Community+and+service 01 report

50 Excellent Personal Projects
The Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Impact On Survivors

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2009


Contents
Introduction Page 1
Process Page 3
Analysis Page 5
Conclusion Page 7
Bibliography Page 9



Introduction
“White clouds had enveloped everything. Streetlights looked like points of light. Our family got
split up. My sisters in law ran in a different direction and the rest of us went towards the main street. I
saw lots and lots of people running, screaming for help, vomiting, falling down, unconscious.”‐ Azaia
Sultan, survivor of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

What is the Personal Project? The Personal Project is an opportunity for us to really express
ourselves through our interests in different and creative ways. By doing this project, we raise awareness
of our environment and of the history that influences us all, even to this day.

My family now have a house in Bhopal, where my dad went to university. I have heard about
Bhopal all my life, from various members of my family about how Bhopal’s history has been scarred with
one incident, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984. This incident triggered my curiosity and I decided to look
into it even more. I chose to make a documentary movie on the impacts of the tragedy, which is still
affecting the victims today.

My father, who was in his Final Year in the engineering collage in MACT (Maulana Azad College
of Technology) now known as MANIT (Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology), in Bhopal, was
present during the time of the incident. He now re calls the incident as a “horrible nightmare” for the
Bhopal citizens, of that time. The MACT College was located in the Southern part of Bhopal where the
Gas didn’t spread to. It was because of my father’s stories and his memories that I first got interested in
finding out more.

I researched the various impacts of the Gas Tragedy by going to Bhopal and interviewing the
victims, who still live there. This project focuses on Community and Service, through which I aimed to
answer these specific questions: What do I know about and understand about others around me? How
may I contribute to the community?  My main goal was to create awareness of the misery and
consequences the victims are going through today even though the disaster happened a long time ago. I
wanted the audience to know what the victims suffered was through no fault of their own or the
environment but was a manmade disaster and that they still continue to suffer.  The main aim of this
documentary was to inform the world of what victims are suffering and to ensure that a manmade
disaster like this never happens again.

I aimed to achieve this goal by going to Bhopal over the summer of 2007, and interviewing a
wide range of victims to understand their own personal feelings about the tragedy and to get a firsthand
look into their lives and how it has been changed by the tragedy. Along with the victims, I interviewed
the doctors and NGO’s (Non Governmental Organization), because I also wanted an expert’s opinion on
the actions which they are taking to aid the victims and how far they need to go to win the battle against
the Union Carbide factory.

My AOI, C&S (community and service) is central to my Personal project because as the C&S
guiding questions state, what do I know about and understand about others around me? How may I
contribute to the community? Whilst gathering all the information, I began to get a better



understanding of how the victims’ lives had been affected both directly and indirectly. They had been
affected physically which affected their long term health, due to the fact that their symptoms were
incurable. My contribution to the community was by investigating the problems of the victims and
expressing concerns for them regarding their fate. This may have been only an empathetic contribution
but it was a reassuring contribution nonetheless. When the documentary is complete, I will give it to the
NGO’s to help their fight. Through the research my understanding of victims’ reactions will increase. By
making and sharing this documentary video I am creating awareness of the current situation of the
victims.

This video will help me understand better about manmade disasters and their short term and
long term impacts on innocent people and will hopefully get the message across to avoid another one of
these manmade disasters again.



Process
Looking back through the process, reflecting on each stage, I believe that I achieved the goal
which I had set at the beginning of the project which was to understand and create awareness of the
needs of victims who have lived through the manmade disaster, The Bhopal Gas Leak, 1984. My AOI,
C&S was central to my research stage, keeping me guided to my final goal.

Before going to Bhopal, I researched the general information such as when it happened, why,
and what exactly happened. This information was pretty easy to get off the internet but it wasn’t the
main focus of my project but just a minor, yet important part of the development of the movie. I
researched the basic effects on the victims and how the incident happened. What I couldn’t find on the
internet is how the symptoms had affected the victims’ lives permanently.

When I arrived at Bhopal I realized that I couldn’t roam the city independently at all because I
was a new resident there and therefore required assistance to get started on my project. At first, my
grandfather, who is living in Bhopal chauffeured me around the city. With his aid, I was able to get
permission from the “Collectrate” (A head office in Bhopal) to visit and make a video of the union
Carbide Factory itself, which had been shut for security measures.

I then visited the Factory where I videoed the actual tank E610 and the other parts of the factory
which were not renovated to this day, but were remnants of “that” day of the Tragedy.  The ruins of the
factory were a crucial part of the final video because I couldn’t just jump to conclusions as to what
happened without giving evidence that the tragedy actually happened! So therefore, I took a video of
the factory, for the benefits of the video and research, but also as a personal reminder to me that this
tragedy actually happened and whenever I visit Bhopal again, I will remember that this beautiful city is
scarred with a tragedy which cannot be forgotten just by shutting down the base point of the incident.

The next few main steps started with the arrival of my father who then guided me to obtain the
interviews.  I decided that along with victims, I would like to interview doctors and the NGO (non‐
governmental officials) to understand their views as well, though I was sure that the NGOs’ views would
be indifferent to what I felt about the tragedy and the impacts.

Firstly, we interviewed the survivors who lived directly across from the factory and who were
badly affected by the Gas. Then we proceeded onto interviewing the other victims which weren’t
located across the factory but had come for checkups at the Hospital.

Each day, we would visit a different part of Bhopal and would learn something new. We decided
to visit the hospitals which were visited on the day of the tragedy. The hospital I went to was the Bhopal
memorial hospital, which was completely devoted to the victims of the gas tragedy and treated the Gas
Victims for free. I had actually visited the hospital because I wanted to interview a doctor who had
treated the victims of the Bhopal tragedy for years. During the hospital visit, a victim, after enquiring
about my project voluntarily offered to get interviewed. This showed me personally how desperate the
victims were to get a change in their lives so they could start living normally again. At the Bhopal
Memorial hospital, I interviewed a lot of victims. Some were willing to get interviewed and some were



not. This puzzled me because why wouldn’t anyone want to tell their tragic story? I learnt that they
were scared. A victim constantly had to be reassured that nothing was going to happen to her. What
were they scared of? This question was answered by the NGO who informed me that the victims were
given a few paper notes of 25,000 rupees and were told to remain happy with that. During the previous
years following the tragedy, many riots had broken out demanding rights but no action had been taken
which was why the NGO was fighting a battle against Union Carbide.

I then decided to visit another hospital which was called the Sambhavna Trust Clinic. This clinic
was a completely contrasting hospital to the previous one. It was a friendly looking hospital which
treated the Bhopal Gas victims for free as well. This hospital was different to the Bhopal memorial
hospital because it treated the victims through herbal cure whereas the Bhopal memorial Hospital
treated the victims through drug medication. Though I didn’t interview anyone in this clinic, I obtained a
lot of information about the Gas Tragedy, like facts and figures.

I interviewed a few more victims, a Doctor and an NGO. Hopefully these interviews would help
me achieve my final goal, to understand and investigate the impact on survivors of the Bhopal Gas
tragedy.



Analysis

The research which I did over the summer was very valuable to me in order to make my movie.
All the interviews counted as a contribution towards the final product. To proceed on further to fully
completing my movie, I then needed to analyze all the research I got to distinguish the valuable
information from that which I could edit and was not so important.

Overall, I think that my summer was pretty successful in collecting data for making my final
movie. The research, which I got allowed me to get an in depth look at the Bhopal Gas tragedy. I had
always heard about the Gas tragedy, first in Amnesty and then my father kept talking about it. My
curiosity grew enough to investigate its impact on the survivors.

My research helped me find out what the impacts on the survivors were and their personal
responses. From what I discovered, no one is happy with the compensation that they received from
Union Carbide. All the victims have been affected physically which has affected them in a long term way
because now they are unable to support themselves financially. The victims who survived passed on
deformities to the next generations as well, dooming their families.

From my research and the interview of the NGO I realized that they are the only ones who can
make any difference because they have devoted their lives to the legal battle against Union Carbide.
Interviewing them was a great experience because the interviews helped me to understand what the
political impacts on the survivors were in better measure and what is being done to help them. Perhaps
with my movie, I can contribute to their fight and help them win the rights for the innocent victims and
return their life.

The interview with the doctor helped me understand what the physical deformities of the
victims exactly were. The doctors clarified statistics and figures on how many victims they had treated
and what their symptoms were and if they were curable at all!

All the interviews which I took, forced out a personal response from me. The information which I
gathered made me understand what really happened and how much the victims had suffered, through
no fault of their own, and still continue to suffer. From what I learnt, Union Carbide could have done so
much more to help them, if not prevent a disaster like this happening again.  If they had provided the
same level of security, then perhaps this disaster would have never existed but once it did, a lot of
action could have been taken to solve what had been done. My own personal response to this tragedy
was that this was a manmade disaster, and if man had created this disaster, than it is man, who can
solve this. But since there were hardly any steps taken to resolve this disaster, a war had started, and
still continues today to regain the rights of the Bhopal Gas tragedy victims.

My final product will hopefully fulfill my goal of understanding the impacts on survivors of the
Bhopal Gas tragedy. This product will centre the AOI, Community and Service, “what do I know about
and understand about others around me? How may I contribute to the community? Whilst gathering all
the information, I began to get a better grasp of what this AOI actually meant and helped me to answer
these guiding questions.



Conclusion

In conclusion, the past few months collecting data and collaborating my findings into a
documentary movie has been a very enlightening experience for me to understand other aspects of the
community, affected by a manmade disaster. I have been working hard to find out the impacts on
survivors, I didn’t understand how privileged I was myself to be living a comfortable life and not
struggling to live through one day! Through this project I have understood really well what the survivors
have been through. I have realized that it isn’t just living through “that night” which is important. It is
getting through the stage following that. Living through your life, realizing what you have lost, and what
you may never get would crush one’s self esteem and the victims should definitely be credited for their
courage to be moving on.

Through the process of this project, there were a lot of strengths and weaknesses which either
helped me, or stopped me from getting closer to my goal. One main problem which had occurred was
that the interviews were all in Hindi, which I had to later change to English through adding subtitles, and
seeing as I am not very good with technology, this was definitely a setback. The main weaknesses for
this project during each stage was that at the beginning, getting started on the project was quite difficult
being a new citizen of Bhopal, not knowing where to go, etc. But reaching the destinations wasn’t the
problem. The actual weakness was that once I had gotten there, I wasn’t sure about how to approach
my interviewees and explain my goal to them. Communication was an aspect which I mastered through
this project. Eventually, I was able to communicate my ideas across through the movie which I made,
getting the better deal of my struggle.

Balancing out the weaknesses of the project, I also had a lot of strengths which allowed me to
achieve my goal to the full extent. Once I got started on talking to the victims, enquiring about the
tragedy was easy. Showing the victims that I care and encouraging them to trust me opened up their
feelings, which was a plus side in achieving information for my movie. My strength was in being direct
with the victims and asking exactly what information I required, getting started, and rapidly zooming
through the interviews.

All the information which I received, were jigsaw pieces which I put together in Microsoft Movie
maker to achieve a final product. My research centered the main AOI on which I was focusing upon,
Community and Service, and helped me answer the guiding questions. I raised my own awareness of my
surrounding community through this project and by making this movie; I am contributing to the
community in hope to give them the lives they deserve.

If I were to do this project again, I would change my main approach to it. Instead of creating
awareness about the disaster, I would take strong action in aiding the battle of the NGO against union
carbide, getting personally involved myself. I could have tackled this project, looking at the battle in the
NGO’s point of view and fighting with them, instead of learning and listening to what they are fighting
for. Being personally involved would connect me to this project even more than it already has, which
would have been a different approach to the same topic, but presented in a different way.


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