All Farhat Jahan remembers is the thick gas filling her home. Her mother grabs her in her arms and starts running. Her eyes burn, as if there were acid in them. If someone had only told them to take cover under blankets in their home, to not run for the hospital, “so many would have been saved, because the faster they ran, the faster they died in their own body fluid.”

Jahan recalled her experience of the Bhopal gas tragedy to a crowd of forty students and community members at the Southwestern Church of God in Detroit’s Boynton neighborhood last Friday. 

On the night of Dec. 2, 1984, 27 tonnes of methyl isocyanate leaked from a pesticide plant. Over 22,000 Bhopal residents died that night. Forty years later, the impacts of the toxic exposure persist: three generations of birth defects, chronic health issues, economic hardship, and ongoing groundwater contamination, according to the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. 

The plant was owned by Union Carbide India Limited, a majority-owned U.S. multinational corporation. Years later, Dow Chemical bought the company and avoided assuming its liabilities in the merger. 

After four decades of resistance Bhopal survivors traveled to Dow Chemical’s home state for the event, organized by Detroit-based nonprofit advocacy group Clear the Air, sought to help Bhopal survivors build solidarity with highly polluted U.S. cities.

Detroit resident Theresa Landrum of Clear the Air voiced her solidarity for environmental justice in Detroit and Bhopal.

“Both places are examples of people of color being put at greater risk of death and disease from toxins released into the environment. Here the health problems are severe, but not as dramatic and there are often a variety of polluters,” Landrum said. “In the case of Bhopal, it was a horrific and dramatic death toll and it’s a single corporation, Dow, that needs to pay the survivors.” 

However, Landrum is concerned Detroit could be the next Bhopal, citing the transfer of nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project to the Wayne Disposal Inc. landfill in Van Buren Township. Officials assured safety measures are in place, but many residents are skeptical, citing health and environmental concerns amid a lack of communication by regulators. 

Last year, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was among 12 congresspeople who signed a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure Dow Chemical responded to India’s summons to appear in court. The company appeared for the first time in 17 years in the Bhopal court. 

“Our struggle for environmental justice in southeastern Michigan and in Bhopal are one and the same,” Tlaib said. “This is the home state of Dow, and our solidarity here is particularly important to our guests. We’re proud to join you in a call for justice.” 

Bhopal residents have five demands: clean up of soil and groundwater to international standards, pay $8 thousand USD to each Bhopal survivor, criminally prosecute Dow Chemical, develop standardized practices for health care and research, and issue a monthly pension to all widows of gas victims. 

Bhopal today

Jahan traveled with survivor Bati Bai Rajak and Rachna Dhingra, the campaign coordinator. All three live in Bhopal. Jahan lives a kilometer away from the rusting factory. She collects data to monitor Bhopal residents’ health. Outside of work, she takes her sister to dialysis appointments three times a week. 

“Even though she is married, the husband is really not interested, because she is so sick,” Jahan said in Hindi. “My niece was abandoned by her father because no one wants a disabled child.” 

Rajak is a daily wage laborer. When a sick family member needs care, which is often – her husband has diabetes, her mother has breathing problems, her son has tuberculosis and she suffers from constant headaches – she is unable to work, and thus struggles to eat. 

Activists crisscrossed the country, with Detroit being one of 19 cities where they stood in solidarity with those fighting similar battles. Others included Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley,’ Houston and Baltimore. Dhingra said the visits give them inspiration that they are not alone, and hope for change. 

“This is our way of telling the people in southwest Detroit who are fighting their own corporate criminals,” Dhingra said. “We are hoping that this solidarity and this pressure can get Dow to own up and clean up Bhopal.”