I was published at Liberty Unbound with an article on the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, the worst industrial disaster in history, and what it revealed about India’s state, society, and institutions.

In the article, I draw on personal memory and subsequent investigation. I was in Bhopal when the gas leaked from the Union Carbide India Limited plant. The disaster itself was horrifying, but the deeper tragedy was the conduct of the state before, during, and after the event: the failure of warning systems, the absence of emergency planning, the flight of politicians and bureaucrats, and the corrupt, humiliating process by which victims were later made to seek compensation. Bhopal was not merely an industrial accident. It was a window into a wider social failure.

Read the archived article at Liberty Unbound via the Wayback Machine →