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By Suroopa Mukherjee How did the Bhopal campaign for justice come to be led by uneducated, cloistered women who had scarcely stepped out of their homes? Why are these women willing to stake both family and social priorities to create space for political engagement? This article looks at the gender dimension of the 25-year-old Bhopal survivors movement
 Gender has been a key concept in the Bhopal movement for justice. To begin with, women were the most vulnerable victims of the gas leak in 1984, both in terms of the breakup of the family unit, and problems of reproductive health and the social ostracism that followed. They were twice victimised – as marginal members of a patriarchal system, and as the primary victims of the disaster. They were virtually erased from the official discourse which refused to acknowledge the impact of the gas on the yet unborn second generation. The criteria for compensation claims did not classify injuries of women as a special category, just as children below the age of 18 were left out of the list. But interestingly enough, the research findings of the Bhopal Survivors’ Movement Study made it obvious that women have been integral to the struggle. Today, they remain the most recognisable faces of the struggle for justice in Bhopal. It is important to listen to the voices of the women. Since the interviews were video-recorded, and most of the women had never spoken to the camera, they were often shy and reticent. They were also nervous and guarded when it came to sharing information about internal matters relating to the survivors’ organisations. However they also communicated a need to have their voices heard. Hazra Bee (International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal) communicates this urgency when she tells Dharmesh and Tarunima the reason why she feels our project is important: “Many people come to fight for the rights of gas victims, to share their pain and grief, to participate in their fight; this is their sympathy. They take the fight of Bhopal forward, amplify the voice of the victims, and want to get justice for gas and water victims. If they are well-educated they can make their money in some way, when they have so many degrees then they will not find it difficult to get a job. They have sympathy and they want Bhopal to get justice. If Bhopal gets justice then the whole world will get justice. … “All the books that are written and all those who use the gas victims, all the organisations that work with us and the way we are fighting: I do not feel that we are being used. Because there is some gain somewhere through our stories. We ourselves are poor, all gas victims are poor, and all those fighting are poor people. So I would not call them wrong, anyone who writes our stories or whoever captures our words either through a book or a video. I wish that my voice, maybe through the medium of a book or television or paper or film, at least if it opens up the minds of other people, refreshes their memory and kindles some sympathy, people from outside will join our voice and our voices will get amplified and our struggle and fight will get strengthened so that we don’t accept defeat. I feel very good that we are getting strength.” How have these women grown from burkha-clad, domesticated entities to group leaders in a social movement? Here the narrative opened up fascinating areas of discussion and the corresponding expansion of the knowledge base of women who had little formal education or training. Razia Bee and Ruksana Bee (Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationary Karmachari Morcha) describe the transition in vivid terms: “We learned a lot from the struggles of these years. A lot of changes have come about. At first we never came out of the house and were involved in the daily activities of the home. We had never even seen the roads of Bhopal, and only when we came to fight the struggle we saw everything. Previously we just used to go to school and then back home. My father never gave me permission to go out and always used to say that when school closed we would all sit at home. Because of the struggle we got an opportunity to come out of the house. First I did not even know what a demonstration was, or a campaign or movement or union. Then we saw all these things.” At times the distance travelled in terms of gathering experience is staggering. Rashida Bee (Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationary Karmachari Sangh) is a case in point and her narrative traces the growth of the movement from local to global: “After hearing about the contaminated water, and from what I had learned over the years, I started to realise that this is about saving the world. What happened in Bhopal has already happened, but we need to join forces to stop it from happening again anywhere else in the world. I also came to know about the law that says the polluter must pay, which strengthened us all the more because we now knew that we had the law on our side. Then in 2004 the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal was formed. “There had been a conference in Japan in 1996 which some people from Bhopal had gone to. There had been a mercury leak from a factory in Japan and many people were affected and children were being born deformed. People had been fighting for justice for 40 years. Earlier they got compensation of Rs 13,000 and then they got Rs 13 lakh and now they have managed to get as much as Rs 40 lakh as compensation. We were motivated further by this -- if the people of Japan could fight for 40 years and get their rights then why can’t we? So in 2001 when there was another invitation to Japan, I went with Pranay. We saw the situation there and the state of the people. It was due to high amounts of mercury, which is also the case here in Bhopal. This meant that we could face the same problems that they have in Japan if we didn’t do something about it and stand up against injustice.” Clearly it was this journey, which was both personal and collective, that shaped the direction of the movement. It probably explains why women have always made up the numbers in any rally and why they are willing to stake both family and social priorities to create space for political engagement. Most of the women provide gleeful accounts of how their large presence became a deterrent to police action. The study unravelled the myriad faces of gender discrimination in government policies and how this influenced social attitudes, and motivated women to take up cudgels at the public and personal level. This is what Mohini Devi (Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan) has to say: “When women got together at the silai centres we realised just how many atrocities we were facing that we should speak out against. One of the first things that brought us together was the first time the authorities tried to close down the silai centre… It started with just a few women and then news spread and more and more people gathered and our strength grew. In the early days meetings would be held every day since women would come to the silai centres daily. Later it changed to two days a week and now we meet only once a week. But in the beginning there were about four to five women who got together: Rabiya, Tara Srivastav, Laksmi etc. All we did was speak about the issues and think about doing something about them. “To start with it was just workplace issues, and then other things started coming up. … After discussing things in the working committee, the proposals would be announced in full meetings and with a show of hands we would see if people agreed with us or not.” The broadening of issues came with the experience of fighting for the cause of gas victims. But most of the women conceded that soon they were fighting for much more than simply getting their demands met. Hazra Bee speaks with pride about her involvement with post-Babri Masjid work to dissipate communal tension, while Mohini Devi describes campaigns for boycotting chemicals and plastic. Hamida Bee (Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan --BGPMUS) does not mince words when she describes the many challenges faced by women struggling for justice. She traces her own involvement with the movement. According to Hamida Bee, women provided the militant pressure which forced governments to concede their demands: “We challenged the settlement but the Supreme Court dismissed our claim. Prashant Bhushan called us and we began running around in a panic informing the public and overnight we gathered strength. The next day at least 15,000 people demonstrated in Delhi in front of the Supreme Court. This was 13 years ago. When we reached there we ran amok with the judges and they ran. We painted the court premises red and black, demanding the withdrawal of the settlement. “Then we attacked the office of Union Carbide, around 15 of us. We ransacked it. We came down and burnt an effigy, the police came and we faced the police. Then we held a press conference. “Once the settlement had been announced and the V P Singh government came in, we demanded disbursal of Rs 200 relief from the Supreme Court. V P Singh acknowledged the strength of the organisation and invited Jabbar Bhai to come and see him along with 11 of the women. V P Singh enquired about our demands and Jabbar Bhai told him that our application was dismissed by the Supreme Court so we want the government to file an application and get a verdict out on this issue as soon as possible. “V P Singh said: ‘Courts take their own time, I can’t guarantee that. What do you want from me?’ So Bhai said our case for compensation is pending in the court but the condition of the victims is getting from bad to worse so we want the government to provide some financial relief. Bhai proposed Rs 500 but V P Singh declined because it was too much and they both agreed on Rs 200 per month. The government filed an application in the court and the verdict was in favour of BGPMUS. “The state government did not accept this so we started our Jail Bharo Andolan, and then during the seventh round of the campaign we had women from all age-groups with us and we decided that we will not leave the jail. It was a successful campaign and we won claims. “We also fought for employment. Whilst the Congress was in power, 2,200 women were employed. The cloth-cutting happened in JP Nagar. Each woman got four half-pants and four frocks. It didn’t help them a lot but it was a substantial support. They made Rs 500, 700 or 1,000, depending on the time they could spend. “Then the government saw our strength increasing, we demonstrated all the time, we entered the chief minister’s house and we would be in Delhi in huge numbers. So the BJP government tried to break the 2,200-women union. But we were too strong for them.” It is interesting to note that organisational loyalty has played a big role in the way women have engaged with the movement. There has also been a sharp rise in their learning graph, which has empowered them through their personal growth over the last 25 years. It is the combination of individual and collective strength of women that has influenced the way different survivor organisations have learnt to shape their demands on more gender-sensitive lines. The study also brought to the fore the ways in which gender stereotypes have been broken in Bhopal. Thus Hazra Bee has learnt to fight inequality within the home: “My husband began cheating on me and drinking and staying away from home for weeks while I managed the family. This was unacceptable so I decided to disown him.” And Rabiya Bee, who was one of the founding members of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan but had to relinquish her position within the organisation because of family need, has a different story to tell: “I had to leave the Sangathan in 1990 because my husband was diagnosed with cancer of the throat. That’s when the American tour was organised and I asked Rehana to go instead of me. I had five little girls and one young boy to look after so I could not go. This was also the turning point in my career as a leader because I came face to face with the politics of social activism. There are a lot of social stereotypes about women social activists. The word neta (leader) is more like a swear word. My husband’s health was critical and if something were to happen to him while I was away my children would have never forgiven me. So I resigned from the Sangathan duties and Rehana took my place. I was confident that the fire I had ignited would burn for years to come; even long after I am gone.” At the same time, the question of the divide between male and female leadership became a thorny issue. Rehana, also a pioneer in the setting up of the Mahila Udyog Sangathan and once married to its leader Abdul Jabbar, spoke bitterly about her break from union activism after her marriage ended: “All that has been achieved over the past years has been the work of the women and Jabbar has always been in the background. But when women began making progress without him I suppose he felt threatened and his male ego was hurt. Jabbar’s behaviour towards the women in the organisation changed. He started bringing in new people who could support him and sideline us. All of us began distancing ourselves from him but not from the organisation. Some women quit whereas others were determined to stay because it was the women who had done the work and made sacrifices to build the union. The women retain all the registration papers and Jabbar continues to be an advisor. I have not quit, I have just taken a break from the organisation because of my personal financial situation and my personal problems with Jabbar. My problems with him began when I was selected as a trainer in the jute bag-making unit run by the government. When I was promoted to the post of a teacher he felt very threatened and it led to us splitting up. I took leave of the organisation in 1998.” The study has provided a more complex picture of why men are largely absent in the movement. A few continue to have influential positions in the campaign groups, and their responses to question of leadership and how decision-making happens within groups provide interesting insights into the way masculinity is seen by them and others. A few more participate in actions from the rank and file, or support from the sidelines. Also hidden amongst our interviews are those invisible men who quietly, in contradiction of prevailing attitudes, give encouragement to their wives, express pride in mothers, make sacrifices for the education of daughters, and at the same time are crafting new ways of being men. Listening to women and their sacrifices also brings in family dynamics. The women survivors tell of a diversity of experiences of resisting and accommodating domestic patriarchy. Unusually high levels of widows, divorcees, separated, remarried and unmarried women, single mothers and women-headed households exist alongside enforced purdah, domestic abuse and violence. However, amongst women, the experience of empowerment coexists with the desire to reinstate patriarchal endogamy for the next generation. This is not a simple, linear story of feminist enlightenment but a complex social reality of renegotiating the gender regime as women struggle for dignity and justice. The best way to understand the gendering of the movement is to listen to two different voices, the first belonging to someone who has been part of the campaign since the disaster, and the second to the next-generation activist, ready to pick up the baton and forge ahead: Hazra Bee: “I started being active after the disaster but before that I was a housewife and had no knowledge about the outside world. I discovered the power of standing up and fighting for rights when I fought for compensation for my son. My second son Mansoor Ali was left behind in the house on the night of the disaster and he was severely exposed and is suffering from gas-related ailments. He was diagnosed with blood tuberculosis due to MIC exposure. At the hearing to decide compensation I told the judge in the courtroom: ‘I do not want the money, nor does my son! I want my four-year-old son as he was before the gas leak. I do not want a gas-exposed kid. I do not want a sick son. This is the government’s mistake that in the 1970s the Government of India permitted the foreign companies. They came here, inflicted pain and suffering, killed us and left’.” Sarita Malviya (aged 14 at the time of the interview, Children against Dow Carbide): “Although we did not live through the disaster, my generation is the future of the campaign. The campaign needs to draw on the help and support of the youth because the government and Dow need to see that the campaign is not limited to the older generation. The new generation needs to be educated about the disaster and the need for justice. The boys who hang around the rallies and mock the older activists, they don’t know about the disaster. They would also join if it were explained to them. I try to explain to my classmates about getting involved. That same spirit to fight can be there amongst the youth if they are made aware of what happened and of the difficulties families face even today. And once someone is a part of a cause wholeheartedly then the spirit and the strength to fight come on their own. My parents are day-labourers. They didn’t have the chance of education themselves, but they value education for me and my brother. There are many other children who are poor like us who don’t go to school because they have to work. My family is very committed to education. I want to be lawyer and to use the law to fight for justice.” (This article is extracted from the forthcoming book Bhopal Survivors Speak: Emergent Voices from a People's Movement. Bhopal Survivors' Movement Study 2009. Word Power Books: Edinburgh. The Bhopal Survivors' Movement Study comprises Eurig Scandrett, Suroopa Mukherjee, Dharmesh Shah, Tarunima Sen and many named and unnamed survivor activists who have contributed) Infochange News & Features, October 2009
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