by Saji Thomas
Bhopal: Manisha Ahirwar is only ten-year- old. She, unlike children of her age, attends regular sessions of physiotherapy and other exercises at a clinic meant for children of survivors of Bhopal gas tragedy born with deformities.
At first sight, she looks healthy, but she can neither speak nor walk or do her daily chores without assistance from others.
“She is only physically weak but mentally sound and understands everything”, says her mother Manju Ahirwar who is assisting her daughter to stand on her legs.
She is among the 250 children who are getting special treatment at Chingari Charitable Trust clinic in the outskirts of Bhopal, the capital of Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
There are also 850 other children like Ahirwar registered with the clinic who turn up alternative days for treatment or depends on the seriousness of their ailments.
What binds all of them together is, “they are all children of gas survivors”.
“This little girl is among thousands of children born with birth defects even after three decades of the gas tragedy”, says Rashida Bee, one of the founders of Chingari.
Bhopal gas tragedy, considered to be the world’s worst industrial disaster that struck the lake city (Bhopal) on Dec. 2-3 night in 1984 when 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a chemical plant owned by the Union Carbide Corporation.
About 3,000 people died on the first day itself and subsequently some 15,000 others, says the state government. NGOs, however, put the death toll at over 25,000. The government has also admitted the gas leak affected around 573,600 survivors.
“We have only limited facility to attend such children as we offer everything free of cost including their transportation”, she told mattersindia.com on the 32nd anniversary on December 3.
Many social, political and religious organizations offered special prayers and tributes to those died in the gas disaster and subsequent to its side effects. They also urged the government to compensate the survivors and punish the guilty, which seem to be an “unfulfilled dream” for them.
“It is an irony that nobody is punished for the murder of thousands of innocents until now”, Shukla bemoans.
“It is also sad that survivors are not getting proper medical care forcing them to lead a miserable life”, Bee laments pointing out the difficulty in accommodating all the affected children in the clinic.
“We accommodate only children between the age group of zero to 12-years, that too, who can be sure of bringing back to normalcy”, she says.
Bee, a Muslim lady along with Champa Devi Shukla, a Hindu, formed the Trust way back in 2004 to take care of the gas survivors’ children born with defects as the government agencies failed.
“We could not see our own children suffering immensely for want of treatment and thus formed Chingari”, Shukla told Mattersindia.com.
The 37-year- old mother (Manju Ahirwar) who was just five years old when the gas tragedy struck the town says, “I don’t remember anything about it (the gas tragedy) but our family continue to suffer from its side effect”.
Showing her daughter, she told mattersindia.com “this is what the gas tragedy has given to us”.
She takes her daughter to Chingari, close to the now defunct Union Carbide Plant for physiotherapy and other treatments regularly hoping, “my daughter will become alright”.
“We see a surge in the number of children born with deformities even after three decades of the gas tragedy”, says Bee, The gas tragedy took place 32-years back but it still continues to spread havoc maiming the children and spreading other diseases among the elders.
A preliminary study of health impact on the survivors of the gas disaster indicates, “people still continue to suffer from serious diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), cancer and paralysis”.
“We are doing the study in a population of over one lakh people from over 20,000 families”, says Satinath Sarangi, a social worker involved in conducting the research with Sambhavna Clinic.
“In comparison to unexposed families, gas and contaminated ground water exposed families have significantly larger number of people with TB, paralysis and cancers”, he told mattersindia.com.
“The ratio of cancers to gas exposed people is more than ten times of unexposed people”, he adds.
“Lung, abdominal, throat and oral cancers are significantly higher in gas exposed and gas contaminated ground water exposed group. Liver cancer was found only in gas exposed group”, he explains.
Gas exposed women too found to have suffered significantly. The finding says “gas exposed women suffer larger number of abortions in comparison to unexposed ones”.
Similarly, “larger number of children born to gas exposed and contaminated ground water exposed parents had birth defects”, he notes.
“The people continue to suffer on account of politicization of the entire tragedy and not doing enough to clean up the hazardous toxic waste dumped into the defunct Union Carbide plant and its surroundings that contaminate air, water and environment”, he laments.
“The governments both at the Centre and the state, are least bothered about the survivors, as 50 per cent of them are Muslims and among Hindus 80 per cent are low castes”, he alleges.
Even after three decades the governments is yet to clean the hazardous toxic waste laying on the premises of the defunct plant.
According various reports 350 metric tones of hazardous toxic waste is stored in the defunct factory and another more than 20000 metric tones in the solar evaporation ponds and in and around the factory premises.
“These stocks of toxic waste”, another social worker Abdul Jabbar says, “contaminate water resources, air and environment and whereby, people get infected and suffer immensely”, he told mattersindia.com.
Various studies have also confirmed that these waste “pollute soil, air and environment cause serious health hazards to the people living there.
Like Ahirwar, eight-year- old Ali Hamsa too suffers from birth defects and is getting treatment at the clinic.
Seemi Hamsa, the 29-year- old mother of Ali says “I bring my child here with a hope that he will one day stand on his own legs”. She, however, does not know the reason behind the deformities of her son, as she and her husband are healthy.
“I know he is born with defects”, she says adding “doctors told it is the side effect of the Bhopal gas tragedy”.
“Yes the child suffers axonal neuropathy” says Dr Rishi Shukla, a physiotherapist working with the Trust clinic.
“Most of the children suffer from congenital disorders”, he told mattersindia.com. The root cause of it, he explains “is breathing of polluted air and conception of polluted water by their parents especially mothers”.
Many children can be cured if they get treatment at the early stage, unfortunately, it is not happening,” he notes.
Ahirwar was brought to the Trust clinic only one year back. “If she were brought to the clinic earlier, she could have been better by now” says the doctor.
Her mother says, “within a year my daughter began to show signs of improvement” and believes “she will recover fully”.
Other mothers who come with their kids like Ahirwar there too believe that their children would stand on their own legs one day. This positivism helps them find a meaning for life amidst inconsolable pains.