The first time I read about the tragedy on the greenpeace website, I literally had tears in my eyes. Reading about the way the children died, their sufferings, the psychological impacts, it was heart breaking. It took me 2 - 3 days to recover and in that duration, my mind was filled with hatred for the DOW Chemicals Co. The company which even to this date, does not claim responsibility for the tragedy and instead has tried suing the victims. What hurts me more is the way the Indian government handled the situation. People who were affected mostly lived below the poverty line, they could'nt afford a day's meal. Such people had to spend thousands on medicines. Still, the government refused to pay them compensation. The victims were asked to prove that they were affected by the tragedy. PROOF, how ridiculous. The whole world knows the effects and the aftermath of the tragedy. Even to this date, the ground water is polluted, women have miscarriages, kids are born with deformities. Still, the government wants PROOF. The kids who are born with deformities have been very earnestly categorized as ''gas kand ke bacchche' or 'carbide children'. Whoever coined this term is worthy of a standing applause.
So 20 years later, people are still fighting for their compensations, activists all around the world are trying to bring justice and force DOW to accept its mistakes and stop such actions from occuring in future. Greenpeace has a provision for writing emails to the DOW execs asking them to realize their mistakes, and I somehow could'nt resist writing a strong letter to the company. Though the letter may never reach the DOW execs of even if it reaches, could end up in the 'Deleted Items' folder without bieng read, it gave me some satisfaction, that I had taken some step which may help in bringing justice to the thousands of affected people.
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