It was a chilly winter night. Just a regular December night. Everyone sat huddled beneath their shawls and blankets. Staving off the cold. Trying to stay alive. And then it happened. 42 tonnes of lethal methyl-iso-cyanate changed the course of history. 10,000 people died within 72 hours. 25,000 over the next 20 years. The date was 2nd December 1984. The place was Bhopal. We looked. We wept. And as screams and cries echoed from anguished mothers whose children has just stopped breathing, we promised ourselves: this will never happen again. Never.
We were wrong. Exactly twenty years later, we were informed of a mighty French warship, the Clemenceau, heading towards India. 22,000 tonnes of steel. 300 tonnes of lethal asbestos, to be dismantled on the shores of Alang, Gujarat. Alang, the graveyard of ships, considered to be the most dangerous business destination in India. Ill-equipped and barefoot laborers were going to dismantle the ship that had been refused entry in most of Europe due to its toxic components.
But if it's good for business, it's good for India, they said. We disagreed. The ship was boarded by Greenpeace activists in France and off the coast of Egypt, but they were forcibly removed by the French special forces. It was denied entry to the Suez Canal. The Supreme Court of India ordered the ship to stay away from the Indian coastline. But the 22,000 tonne monster kept coming. We blocked, we protested and we pleaded. But it kept just kept coming. We moved the French Supreme Court. We protested outside French embassies. People all over India joined us in putting garbage outside the French embassy.
And then, the tide turned. On 15th January 2006, French President Jaques Chirac agreed to take back the Clemenceau and decontaminate it in France. Just as the ship was entering the Indian Ocean, it was told to turn back and head back home. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
However, the celebrations were short-lived. Every year, every day, every hour, every minute, toxic products continue to leach into our society, into our bloodstream, into our drinking water, into our children. The toxic French warship has been sent back, but the fight to keep away toxic chemicals out of our washing machines, computers, cell phones and microwaves must go on. We might fail, but we must try. It is our job, to make sure that companies swear by high standards and zero toxics in their products. Our job. Not your job, not my job. But our job.
And the only way we can finish this job is by getting lots of people to work on it. Click here to turn our solitary mission into an national movement.
Love. Peace Justice.
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