law requires it."

In the meantime, other Americans had been landing in Bhopal. Danbury had rapidly dispatched a group of engineers whose mission it was to shed light on the catastrophe. Naturally the factory's last American works manager was part of that delegation. For Warren Woomer, this return was a painful trial. "My wife Betty and I had spent two of the best years of our lives here. But now I'd come back to examine the remains of a factory, which had in a sense been my baby," the engineer would later say. He had difficulty recognizing it. The s.h.i.+p he had left in good working order was now a spectacle of desolation that tore at his heartstrings. He made an effort to stay calm during his first encounter with Mukund. "Why was there so much MIC in the tanks? Why were all the safety systems deactivated?" Woomer fumed to himself. The inquiry team had agreed that they would avoid any confrontation. The important thing was to gather as much information as possible, not to create controversy.