We are in India well used to blaming the government and politicians for our problems. And of course, they usually deserve it as well. But recently, for fear of being labelled a communist or a leftie or even, by a person of perhaps advancing years, a “pinko” — all these being deeply insulting terms in these times of liberalisation and economic well-being — we often refrain from taking on business and industry.
But what is one supposed to do when they hand you the chance to question them on a platter, as it were? Just like banks and bankers became the butt of our ire post-September 2008, two recent cases have turned the tables on big business — somewhat.
The first, of course, is the slender sentencing handed out to a few former employees of Union Carbide for the gas leak in Bhopal in 1984 and the other is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from an oil well that belongs to BP. As far as Union Carbide is concerned, it now appears that the company did everything it could to avoid accepting responsibility and this included paying out as little as possible to the victims.
Methyl isocyanate is a very poisonous substance and yet the company is known to have flirted with danger on a number of occasions. We already know that Union Carbide used its influence with the US government to pressure the Indian government to go easy on it. That allows us to target the government of the time and subsequent administrations for neglect, collusion and possible corruption.
But what about Union Carbide? Did it not even have a humanitarian responsibility to look out for and then look after those who were victims of its actions? Is it not to be held accountable for its doings? Or is it off the hook because it is a profit-making organisation which creates jobs and helps the economy? Do concepts like responsibility no longer apply in such cases?
For 26 years, Union Carbide has managed to get away with what, in any other situation, would be called murder, without fear of retribution. The deaths of at least 20,000 people and the suffering of hundreds of thousands have been dismissed by the government, the investigators, by the judiciary and by the culprits themselves. Yet we all know that while there are no foolproof safeguards for accidents, there are still safety protocols, antidotes and assignment of responsibility after the fact.
As for BP, it is now being made to pay for the damage which its property has caused to the United States and to wildlife and the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. Here too there has been a political battle as the Democrats have been only too eager to point fingers at the Republicans and their connections with the oil industry. As it turns out, BP funds everyone in politics, so no one has their hands clean. But given the extent of the damage and the anger around it, it has been forced to cough up $20 billion, after months of fudging and running circles around the oil gushing out of the sea.
The concept of “corporate social responsibility” makes good newspaper copy as companies tell us about the trees they planted or the gardens they sponsored. But it turns out that we need a little more than that. We need guilt money in advance so that once the disaster happens — and they will — these corporations can’t get away with the mess they have made quite so fast.
‘The Giving Pledge’ idea put forward by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — two of the richest men in the world and conscientious philanthropists — makes more and more sense the more you think about it. Let’s look at it as redemption money, for past and future sins. Let the wealthiest in the world share their money with those less fortunate and buy themselves a place in heaven.
Meanwhile, let profit-making enterprises be forced to realise that there is a human cost to their action which cannot be avoided. If the only language they understand is money, let’s make them pay.
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