C H A P T E R I X

India:
Photo Instances of Environmental
Justice Issues
– SHAILENDRA YASHWANT –

…If there was one single compelling reason, an icon, a logo, for the crusade
for environmental justice, the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 would be it…

The right to a safe, healthy, productive, and sustainable environment

for all, where “environment” is considered in its totality to include the
ecological (biological), physical (natural and built), social, political,
aesthetic, and economic environments. Environmental justice refers
to the conditions in which such a right can be freely exercised, whereby
individual and group identities, needs, and dignities are preserved,
fulfilled, and respected in a way that provides for self-actualisation and
personal and community empowerment. This term acknowledges
environmental “injustice” as the past and present state of affairs and
expresses the socio-political objectives needed to address them.

If there was one single compelling reason, an icon, a logo, for the
crusade for environmental justice, the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984
would be it. In the early hours of 3rd December 1984, more than 8,000
people succumbed to an accidental leak of 40 tonnes of lethal gas
from Union Carbide’s (DOW)pesticide factory in Bhopal. People woke
in their homes to fits of coughing, their lungs filling with fluid. Five
hundred twenty thousand peoples were exposed to poisonous gases.
A hundred and fifty thousand victims are chronically ill, and even
now one person dies every two days. A majority of the affected, the
survivors are from economically backward populations of Bhopal who
even today, 19 years after that dreadful night, await appropriate
economic compensation and critical medical care.

In what is described as one of the worst settlements in legal history

of industrial accident compensation, Union Carbide got away with
paying enough to survivors to buy them a cup of Indian tea a day
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over the last 19 years. Worse, the offending corporation fled without
bothering to clean-up behind them, committing yet another gross
crime of negligence that today has resulted in the poisoning of
groundwater and exacerbating the plight of the survivors and their
second generation.

But if Bhopal is an icon for the struggle for environmental justice

amongst the marginalised and the poor of the planet, Bhopal-like
tragedies are played out every day amidst thousands of communities
across the developing world.

In Kodaikanal, India, Hindustan Lever a subsidiary of Unilever Plc,

an Anglo-Dutch multinational, dumped mercury waste from its
thermometer factory in the surrounding forests and on an innocent
local community. When the scandal was exposed, first the company
denied that there was a problem and later fudged facts and figures
until the Indian authorities forced them to come clean. Since then
Unilever has retrieved and sent back to USA some of the waste for
disposal but are shying away from compensating affected workers
and further environmental remediation measures.

In Cuddalore, Tamilnadu, on the east coast of India, a long-

surviving sustainable economy of the local fishing community goes
into a tail-spin following the siting of hazardous chemical industry
along the river Uppanar. Fishermen who have used traditional
methods of fishing and bartering to sustain themselves are now
suffering because of poverty and diseases; their river is poisoned
while fish kills are as common as empty-bellied children of this
once thriving population.

The agro-chemical industry, with its chemical fertilisers and highly

toxic pesticides is single-handedly responsible for irreversible
poisoning of our soil, water and air. Today the pesticide industry
aggressively markets their poisons to vulnerable marginalised
farmers that has not only impacted the health of the community
and its environment but also created a deadly cycle of debt and death
for the poor farmer.

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As the ‘developed’ world sanitises its environment, their polluting

practices, processes and industries are being dumped on the
unsuspecting population of the ‘developing world’, denying them the
very right for ‘development’ as they struggle with hitherto unknown
diseases, economic deprivation and irrevocable loss of their habitat
due to extreme demands of the new consumerist societies.

The few surviving indigenous people, the adivasis, the indigenous

people, like the Warlis of Maharashtra in India, that have survived
the socio-economic upheavals of the last century are increasingly
being battered out of their isolation as their sanctuaries, the forests,
are either logged for wood or water-logged for dams; as if that is not
enough they are innocent victims of unknown poisons and chemicals
that pervade land, water and air around them as the ‘developed’
human race self-destructs.

This photo-essay is my attempt to understand and communicate the

urgency of the need for environmental equity, corporate
accountability and sustainability of our planet’s resources for the sake
of environmental justice. I have used the principles of environmental
justice (in a random order) to illustrate inequities and injustices that
I have encountered as a photographer, journalist, campaigner and a
concerned citizen of our planet.

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Girls, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Environmental justice opposes the destructive operations of multi-national corporations.

The second generation of the survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster has inherited biological health problems
from their gas-affected parents; severe gynaecological problems are rampant amongst young girls. With
Dow Chemicals refusing to take responsibility for Union Carbide’s past crimes, the abandoned factory leaches
deadly poisons into the ground water that adds to the body burden of these young girls.

Fisherman, Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu

Environmental justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous
wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly
accountable to the people for detoxification and containment at the point of production.

The fishing community that lives off the Uppanar river for centuries finds their sustainable existence in disar-
ray after the state declared the river banks ideal for setting up a chemical industrial belt . Over last eight years,
fish kills are as common as skin diseases amongst the fishermen who are now escaping to hovels in cities to
make a living.

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Woman lighting stove, Bharatpur, Rajasthan

Environmental justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and
renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things.

Isn’t it ironic that the poor and the marginalised are blamed for the destruction of our planet’s resources, while
the real culprits, the logging, oil and electricity giants clear-fell, over-extract and over-consume these re-
sources and get away scot free, in the name of development ?

Women at protest, Kodaikanal, Tamilnadu

Environmental justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing, extraction,
production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons that
threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food.

The people of Kodaikanal were shocked when they learnt that a reputed multinational like Unilever had not learnt
from the Minamata mercury disaster and had dumped deadly mercury waste in the pristine forest that is their
home and the watershed for a large downstream population. The mercury thermometer factory is shut down, but
environmental re-mediation and medical assistance is a long up-hill battle for the impacted community.

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Fishing Market, Sonamchavdi, Tamil Nadu

Environmental justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic,

cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples.

The aggressive practices of consumerist, packaged-in-plastic and advertised-on-TV societies are literally
exterminating civilizations; for this indigenous riverine fishing community, their long practised sustainable
practices and closed-loop economies are under threat from the developed world.

Survivors protest, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Environmental justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to

receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care.

The 19 year old struggle for justice for Bhopal survivors, for economic rehabilitation, health care and environ-
mental reparation, is today the icon of the struggle for environmental justice globally. An errant corporation
being challenged by sick and dying women fighting for their rights is a gritty tale of hope, despair and dreams.

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Plantation children, Wynad, Kerala

Environmental justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment,
without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment.
It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards.

Pesticide poisoning is rampant amongst the plantation workers, stories of acute poisoning of workers and
their children are common in horticultural plantations around the world. These children are innocent victims of
acute poisoning caused by pesticides in a banana plantation at Wynad in Kerala.

Boy at solar evaporation pond, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Environmental justice demands that public policy be based on mutual

respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias.

Clearly the most important principle of environmental justice. There are hundreds of cases of justice denied to
impacted communities, on the basis of caste and class and it applies to the survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster.

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Coke-Pepsi Bottles, Kovalam, Kerala

Environmental justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices
to consume as little of Mother Earth’s resources and to produce as little waste as possible;
and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritise our lifestyles to insure
the health of the natural world for present and future generations.

The all pervading plastic, the wonder product of chemical science, is thrashing our planet like never before.
That there are no safe disposal or destruction technologies for this dangerous and long lasting alien element
has not stopped the manufacturer and its consumer from continuing to choke the planet with waste.

Pichavaram Fishing Community, Tamilnadu

Environmental justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the
interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.

All Photos Copyright – Shailendra Yashwant/India

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Warli girls, Dahanu, Maharashtra

Environmental justice calls for the education of present and future generations. An education
that emphasises social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an
appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives.

Birds and antennae, Bhavnagar, Gujarat

Environmental justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up
and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honouring the cultural integrity
of all our communities, and providing fair access for all to the full range of resources.

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