1981

Sean Bersell told me about Brian Mooney's work in India, and as with Eric Pierce's column a few months ago, I asked Brian to tell his story himself: "From the start of my career as a lawyer, I dreamed of turning from that safe, if stressful, path to become an anthropologist. I've done just that, and last June I stood in a train station in the city of Bhopal in central India, saying goodbye to friends as my field research had ended, at least for now. Originally I'd come to India as an attorney working for the firm that was representing Union Carbide in the litigation following Bhopal's 1984 gas disaster. It was that experience that forced me to question my commitment to that line of work, and after a few more years of hesitation I finally enrolled in the Ph.D. program in cultural anthropology at the University of Michigan.

"As an anthropoligist I returned to Bhopal to learn about law and justice from the disasters victims. I knew that they continued to suffer from effects of exposure to the gas and that both the American and Indian legal systems have been ineffective in ensuring that relief and rehabilitation reach them. Even today, cumbersome claims courts are slowly granting only modest compensation. Hospitals are short of medications, and in the slums health education is almost nonexistent, leaving people to rely on folk remedies to treat illnesses brought on by a manmade chemical.

"I collected my research, but after 18 months the time came to leave as my fellowship money ran out. Dozens of people came to the station to see me off, and I saw Bhopal's story written on their faces. I saw Shahezadi Behar, a woman who'd spent several days telling me her ideas about law and justice. As a girl she taught herself to read and write Hindi and Urdu; so unlike many poor Muslim women, she was literate. Now she writes poetry and delivers impassioned speeches for victims, drawing attention to their demands for compensation, occupational rehabilitation, and treatment. I saw Dr. T.A. Qadri, who fled the city with his family that night in 1984 hoping that their coughing was due to the fumes of burning chilies from a nearby kitchen. The day after the disaster he volunteered in one of the medical camps set up near the Union Carbide plant and never left. Vishal came to the station to give me a parting gift. He was five at the time of the disaster, but he knows the name of thenUnion Carbide chairman, Warren Anderson. For a long time Vishal thought that Anderson's first name was "Hang" because he had seen it written in graffiti all over the city—Hang Anderson.

"I saw my closest friend, Sathyu Sarangi, who had ditched his career as a metallurgical engineer to come to Bhopal to volunteer on behalf of victims. Today he helps run the privately funded Sambhavna Clinic, the only organization that sends health-education workers out into affected slum areas.

"I was humbled on my departure because there's little I can do to repay their friendship and hospitality. I had been asked many times by Bhopalis what I could do to help; after all, I am a lawyer, and I've lived in Bhopal and learned Hindi. No, I don't know Warren Anderson, I conceded, and there's little that I alone can do to get my government to help. What help I can offer is modest. Through hard work and with luck, I told them, I'll complete my Ph.D., will begin teaching, and have promised to tell my students what the people of Bhopal have taught me about their lives and about an event like the gas disaster, which potentially implicates Americans as much as it does innocent Bhopalis."

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