“We Are Flames Not Flowers”: The Inception of Activism

Abstract

In a newsletter aptly titled Bhopal We Will Never Forget, Issue 6 & 7 (Nov/Dec 1986), brought out by Bhopal Group of Information and Action (BGIA) to commemorate the second anniversary of the disaster, the reporting on the ground level situation is frighteningly candid. “The government’s relief and rehabilitation remain so many castles in the air. Fully two years after the event government has become, if possible, even more fanatical about secrecy than it ever was. We wanted to review all aspects of the disaster in this issue. The question was how? With unmitigated hostility and suspicion towards BGIA, collecting information continues to be hazardous. We wrote letters to all the chief officials in charge of gas relief with a detailed list of questions on government action and planning. Not one responded.” It was in the face of repression, apathy, and willful distortion of facts that activism began to shape an alternative perspective that could fearlessly challenge entrenched attitudes and points of view. As the newsletter goes on to claim, an eloquent voice was rearing its head: “We decided, therefore, to let the gas victims to speak for themselves. This would be the best way of conveying the nature of their suffering, the most revealing and comprehensive means of understanding their condition. Physical suffering is unabated. Perhaps most devastating is their anguish at their helplessness. Their chief source of pride, their work, and their ability to provide for themselves has been taken away from them. But their voices are eloquent as ever.

We are women of Bhopal we are flames not flowers We will not wilt before your corporate power With our brooms in hand we’re gonna sweep you away Cause we’ll fight for justice till our dyin’ day.

—Terry Allan (Copyright, 2003).

Survivors organizations and their supporters have achieved much … most government relief and rehabilitation measures have been made possible by their legal and extralegal interventions. Credit is also due to them for introducing, in a city without any history of militancy, a culture of popular protest outside the political parties in Bhopal. It is mostly because of the persistence and grit of the survivors organization that the continuing disaster in Bhopal continues to receive attention.

—Satinath Sarangi, interview in Closer to Reality (2004).