Bhopal and the Nuclear Liability Bill

THE verdict on the Bhopal gas accident has led to an outpouring of protests at the travesty of justice. There is justified outrage at the protection accorded to the Union Carbide and the manner in which its chairman Warren Anderson was allowed to leave the country.

The whole sorry episode which has dragged on for 26 years has starkly brought out some class truths. The first is that the central government of the day and successive governments have served the interests of big capitalists and corporates of America and India. The second linked class truth is that the 20,000 people who died and the tens of thousands who were physically affected were poor people belonging to the bastis of Bhopal who were, as far as the ruling classes and their political representatives were concerned, expendable. The judiciary also reflected this class bias. The third aspect is that there is no change in this class outlook of the central government and the ruling party, as can be seen in the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.

The Bhopal verdict has a direct relevance to the Nuclear Liability Bill introduced in parliament. Just two days after the court verdict, the first sitting of the Standing Committee of Parliament to examine the Nuclear Liability Bill took place. This is a Bill which was denounced by the CPI(M) when it was in the stage of being drafted within the government. This is a legislation being brought to fulfill a commitment made by the UPA government when it enter into the Indo-US nuclear deal. The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) had, in a statement on October 2, 2008 asking the government not to sign the 123 agreement, said: “India is committing to buy a minimum of 10,000 MW from the dying US nuclear industry, which has not received any new order for the last 30 years. It is going to indemnify suppliers from all consequences of a nuclear accident.” This commitment was made in writing by the then foreign secretary in a letter to the US under secretary, William Burns.

The Nuclear Liability Bill introduced in parliament is meant to safeguard the interests of the US companies who will supply reactors to India. In the event of a nuclear accident, they are to be exempted from any liability to pay compensation for the damages caused. What Westinghouse and General Electric want is that even the limited liability which accrued to Union Carbide in the case of Bhopal ($470 million as per the settlement approved by the Supreme Court) should not fall on them. The Congress-led government has obliged the United States by bringing this shocking piece of legislation which makes it near impossible to hold foreign suppliers of nuclear reactors to account in the case of an accident.

The government has tried to obfuscate the issue by arguing that a foreign supplier can be liable if such a clause is included in the contract between the operator and the supplier. What it does not say is that neither the public sector Nuclear Power Corporation of India, which is the Indian operator, nor the American company, which will be the supplier, will include such a liability clause in the contract. If this law is passed, if there is a faulty design or a manufacturing defect in a reactor supplied by a US company, the operator or the victim of an accident has no right to claim damages from the supplier. The other clause cited by the government is the one by which the operator has the right to recourse against the supplier if the nuclear accident has resulted due to a “willful act or gross negligence” on the part of the supplier. This makes it extremely difficult to hold the supplier liable as proving that faulty design or other defects are due to willful action or gross negligence will be well nigh impossible.

The cap put on the liability of the operator is Rs 500 crore while the overall financial liability for a nuclear accident is capped at around Rs 2140 crore. The reason why the liability of the operator is limited to Rs 500 crore is because the government wants to bring in private operators in the nuclear sector. The law will, therefore, limit the liability of Indian or foreign private companies who operate reactors to Rs 500 crore. Any amount to be paid above this cap will be footed by the government. In this manner, the government will subsidise private operators, including foreign companies, in the future.

The class outlook of the government is evident. The people will have to pay with their lives or health in the case of a nuclear accident, but the profits of US companies and the corporate sector in India should be protected by limiting their liability. In the case of Bhopal, the compensation paid by the Union Carbide amounted to Rs 713 crore ($470 million). A nuclear accident may involve casualties on a much larger scale than Bhopal. Under the Nuclear Liability Bill, the maximum compensation to be paid will be Rs 2140 crore, the bulk of which would be paid by the government.

The government has made much of the fact that it wants to accede to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. By joining this international convention, the government claims that it can access international funds to compensate victims of nuclear accidents. What the government does not say is that this is a Convention favoured by the United States as it provides complete protection to the suppliers of nuclear equipment. Only 13 countries have joined the Convention out of which only four have ratified it. The government should answer why it does not go by the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability which does not cap nuclear liability but only puts a minimum floor. Further, it also allows countries to operate their independent liability regimes.

How eager the Manmohan Singh government is to fulfill its commitment to the United States can be seen in the maneouvres it resorted to, to bring this legislation in parliament. After being thwarted in the first half of the budget session from introducing the Bill in the Lok Sabha, when the entire Opposition opposed the introduction of the Bill, the government had to strike deals with parties like the Samajwadi Party and the RJD to get it introduced in the fag end of the budget session. Normally, such a Bill should go to the Standing Committee on Energy. But the government decided to route it through the Standing Committee on Science and Technology where a Congress MP is the chairman. There was an effort by the government before the Standing Committee to delete the clause which gives the operator the limited right to recourse against the supplier in the case of a willful action or gross negligence. The nuclear industrial lobby of the United States has expressed its unhappiness at even this weak clause and wants it deleted.

The Civil Nuclear Liability Bill bears the handiwork of the US nuclear industry lobby. The manner in which liability is fixed shows a familiar pattern. In the United States, the powerful oil lobby had got the US Congress to put a cap on the liability of oil firms for damage done by oil spills at $75 million. Now with the havoc caused by the Gulf Coast spill from the BP’s drilling platform, efforts are on to raise the cap to $10 billion or to leave the scope for unlimited liability.

The pressure on the Manmohan Singh government to fulfill its commitment is relentless. William Burns, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations “India’s rise and the promise of US-Indian partnership” on June 1, 2010 referred to the need for the nuclear liability law. He said, “US companies are prepared to support the expansion of India’s civil nuclear infrastructure with two reactor park sites already identified. As prime minister Singh argued publicly last week, it is deeply in India’s self-interest for its parliament to enact liability legislation consistent with international standards.” In the Indo-US strategic dialogue which took place immediately thereafter, the Indian side led by foreign minister, S M Krishna, assured the United States that the Liability Bill would be passed into law.

No more Bhopals and Warren Andersons should recur. For this, Dow Chemical which took over Union Carbide should be made to pay all the costs for cleaning up the Bhopal factory site and the environment. Ironically, the Group of Ministers set-up by the government includes ministers who wanted to absolve Dow of all such responsibility. This will be an acid test of the government’s intentions.

If there are lessons to be learnt from the tragic episode of Bhopal, it is that there should be strict laws which will assign civil liability and ensure that criminal liability is also pinned down. There can be no compromise with the lives and safety of the Indian people in order to appease the commercial interests and profits of foreign and Indian big business.

The first step towards ensuring this will be to scrap the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.

Free right turn

As the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government completes its first year in office, there are signs that 2009 could constitute a second turning point in India's post-Independence economic history. UPA-II is different from its predecessor inasmuch as this coalition government, although still led by the Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is not “hampered” by Left support for survival. It, therefore, was and is widely seen as capable of adopting policies that could not be implemented by the previous government because of the role of the Left. Hence, at the end of year one of its tenure, attention is focussed on the direction policy is taking and whether the absence of the Left has resulted in a significant shift or turning point in economic policy.

The first turning point was, of course, in 1991, when under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh India experienced a remarkable turn in its post-Independence economic trajectory. The trigger for that turn was the balance of payments crisis that resulted from a combination of trade liberalisation and deficit-financed government spending. Yet, leveraging that balance of payments crisis and the “inevitability” of relying on the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government of the time embarked on a policy road that fundamentally altered the country's development path.

In a series of steps adopted over the subsequent years of that decade, the state's role as a driver of economic growth, a regulator of private investors and an agent working to reduce inequalities of various kinds was altered. Regulatory intervention was substantially diluted or dismantled, the state was increasingly presented as a facilitator of private initiative, and through various acts of omission and commission the government contributed to a shift in the distribution of income in favour of asset owners and a thin upper crust of the middle class.

Even though this shift was initially presented as the result of the requirements and conditions set by the IMF in return for its support in the form of an SDR 5 billion loan, it soon became clear that the economic policy establishment and a section of the Congress clearly favoured such policies. The IMF loan, which in any case was not used in full, appeared to be more a ruse, providing these sections with the instrument needed to push through policies that the people had for long been taught to distrust.

Not surprisingly, when the UPA came to power in 2004 and Manmohan Singh was made Prime Minister, the government was expected to push ahead with similar and even more radical measures of liberalisation such as accelerated privatisation, full convertibility on the capital account and dilution of financial sector regulation. There was indeed movement in these directions under UPA-I. But the government faced roadblocks at each point and had to withdraw on a number of occasions. Many measures favoured by the economic policy establishment could not be implemented because of opposition from the Left, support from which was crucial.

Moreover, a tendency in the Congress to publicly advocate pro-poor policies but do little to ensure their implementation, to adopt progressive rhetoric but ignore it in practice, proved difficult to sustain. Policies that were seen by the economic policy establishment as good on paper or in public speeches but inappropriate and “a waste of money” on the ground, such the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), had to be implemented once included in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) because of Left pressure.

This loss of full control over the levers of policy was particularly disconcerting for the advocates of “reform”, because it was during UPA-I's tenure that some of the ostensible “benefits” of the reforms of the 1990s were beginning to be experienced. During the 1990s, after a brief period of high growth during 1993-97, the economy experienced a slowdown with only a moderate revival after the injection of demand in the late 1990s when the Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations were implemented. Compared with this, from 2003 growth picked up substantially, and an economy that seemed to be falling off its 5-6 per cent annual growth trajectory moved on to a much higher, 8-9 per cent growth path for a relatively long period of time. That growth was seen as having legitimised past reform and provided the case for further liberalisation.

The effect of the high growth was that although poverty and deprivation persisted and were even increasing in some areas, the language of the UPA had come to resemble the “India Shining” slogan that spelt the downfall of its predecessor, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Fortunately for it, the CMP and the pressure exerted by the Left and sections of civil society ensured that it adopted at least some measures such as the NREGS and the Right to Information Act. This enabled the Congress, to its own surprise, to become the single largest party in the Lok Sabha and form a coalition government without relying on outside support from the Left. But that did provide the basis for a shift in policy from the so-called progressive policies, dismissed as “populism”, to the ostensibly “technocratic” neoliberalism.

However, the first Union Budget under UPA-II did not reflect this shift in full. One reason was, of course, the realisation within the Congress that its surprise performance in the elections was not unrelated to some of the ostensible populism of the UPA-I government. This meant that it had to give more credence to its own campaign promises than it would have otherwise done. The other important reason was that though the global financial and economic crisis had not overwhelmed India, it had slowed down the gross domestic product (GDP) growth and adversely affected employment and livelihoods, necessitating a response from the government.

Fiscal stimulus

The fiscal stimulus adopted in response to the crisis, combined with the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations, resulted in an expansionary fiscal stance. This did benefit business inasmuch as it moderated the impact of the crisis, increased demand in the economy and injected liquidity, which supported credit-financed expenditures even in a time of crisis. India proved to be a country that rode the crisis well. Industrial growth during financial year 2009-10 is estimated at a creditable 10.4 per cent compared with 2.8 per cent in 2008-09. But for the fact that the growth of agricultural GDP is estimated at 0.2 per cent, the services expansion facilitated by the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations would have taken aggregate GDP growth well beyond the advance estimate of 7.2 per cent for 2009-10.
One consequence of this performance is that even the case for a further dose of populism based on the surprising election results seems to have lost its strength. Policies such as the provision of social security benefits for unorganised workers or guaranteeing food security for all, which were made much of by the Congress propaganda machine, are being diluted and delayed. Even with regard to those initiatives that have been legislatively launched, such as the NREGS or Right to Education, the actual funds allocated in the UPA-II Budget point to a complete lack of seriousness.

What is more, the cutback in allocations is being defended using the fact that the implementation of the Pay Commission recommendations and the announcement of a number of stimulus packages in response to the crisis have widened the fiscal deficit. Fiscal adjustment, the government argues, is crucial. Not that it is serious about this either, judging by the tax concessions it has provided in the Budget. An income tax-paying minority has been offered an unexpected bonanza through a widening of the income slabs subjected to different rates of progressive taxation. In addition, the surcharge on corporate taxation has been reduced from 10 to 7.5 per cent. Not surprisingly, losses of direct tax revenues are estimated at upwards of Rs.25,000 crore. The Budget was in this and other ways clearly inequalising.

This process of contributing to inequality is being intensified by hikes in administered prices, including of intermediates such as petroleum and gas, and by reductions in subsidies for food and fertilizer. The increases in administered prices would have cascading effects on prices across the economy, and the subsidy cuts would reduce the degree to which the government moderates inequalising tendencies in the economy. All this occurs in a period when the prices of essentials are already rising sharply and the government appears to be doing little to halt the price rise other than call upon State governments to come down heavily on hoarders and speculators. Finally, despite its rhetoric, the pattern of public spending as reflected in the second Budget of the UPA-II government points to further erosion of real spending on crucial social sector projects.

Overall, economic management under UPA-II is not just characterised by a reduced commitment to redress inequality, but by the willingness to adopt initiatives that are very obviously inequalising.

On the other hand, the willingness of the government to accommodate and promote the interests of private capital is obvious. Access at relatively cheap rates to land, mineral and forest resources; easy access to credit from the public banking system for activities that are even speculative in nature; public-private partnerships in forms where the private sector is the principal beneficiary; a commitment to accelerated privatisation of public assets; liberalisation of the rules governing the operation of financial entities; and easy access to foreign exchange for forays by Indian capital abroad are the many ways in which UPA-II has been, and promises to continue, supporting the private sector. The influence of private capital on government decisions, in areas as diverse as gas pricing to regulation of mining, is palpable even if not always provable.

In the rush for quick profit that this new environment has generated, allegations of fraud and corruption have become routine. Whether it is the public sale of 2G spectrum or the private organisation of the Indian Premier League, allegations of huge profits in short periods with little sweat have become common. Nobody is fooled any more that “market-friendly”, neoliberal policies promote greater transparency and reduce rent-seeking. They only seem to make the state a facilitator of the private quest for profit, and sometimes a willing or unconscious accomplice in efforts at profiteering.

With the Left wielding little influence on its behaviour and four more years of power before it, UPA-II is intensifying its pursuit of such policies. If it persists in this direction, 2009 will indeed be a second turning point in India's post-Independence economic evolution where the quick enrichment of a few would be at the expense of the well-being of the poor majority.

Economic Crisis: Why More Of The Same Will Not Work

A visit to Western Europe in early March provided some slightly different -- if unsettling -- insights into global economic arrangements and their socio-cultural co-ordinates. As the crisis unfolds, people everywhere are questioning current economic institutions and processes, and naturally enough their fears, insecurities and concerns also affect their visions for the future. The fundamental issues relate to income and resource distribution (don't they always?) but in this time of global crisis, the expression of these issues can become sharper and even more openly divisive in spirit.

Two features of some current public responses in these societies are especially relevant in this context. The first is the barely concealed animosity towards China and India (inevitably clubbed together, despite all the huge differences) as perceived beneficiaries of globalisation and voracious consumers of global resources. The second is the general inability to conceive of a way out of the current global economic crisis in any way other than simply replicating the past, even though those past trends clearly cannot be sustained.

European attitudes towards Asia have long been characterised by varying combinations of fear and fascination, respect and revulsion, competition and colonialism -- as studies of Orientalism have made only too evident. But the current public perceptions are somewhat different: fed by sensationalising media that cannot waste time or space on complexities, they move in pendulum swings from seeing populous Asia as the breeding ground for poverty and terrorism to believing that aggressive exporting based on underpriced labour is causing more than two billion people to lead "middle class lives" that draw unsustainably on the world's resources.

Of course, sheer ignorance explains a lot. Among the general public in Europe, and even in the more informed sections, there is almost no realisation of how globalisation has adversely affected livelihoods and employment of the majority of the population in the developing world including in fast-growing Asian countries. The agrarian crisis is largely seen to be history, supposedly vanquished by the rising prices of agricultural goods in world trade between 2002 and mid 2008, even though farmers' incomes continue to stagnate and cultivation is still barely viable in large parts of the developing world. Because of the volumes of manufacturing exports from Asia, there is still widespread perception of shift of manufacturing jobs from North to South -- even though manufacturing employment has declined in the developing world as a whole, has barely increased in most countries of Asia and has actually declined since 1997 in what is generally accepted to be the workshop of the world, China.

A member of the audience at a public debate in London asked whether China and India, newly enriched by exploiting the globalization process, would therefore use the current crisis as opportunity to ride through the global economic tsunami that threatens to engulf everyone else and emerge stronger than the US and Europe. A distinguished-looking and apparently eminent elderly gentleman at a large conference in Berlin was even sharper: "China and India", he claimed, "benefited from the Asian economic crisis in 1997-98 at the cost of their neighbours, and now they will benefit from the global crisis". Another participant from the floor expressed it slightly differently: "These countries are not poor, they are full of billionaires and have four out of ten of the world's richest people, and yet they come blaming us for the crisis and demanding assistance from us".

These are obviously not politically correct positions, nor are they necessarily even the majority view, since they were opposed by other participants in each of these events. Yet the sheer honesty of their expression is useful, since it provides some idea of what must be a widespread underlying perception. And the concerns do not relate only to potential shifts in geopolitical or economic power. Even among more progressive people in Europe, there is a palpable fear (sometimes unspoken and sometimes expressed only in subtle and qualified arguments) that growing consumption of such a large part of the world's population will put an unbearable strain on global resources and therefore cannot really be supported.

There is certainly some degree of truth in this -- there is no question that current "Northern" standards of life cannot be sustained if they were made accessible to everyone on this planet. This means that future economic growth in the developing world has to involve more equitable and sensible patterns of consumption and production. But that hardly deals with the basic problem. Even if the elite and middle class of the developing world, and particularly China and India, just stopped increasing their consumption, simply bringing the vast majority of the developing world's population to anything resembling a minimally acceptable standard of living will involve extensive use of global resources. It will necessarily imply more natural resource use and more carbon emissions.

So the stark reality is that the developed world must, on the whole, consume less of the world's resources and reduce its contribution to global warming absolutely. This in turn has effects on income as well. It is not immediately clear why rich countries with falling populations necessarily need to increase their GDP, and why they should not focus instead on internal redistribution and changing lifestyles, which could in fact improve the quality of life of every citizen.

The current crisis is an excellent -- even unique -- opportunity to bring about such shifts in socially created aspirations and material wants, and to reorganise economic life in the developed world to be less rapacious and more sustainable. But sadly, this message is not being heard at least among the major policy makers in the core capitalist countries. In the United States, even the relatively environment-friendly Obama administration simply talks about promoting "cleaner, greener technologies" rather than altering absurd and wasteful consumption patterns. For example, it is still basing its transport strategy on excessive reliance on private automobile use rather than more extensive and efficient public transport.

In Europe, too, the focus is on reviving and increasing the old (outdated?) patterns of consumption. Silvio Berlusconi in Italy has just pleaded with his people not to change their lifestyles because of this crisis, because this would reduce economic activity immediately! The implication is that wasteful and excessive consumption is socially desirable because that is the only way to preserve employment.

Globally, too, policy makers are displaying the same startling lack of imagination. The focus is on the US and all eyes are on the Obama recovery package, since direct or indirect dependence on exports to the US is so great for most countries that this is seen as the only way for all economies to recover. Yet the US simply cannot continue to be the engine of world growth, given its huge external debt and current deficit, nor is it desirable that it should do so. This creates an inevitable and urgent need for other economies to redirect their trade and investment, at least at the margin. And associated with that, it also creates an opportunity for other countries to think about generating different, more sustainable and possibly more desirable, consumption patterns.

Why is it that so few people, especially those in a position to influence economic policies today, are raising these rather obvious questions? What we do not seem to realise is that unless we sort out these basic issues, we will not only be marching with lemming-like intensity and desperation to the sea, but we will also be squabbling, fighting and even killing each other for the privilege of getting there first.

Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics and currently also Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi, India. With C.P. Chandrasekhar, she co-authored Crisis as Conquest: Learning from East Asia.

Fixing Planet Earth: A Not-So-Modest Proposal

Only a nonviolent revolution, like the one led by Gandhi, can meet the challenge of the climate crisis

Mahatma Gandhi is widely regarded as the father of the Indian nation, which he was. But the founding of the nation was not his only aim. He was, as he freely admitted, using India to demonstrate to the whole world how nonviolence could change history. The swell of mostly nonviolent revolutions that has followed in the last 30 or so years would seem to indicate that his bold scheme worked.

We need to be no less daring now, in the face of the coming climate chaos. To rebalance and stabilize the planet’s climate, which we probably have to do in the present decade, is daunting; but it doesn’t go far enough. We need to do it the right way, and we need to unleash a domino effect that will end up—maybe by the end of the century—eliminating not just human-caused climate change, which is the most urgent problem, but many, if not all, of the problems linked to it.

Let me explain why I think this is necessary, and doable.

In the years since Gandhi and King we have seen many insurrections overthrow unjust regimes—in South Africa, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere—only to see the same injustices come back with different faces (or even, as in the Ukraine, the same old faces). As a passionate participant in the Free Speech Movement in the incredible ‘60s, I was deeply shocked to see, as time went by, that not only did our inspiring movement lead to few lasting changes, it indirectly propelled Ronald Reagan into the presidency. Similarly, we have seen ecological successes here or there dwarfed by the ongoing deterioration of Earth’s miraculous life-supporting systems. In some of these cases, e.g. whaling or offshore drilling in the United States, even apparent successes proved to be temporary. The only permanent fix for any of these problems is a deep and broad solution for all of them.

And it might just be possible, because that’s not the only thing that’s happening. Nonviolence has increased remarkably as Gandhi and King’s ‘ocular demonstration’ has told on the imagination of peoples around the world. According to one calculation, more than half the world’s population now lives in a regime that has seen a major, usually successful, use of nonviolence (rarely reported in the mainstream media). As time goes on, these movements are starting to get more sophisticated. Participants have added new institutions to their repertoire, like Unarmed Civilian-based Peacemaking (UCP), that places trained nonviolent internationals in zones of serious conflict around the world. They are waking up to the need for training and education, some of it embodied in organizations like my own Metta Center for Nonviolence Education, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), or the Center for Advanced Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) founded to impart best practices wherever needed—from the successful Otpor Rebellion of 2000 in Serbia to similar insurrections in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. A fascinating body of theory is being gradually developed that draws on eye-opening new findings in several branches of science.

In short, we are beginning to unpack the Gandhian legacy. And there’s no reason to think that the methods that can overthrow a regime cannot be globalized—that they cannot be so extended as to replace a dysfunctional civilization with a new, nonviolent world.

A secret of nonviolent power is practitioners’ ability to maintain an unwavering respect for the person of their opponents while resisting the latter’s misdeeds. When Martin Luther King urged his followers not to hate their white brothers he not only made it easier for the latter to give in, to a degree he was rehumanizing the entire culture—think of the difference that could make as we continue the legacy.

A mature nonviolent movement does not get stuck on a single technique—typically on protest—but can adjust its approach to the stage of the conflict—starting with petitions and votes, going on to civil disobedience if that doesn’t work, and finally being ready to make major sacrifices if even that fails.

Let’s talk about that for a minute. While there will be a continuing place for legislation to curb climate abusers, if we want a lasting solution the major burden of change will have to be carried by persuasion. In nonviolence, persuasion is not limited to sitting around a table. There is a much deeper kind of persuasion happening when someone bears witness to the truth, if necessary by taking on some of the suffering in an unjust situation rather than inflicting it on others. This is Satyagraha. And in the enormous ‘tea party’ climate of irrationality and self-righteous rage that prevails today, the climate that Noam Chomsky has rightly called pre-fascist, nothing less will work. As Gandhi said, “Things of fundamental importance to the people must be purchased with their suffering. You must be able to appeal not only to reason, but to the heart also,”—in other words by your willingness to risk injury if there’s no other way to reach your opponent. He also explained, with great insight, that

What Satyagraha in these cases does is not to suppress reason but to free it from inertia and to establish its sovereignty over prejudice, hatred, and other baser passions. In other words, if one may paradoxically put it, it does not enslave, it compels reason to be free.

In other words, it is a form of deep persuasion, and that is crucial. Those who are coerced look for the first chance to bolt; those who are convinced are with you for the long term.

But the campaign we need—and it’s within our reach—would have a whole other dimension. It would deploy an array of constructive activities as well—education, community and farming experiments, etc. As King would put it "cooperating with good" and "non-cooperating with evil." What is more—now this is really new—there will be some kind of strategic overview to help us decide when to do which. It is the "constructive programme" (as Gandhi called it) that will guarantee the continuity of the campaign; the "obstructive program" (my term for protests, blockades, etc.), held in readiness and used when needed, will guarantee its effectiveness. Ten years is not much time to awaken a civilization. But it can be done.

It is not clear where, in this anti-authoritarian climate of ours, this strategic vision and leadership would come from. It could well be reached by a kind of self-organization, or we could even—why not?—see the emergence of a visionary and effective leader. However it is achieved, the movement will have to have coherent direction and enough inspiration to hold on to its nonviolent standards (including a way to win over or, failing that, neutralize would-be disrupters). Virtually all the nonviolent episodes since King and Gandhi have been either constructive or "obstructive," but rarely both, and almost never with a coordinated strategy of the kind Gandhi achieved over decades of work in South Africa and India.

With that exception, note that all the elements are already in place for a sustained, effective campaign that could—and must—reverse climate disruption and go on to complete the job. All we need to do is become aware that they are the potential ingredients of the great movement we have been looking for.

To make climate the number one priority doesn’t necessarily mean dropping whatever else we’re doing. It means understanding how what we’re doing relates to that core project. I’m a nonviolence educator, and what I do is help people find the tools they need to do this job properly and permanently; you could be working on anything from corporate accountability to saving seals, which are all parts of the new paradigm (unless there’s a way to do it without corporations at all!). All of us have to be psychologically and otherwise ready to put our “own” project on hold if the opportunity arises for a direct push for climate legislation or against coal plants, knowing full well that when the climate is secured we will be able to get back to them if necessary, while if the climate is not secured there will be no one to work on anything!

In short, we need to address climate change with the full power and vision of nonviolence, and we need to stay the course. We are "using" climate change as Gandhi used the liberation of India, to address an even deeper change, a spiritual revolution that will liberate us from addictive materialism and move us on to beloved community, so we need to come out of our campaign with not only a stable physical climate but a method and a community of practitioners who can go from success to success until we—or our children—have the world we want.

Michael Nagler wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Michael is professor emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, where he co-founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and the founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.

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Bhopal: Justice Buried

Everyone uses the China card when talking about growth. But when it comes to governance, no one in India ever uses the Chinese examples. I am talking about the toxic milk scandal that killed six babies and 300,000 fell ill after drinking Melamine tainted milk in early 2009.

For the death of six babies, and another 300,000 who fell ill, China executed two top officials and one of China’s top dairy company bosses spends the rest of her life in jail after she accepted her responsibility. Death penalty for the death of six babies and thousands who got ill after drinking infant milk powder that was deliberately tainted with an industrial chemical is a classic example of justice delivered.

Why can't we make the seven accused (the eight accused had died last year) in Bhopal gas tragedy to spend the rest of their life behind bars?

In India, a quarter of century after the worst industrial disaster in history, a Bhopal district court sentenced seven people, including business leader Keshub Mahindra, to two years in jail and a fine of Rs 1 lakh each. They were later released on bail. On top of it, a 'former Chief Justice of India Justice A M Ahmadi, who delivered the judgement on Sept 13, 1996, diluting charges in the Bhopal gas leak tragedy, insulted the dead by likening the disaster to a car accident'.

"We all owe cars. If my driver is involved in a fatal accident I don't become liable under Section 304 (Part II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder)." Mr Ahmadi told a TV channel while justifying his decision to dilute the charges against Union Carbide officials (Economic Times, June 9, 2010). Even the corporate mouthpiece, The Economic Times has in a curt headline, said: "Mr Ahmadi, Warren Anderson had removed car's brake."

If I were to comment on this, the Supreme Court will haul me up for contempt. But how can the Supreme Court be quiet when the Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily himself says: "This is one such case where justice is delayed and practically denied. I would like to say justice is buried," (Economic Times, June 8, 2010). If this is true, we are still awaiting to hear what the Chief Justice of India, Justice S M Kapadia, has to say. If the Civil Aviation Minister can offer to resign taking moral responsibility for an aircraft accident, I wonder why shouldn't the Law Minister accept moral responsibility for 'justice buried'.

The newspapers today have prominently displayed US President Obama's remarks yesterday -- he told NBC that he was talking to experts to know "whose ass to kick" for 11 deaths in BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We all know that the US is historically known to be always playing a double game -- we know what happened in Iraq, for instance -- but can't we even figure out whose ass to be kicked for the the death of over 15,000 people in the gas tragedy? Why is that we are hoping to get justice from the US (if it all agrees to repatriate Warren Anderson) while we are for one reason or the other refraining to kick the butt of those who were involved in diluting and delaying justice in India?

1. Arjun Singh, the then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, had acknowledged that he received "a call" that made him release Warren Anderson. If you have been following the media reports yesterday, Law Minister Veerappa Moily has refuted the charges being made by a former director of Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) saying that an investigating officer has tremendous powers and he can simply withstand any kind of pressure. In fact, he goes a step ahead and holds the former CBI officer responsible for 'culpable homicide."

2. Mr Moily, I thought the Chief Minister had still more powers than a CBI officer. He could have easily refused to accept 'orders' from the top. How come Mr Arjun Singh is not responsible for 'culpable homicide'? Why is he not being booked for being a party to gross injustice?

3. The Hindustan Times (June 9, 2010) says: "A year after the Bhopal disaster, the Union government introduced the Bhopal Claims Processing Act, 1985, taking away the victims legal right to demand compensation from Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), on the ground that the underprivileged victims would not be able to take on a big company." Instead the centre argued, it would execute their legal rights as their 'sole guardian'.

4. But now, the victims feel betrayed. Mr Moily needs to explain under whose directions this dilution of the legal provisions were made. Obviously it cannot be the handiwork of a joint secretary till he receives 'oders' from the top. And who is this 'top'?

5. The answer is perhaps provided by the Convener of Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sangathan Abdul Jabbar, who has been quoted as saying: "it began with Warren Anderson being escorted out of Bhopal on a State plane. Then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi even apologised to Anderson for his temporary detention in Bhopal." (Indian Express, June 9, 2010).

It is time to kick the butt of our own people involved in this great cover-up. It is Indians who have failed India.