ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Volume 7, Number 5, 2014

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/env.2014.0013

Solidarity after Bhopal:

Building a Transnational Environmental Justice Movement
Renu Pariyadath and Reena Shadaan

ABSTRACT

This article documents the history of the U.S.-based campaign that emerged around the ongoing Bhopal
disaster, since the 2001 merger of Union Carbide Corporation (Union Carbide) and the Dow Chemical
Company (Dow). Based on interviews with key organizers and former and current campaigners in the
United States and in Bhopal, the article discusses how this movement has worked to keep the Bhopal
disaster alive and relevant for its three target constituencies in the United States. By appealing to social and
environmental justice (EJ) groups, students, and the Indian diaspora, the campaign has won small victories
in India and has challenged Dows greenwashing attempts. Members of the diaspora have been instrumental in setting in motion what scholars have called the boomerang effect through exerting pressure on the
Indian government. We also see the double boomerang at work in the United States when EJ activists make
strategic references to Bhopal in times of crisis. More needs to be done, however, to build a sustained
transnational EJ resistance to acknowledge the ongoing impact of toxics on people and their environments.

INTRODUCTION

n 1984, due to a combination of unsafe design and

cost-cutting measures, 40 tons of the highly toxic
chemical, methyl isocyanate (MIC), leaked from the
Union Carbide Corporations pesticide factory in Bhopal,
India.1 This resulted in an estimated 7,000 to 10,000
deaths within the first three days,2 and over 25,000 have
died to date.3 Between 120,000 and 150,000 people
continue to experience chronic health issues as a result of
their exposure.4 Toxic wastes remain in and around the
site, leading to soil and groundwater contamination,5 and

Pariyadath is a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.
Shadaan is a masters candidate in the Gender Studies and Feminist
Research program at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
Canada.
1
Hanna, Bridget, Satinath Sarangi, and Ward Morehouse.
Explanations. In The Bhopal Reader. New York: Apex Press,
2005, 347.
2
Amnesty International, Clouds of Injustice: Bhopal Disaster
20 Years on. Oxford: Alden Press, 2005, 10.
3
Satinath Sarangi, Compensation to Bhopal Gas Victims:
Will Justice Ever be Done? Indian Journal of Medical Ethics,
IX, 2(2012): 118120.
4
The Clinics. Bhopal Medical Appeal. < http://www
.bhopal.org/the-clinics/ > (accessed July 20, 2014).
5
Shobhita Naithani, Toxic Slugfest, Tehelka, January 24, 2009.

there is a rise in developmental disabilities and birth

defects.6 In Bhopal, the immediate aftermath of the gas
disaster saw the emergence of a number of activist
groups that demanded adequate compensation, medical
care, and justice. This marked the beginnings of the local
campaign for justice, a new social movement, which was
quickly acknowledged as a crucial participant in the
environmental justice (EJ) movement.
The events in Bhopal gave the necessary gravitas to
local EJ groups in the United States, in their struggles to
regulate the production and storage of toxic chemicals in
their communities. Responding directly to the disaster,
the U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Planning and
Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and the Toxics
Release Inventory, and the disaster continues to serve as
a point of reference for toxics-impacted communities.
These landmark amendments to environmental law have
become stepping stones for community members and
decision makers to prepare for emergencies and track the
presence and management of toxic chemicals.
In response to the disaster, a vibrant transnational
campaign for justice emerged in 1984 and continues to
this day (see Table 1), but in this article, we focus on the
6
Bhopal Survivors, Friends, and Supporters (eds). The Bhopal
Marathon: A Joint Project of the Bhopal Medical Appeal and
the Bhopal Group for Information and Action. 2012, 94.

146

147

BUILDING A TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT

Table 1. Selected History of Bhopal-U.S. Solidarity

Years Active

Group

Description

1986unknown

U.S. Citizens Commission on

Bhopal

19862000

International Coalition for

Justice in Bhopal

20012003

International Campaign for

Justice in Bhopal-United
States (ICJB-US)
Justice for Bhopal ( J4B)

Included close to 50 labor, environmental, religious,

and consumer rights groups in the U.S. Ward
Morehouse, founder of the Council on International
and Public Affairs, worked closely with the Bhopalbased group, the Bhopal Group for Information and
Action (BGIA), to facilitate U.S.-Bhopal solidarity.
Included numerous international organizations, as
well as U.S.-based groups, such as the Bhopal
Action Resource Center (also founded by Morehouse), the Center for Health and Environment,
Essential Action, Ecology Center of Michigan,
Environmental Health Fund, Environmental Health
Watch, Greenpeace, and Pesticide Action Network,
North America.
The U.S.-based tier of ICJB, led by Bhopal-based
groups, and primarily engaged in ally-building with
similarly impacted communities in the U.S.
A student group, based out of the University of
Michigan.
Focused on student mobilization, SfB was comprised
of local chapters throughout North America.
The North American tier of a coalition of environmental and social justice groups, led by four
Bhopali survivors groups, and one Bhopal-based
support group. This includes: the Bhopal Group for
Information and Action (BGIA), Bhopal Gas Peedit
Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh (BGPMSKS),
Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh
Morcha (BGPMPSM), Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit
Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha (BGPNPBSM)
and Children against Dow-Carbide.

20022006
(possibly longer)
20032008
2008present

Students for Bhopal (SfB)

International Campaign for
Justice in Bhopal-North
America (ICJB-NA)

more formally structured movement since the Dow

Chemical Company purchased Union Carbide in 2001.7
Specifically, we look at the International Campaign for
Justice in Bhopal (ICJB), a coalition of environmental
and social justice groups, led by Bhopali survivor and
support groups. Based on interviews with key campaigners in the United States, and leading survivors and
activists in Bhopal, we curate ICJBs history and evolution in the United States. We also examine the campaigns evolving focus from available public documents
disseminated by the campaign. In mapping this history,
we draw out the modes by which former and current
activists in the U.S. solidarity campaign participate in
what some scholars have named the boomerang effect,
or the power of transnational alliances to exert pressure
7
For a more detailed history for the period preceding our
documentation, see Rajan, Ravi. Bhopal: Vulnerability, Routinization, and the Chronic Disaster. In Anthony Oliver-Smith
and Susanna Hoffman (eds). The Angry Earth. New York:
Routledge, 1999; and Fortun, Kim. Advocacy after Bhopal:
Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2009.
8
Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. Activists Beyond
Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998.

on national governments to effect social change.8

Through the transnational networks it has formed over
the last 13 years, the campaign has been especially successful in winning small victories from the Government
of India (GOI) and in countering and, in many cases,
thwarting, Dows artful attempts at greenwashing.
ICJB BEGINNINGS AND AUDIENCE

After Dows 2001 acquisition of Union Carbide,

transnational activism became necessary for two primary
reasons. The first was the difficulty in enforcing Union
Carbides appearance in the Indian courts, as the Supreme
Court of India had allowed the company to sell their Indian assets in 1994,9 making it difficult to challenge
Union Carbide locally.10 Second, given Dows transnational operations and its human rights and environmental
abuses beyond Bhopal, transnational resistance was

9
Sheoin, Tomom Mac. Power Imbalances and Claiming
Credit in Coalition Campaigns: Greenpeace and Bhopal. Interface, 2 (2012): 492.
10
Singh, N K. Keep the Union Carbide Name Alive. India
Today, 1999.

148
strategic. Through activism in India, the United Kingdom,
and North America, ICJB aims to hold the Government of
India, the state government of Madhya Pradesh, and Dow
accountable for the Bhopal gas disaster.11
Initially focusing on a wide-range of groups, including
labor, consumer rights, environmental, and EJ groups,
ICJB in the United States shifted focus to two other key
constituents: 1) Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and the
Indian diaspora, and 2) high school and college students.
U.S.-based outreach after 2001 became formalized with
the campaign appointing organizers to streamline its
activities outside Bhopal. The first such organizer was
Krishnaveni Gundu, who primarily focused on connecting the campaign to communities involved in similar EJ
struggles. Gundu, a former copywriter with an advertising agency, had spent a considerable amount of time
volunteering with the Bhopal struggle in India. Later, on
migrating to Houston, Texas, Gundu became the coordinator of ICJB-US. From 2002 to 2003, Gundu engaged
in ally-building using teach-ins, toxic tours, movie
screenings, protests, demonstrations, and other tactics.
Much of Gundus work focused on EJ solidarity, alongside U.S.-based allies, including shrimper and noted EJ
activist, Diane Wilson, and Casey Harrell, Greenpeace
USAs full-time campaigner on the Bhopal gas disaster.
In 2002, Gundu and Harrell organized a toxic tour for
survivors, aimed at solidarity-building and knowledgeexchange with U.S. communities impacted by industrial
waste.12 These connections laid the foundation for
transnational solidarity at key moments in the EJ movement for chemical safety in the United States.
Meanwhile, the Indian diaspora began to engage with
the campaign, largely because of the efforts of Rachna
Dhingra. A student at the University of Michigan, Dhingra
was the coordinator of the Ann Arbor chapter of the Association for Indias Development (AID), a diaspora organization that supports community-led development.
Dhingra first became involved with the Bhopal campaign
in 1999, after meeting with Bhopali survivors and activists
who had come to Midland, Michigan to protest the DowUnion Carbide merger. As a result of this meeting, AID
Ann Arbor (and subsequently other AID chapters) began
to focus on the Bhopal gas disaster, eventually gaining
membership in the ICJB coalition.13 Solidarity with the
Bhopal campaign was, according to Dhingra, one of AIDs
first forays into supporting a social movement.14
In 2002, Ryan Bodanyi, a student at the University of
Michigan, and an intern with Greenpeace, began to mobilize students around the Bhopal gas disaster, eventually
meeting Dhingra and other members of AID Ann Arbor.
Together they formed Justice for Bhopal ( J4B), a student

11
ICJB. International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
< http://bhopal.net/icjb/ > (accessed March 15, 2014).
12
Krishnaveni Gundu, in discussion with the authors, April 6,
2014; and Ryan Bodanyi, in discussion with the authors, March
24, 2014.
13
Rachna Dhingra, in discussion with the authors, January 22
23, 2014.
14
Rachna Dhingra, personal interview, July 3, 2012.

SHADAAN AND PARIYADATH

group based out of the University of Michigan. The two

organizers played pivotal roles in student mobilization,
particularly amongst NRIs and Indian diaspora communities.15 Soon, the need to be kept abreast of the day-today developments in Bhopal was recognized, and Dhingra was chosen to be a liaison between the Bhopali
survivor and support groups and the U.S. campaign,
leading to her relocation to Bhopal in January 2003.16
In November 2003, Gundu resigned. Because she was
instrumental in the campaigns EJ focus, many of those
connections were lost in her absence. Prior to Gundus
departure, she acknowledged the need for student mobilization within the campaign. Bodanyi (of J4B) was chosen as the coordinator of the newly formed, Students for
Bhopal (SfB). With the loss of the campaigns EJ focus,
SfB became the prime North American tier of ICJB. As a
result, student mobilization became the North American
campaigns focus. According to Gary Cohen,17 a longtime supporter of the Bhopal campaign and founder of the
Environmental Health Fund, a student-centered effort
made perfect sense, since students were most likely to
take aggressive stances on human rights and justice issues
and link up with other student movements.18
By the twentieth anniversary of the disaster, in 2004,
Bodanyi had, with the support of AID chapters, Campus
Greens, the Sierra Student Coalition, and other student
groups, mobilized students in 70 high schools, colleges,
and universities. A wide range of actions, including film
screenings, candlelit vigils, presentations, photo exhibits,
performances, hunger strikes, and other forms of protest
took place, leading to the first mass student movement
Dow [had] faced since the Vietnam War.19 Much of
SfBs support came from AID chapters, and many AID
members formed local SfB chapters. Founding members
estimate that over half of the member/supporter base was
ethnically Indian, both Non-Resident Indians and Indian
Americans, with the remaining supporters being mostly
white. Members were typically students between the ages
of 20 and 35, and many continued to work with the campaign in various capacities after graduating. As a group
comprised of NRIs and members of the Indian diaspora,
particularly those from more privileged socio-economic
classes, AID volunteers proved to be an especially influential support-base in actions targeted at the GOI. The
participation of this constituency in the campaign is
15
Ryan Bodanyi, in discussion with the authors, March 24,
2014.
16
Krishnaveni Gundu, in discussion with the authors, April 6,
2014; and Ryan Bodanyi, in discussion with the authors, March
24, 2014.
17
Cohen was also the executive director of the National
Toxics Campaign, and co-founded Healthcare without Harm
all groups that have played a central role in facilitating BhopalU.S. solidarity. Cohen secured funding for a variety of U.S.based groups and positions, working in collaboration with the
Bhopali survivor/support groups.
18
Gary Cohen, e-mail to author, January 22, 2014.
19
Bodanyi, Ryan. Twenty Years Later, a Growing Students
Movement Worldwide. In Bridget Hanna, Ward Morehouse,
and Satinath Sarangi (eds). The Bhopal Reader. Other India
Press, 2004, 226228.

BUILDING A TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT

particularly significant relative to the marginalization of the

poor, lower-caste Hindu, and Muslim gas-affected communities, and their associated lack of voice. Several protests were organized at Indian embassies and consulates
with the participation of the diaspora, pressuring the GOI to
adhere to the demands of Bhopali survivors and activists.
The sustained collaboration with AID was facilitated
by the work of Dhingra and Bodanyi. In mid-2003, survivor-activists traveled to AIDs annual conference in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where they addressed volunteers
from AID chapters across the United States. Dhingra, in
her role as liaison between the Bhopal-based survivor and
support groups and the U.S.-based ICJB groups, soon
became the recipient of an annual fellowship from AID.20
This led to AID chapters engaging more actively with the
campaign, and eventually to AIDs identifying the Bhopal
struggle as a key component of their advocacy work.
In 2004, AID Cincinnati hosted SfBs first national
conference, which for the first time, brought together
student activists from across the United States. During
the conference, members identified the need for a more
formalized institutional structure to distribute responsibilities more evenly, while helping to train new leaders.
This led to the formation of the Structural Working
Group (SWB), comprised of Bodanyi and four others.
The SWG interviewed other similar groups, including the
Sierra Student Coalition and AID to arrive at the most
suitable organizational structure for SfB. The new format
consisted of an elected advisory board (AB) and taskfocused working groups.21
CAMPAIGN ACTIONS AND SUCCESSES

True to its name, Students for Bhopal was initially focused primarily on building awareness about the disaster
and Dows greenwashing efforts amongst college and
university students. Actions planned and coordinated by the
campaign broadly fell into two categories, 1) campus-focused campaigns and 2) community-focused campaigns.
Campus-focused campaigns worked with students in colleges and campuses to urge universities holding Dow
Chemical Company shares to either divest or use the shares
to support a Bhopal shareholders resolution. Students were
also organized around getting universities to reject funding
from Dow, as the millions of dollars the corporation donated to universities, it was argued, could be used towards
remediating the disaster in Bhopal. Efforts were also made
to dissuade students from working for Dow and many were
recruited to take the Dont work for Dirty Dow pledge.22
Community-focused campaigns, meanwhile, built
support through actions in non-academic settings. Pressure tactics were used to creatively and persistently remind decision makers at Dow, who lived in a bubble,
20

Ryan Bodanyi, in discussion with the authors, March 24, 2014.

Ryan Bodanyi, in discussion with the authors, March 24,
2014.
22
Is Dow at My School? and Active Schools. Students for
Bhopal. < http://old.studentsforbhopal.org/ > (accessed March 1,
2014).
21

149

about Bhopal.23 The corporations Board of Directors

had the power, argued the Students for Bhopal website,
to order a comprehensive cleanup of chemical waste in
Bhopal, to obey the law and submit their subsidiary
Union Carbide for trial, and to save lives, by funding
medical care for the people poisoned by their chemical
waste.24 Pressure and shaming tactics were also targeted
at the Government of India that was far more responsive to public pressure from abroad than to its own
citizens.25 The best example of the influence wielded by
the NRI community came in April 2004 when the Second
Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States ruled for
the first time ever that a corporation based in one country
could be held responsible in that country for an environmental cleanup abroad. Union Carbides cleanup of
Bhopal became a possibility with this ruling, provided
the GOI, the owner of the title to the land, submitted a No
Objection Certificate (NOC) to the court. When the GOI
was uncooperative, the SfB, AID chapters, and ICJBIndia initiated a series of sustained transnational actions
with thousands of faxes, calls, and e-mails sent to the
GOI, protests organized at Indian consulates in Chicago,
Houston, New York, and Washington DC, and a six-day
hunger strike by survivors in Bhopal. Within days, these
concerted actions prompted the GOI to agree to submit
the NOC, and since then, adopting the official stance that
Dow be held liable for a comprehensive cleanup.26
Here we begin to see how the campaigns activities illustrate what Keck and Sikkink (1998) have named the
boomerang effect. In their conception of the boomerang
effect, transnational advocacy networks, of which ICJB is
an example, link activists in developed countries and less
developed countries to move the local government to act.
Domestic actors seek help from international allies when
they find their influence on state actors ineffective. International actors, in this formulation, amplify the asks of
domestic groups to whom the state has been unresponsive.
Among the most economically influential diasporic groups
in the United States, overseas Indians participation in
activism surrounding Bhopal exerts considerable pressure
on the GOI, often leading to little victories and changes in
political stances such as the one described above. However,
because of the need to hold Dow in the United States
accountable, along with pressuring the GOI, these international activists behave in ways that are different from
Keck and Sikkinks conception. The work of these international diasporic activists is not limited to amplifying and
echoing the demands of domestic activists back to the less
developed state. They also relay the demands of the
23

Dow Board of Directors. Students for Bhopal. < http://old

.studentsforbhopal.org/BoardOfDirectors.htm > (accessed January
15, 2014).
24
Dow Board of Directors. Students for Bhopal. < http://old
.studentsforbhopal.org/BoardOfDirectors.htm > (accessed January
15, 2014).
25
Pressure the Government of India. Students for Bhopal.
< http://old.studentsforbhopal.org/GovernmentOfIndia.htm#
How > (accessed January 15, 2014).
26
Victories! Students for Bhopal, < http://old.students
forbhopal.org/Victories.htm > (accessed July 20, 2014).

150

SHADAAN AND PARIYADATH

domestic activists to Dow, a non-state guarantor of rights,

within the international terrain.
By 2008, Bodanyi left the campaign, and since then,
various organizers and the AB have continued to work
with environmental and social justice groups, students,
and the Indian diaspora. During this time, Bhopal activists in India decided they wanted a more structured relationship with North America and chose the name the
International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal-North
America (ICJB-NA).27 This new identity reflected, along
with students, a freshly graduated base of professional
members, and supporters in mainstream and grassroots
environmental justice and human rights groups.
The unique contribution of the U.S. campaign, as a loose
coalition of groups originally and in its structured avatar
later, was in forcing campuses and publics across the nation to confront the Bhopal disaster and the struggle for
justice. With numerous actions targeting Dows attempts at
greenwashing and the apathy of the Government of India,
the campaign has, to a great extent, been able to mitigate
concerns about the erasure of the Bhopal gas disaster from
public memory,28 since the Dow-Union Carbide merger.
Some of the actions that have helped maintain the campaigns visibility have included proxy presence at Dow
shareholders meetings, city council and student government resolutions to refuse Dows funding, solidarity and
facility tours with local environmental justice groups by
survivors, flash mobs, die-ins, sit-ins, candlelit vigils, fax/
phone/e-mail protests, petitions, solidarity fasts, countering
Dow advertising, connecting Bhopal to the BP oil spill and
other environmental disasters, documentary tours, and using photo exhibits, art, and theater to create awareness.
CONCLUSION

To an extent, the legacy of the three organizers that

helped build the movement after the Dow-Union Carbide
merger continues to shape where ICJB-NA directs its
energies today. The campaign continues to successfully
engage students and the Indian diaspora to effect the
boomerang. Thus, the movement in the United States,
which was formed, in part, to challenge Dows deceptive
public image as an environmentally sustainable and ethical corporation, has fulfilled this mandate to some extent
and continues to do so. However, the goal of building a
transnational EJ movement remains a challenge due to
difficulties in securing funding for full-time organizers,
leading to current organizing work being staggered across
volunteer bodies and part-timers. More needs to be done
to ensure that vulnerable communities, locally and globally, are protected from hazardous industries. Recent disasters, such as the 2013 ammonium nitrate explosion at a
Waco, West Texas facility and the 2014 crude 4-methylcyclohexane methanol spill in the Elk River in West
Virginia, point to the lack of enforcement of the policies
27

Ryan Bodanyi, in discussion with the authors, March 24, 2014.

Rajan, Ravi. Bhopal: Vulnerability, Routinization, and the
Chronic Disaster. In Anthony Oliver-Smith and Susanna
Hoffman (eds). The Angry Earth. New York: Routledge, 1999.
28

that came into existence in the United States as a result of

the Bhopal gas disaster. In response to a question posed
by the authors, Rashida Bi, survivor and leader of the
womens union, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery
Karmchari Sangh, outlined how the Bhopal disaster sets a
precedent for similarly affected communities everywhere:
Anywhere that a factory is set up, the people need to ask:
What are you going to do for us that you did for Bhopal? Whether this factory is set up in America, in Africa,
in France or in Russia, the first question is what did you
do for Bhopal? It is a model for other places. The issue is
still unresolved today. Dow Chemical has not taken any
responsibility for this issue. Even the government of the
United States could do nothing to hold Dow Chemical
accountable. Then why site a factory here? These are the
kinds of questions people need to ask29 (emphasis ours).

With the disaster serving as a strategic point of reference for global activists,30 Rashida Bis words are reminiscent of Mary Kaldors concept of the double
boomerang.31 The most recent example of the double
boomerang in action was when activists invoked Bhopal as
a cautionary tale in protests against Freedom Industries
and the state of West Virginias handling of the Elk River
spill. However, in pointing to the issues being unresolved,
Rashida Bi hints that we need to move beyond invocations
that relegate the disaster to something that happened in
1984. As a first step, communities struggling for environmental justice locally and globally must join forces to form
a sustained movement in acknowledgment of the ongoing
impact of toxics on people and their environments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank Devendra Panchal for interviewing survivor-activists in Bhopal.
AUTHOR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Renu Pariyadath and Reena Shadaan are members of

International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal-North
Americas (ICJB-NA) Coordinating Committee. The
authors will not receive financial compensation with regard to the writing/publishing of this article from ICJBNA or any other organization.
Address correspondence to:
Renu Pariyadath
105 Becker Communication Studies Building
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242
E-mail: renu.pariyadath@uiowa.edu

29
Rashida Bi, Interview, Sept. 13 2013, Bhopal, India. (Recording and transcription in possession of authors).
30
Kaldor, Mary and Sabine Selchow. Global Civil Society:
Contemporary Renegotiations of the Past. In Albrow, Martin,
Hakan Seckinelgin, and Helmut K. Anheier (eds). Global Civil
Society 2011. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
31
Kaldor, Mary. Global Civil Society: An Answer to War.
Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003.