Environmental Justice and
Community Development
IACD
Eurig Scandrett
Queen Margaret University
Overview
• Environmental justice movements in US
and Scotland
• Bhopal survivors’ movement
• Lessons for Community Development
Environmental justice
• US environmental justice movement as
movement of community action groups
• Friends of the Earth Scotland.
– Community Sustainable Development
– Campaign for Environmental Justice
– Agents for environmental justice
– Popular education
Friends of the Earth Scotland
Communities in crisis
(Acute problems)
Expose contradictions
Knowledge and skills to
respond to crisis
Communities not in
obvious crisis
(Chronic problems)
Analyse contradictions
Understand context
Build movement, alliances
Bhopal
1. 1984 gas leak
2. Three waves of mobilisation
3. Five activists’ stories
4. Lessons for community development?
Bhopal
• 1984: gas leak at Union Carbide
insecticide factory, killing ca. 8000
• Spontaneous, unfocussed protest
• Arrival of volunteers to assist relief effort
• Poisonous Gas Event Struggle Front
• People’s Health Clinic
• Disintegration of Front from 1985
2nd wave of resistance
• State-supported women’s economic
rehabilitation work sheds
• Workers’ organisation and unionisation
against poor conditions, pay, corruption
and premature closure.
• Women’s unions form basis of protest
groups, linking with other groups
• 1989 ‘settlement’ between Union Carbide
and Government of India
3rd wave of resistance
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1999 Greenpeace exposes contamination
2001 Union Carbide absorbed by Dow
Internationalisation of the campaign
2003 small campaign groups unite to form
International Campaign for Justice in
Bhopal
• 2004 Rasheeda Bee and Champa Devi
from ICJB awarded Goldman prize
Alok Pratap Singh:
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when the struggle ends
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Educated and from a politically
active background (Socialist)
Arrived in Bhopal days after gas
leak
Became leader of Poisonous Gas
Event Struggle Front
After Front breaks up, focuses on
legal and lobbying work
Joins Congress
Established NGOs to provide
employment training and craft
production – expands into health /
HIV education
Appointed to state and
government gas rehabilitation
committees
Critical of perpetual militancy of
other campaigns
Rasheeda Bee: •
politicised worker
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From conservative Muslim family, not
worked outwith home before gas
disaster. Not literate.
1985 Employed in state economic
rehabilitation stationery work shed
Became leader of Women’s Stationery
Workers’ Union
Led padyatra to Delhi to demand
government terms and conditions
2001 Joined with BGIA to form ICJB
on water contamination
2002 Attended Johannesburg WSSD
2005 Awarded Goldman prize for
environmental campaigning,
established Chingari Trust and started
to focus on welfare provision
Stationery workers’ union split
Abdul Jabbar:
• Local, with school education, ran small
indigenous leader business before 1984
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Appointed Neighbourhood committee
secretary, active in Poisonous Gas
Event Struggle Front
Invited to advise Gas Affected Women
Workers’ Campaign which had
established as union in sewing centre.
Became leader
BGPMUS dependent on members’
donations, critical of acceptance of
international funds
Married BGPMUS activist, later divorced
Established NGO to provide training and
rehabilitation for gas affected workers
using state money
Critical of educated intellectuals who will
always defect from the poor
Balkrishna Namdeo:
leader of destitute
• From poor rural family,
moved to Bhopal in teens
for education
• Supports himself as street
trader and establishes street
traders’ union
• Joins CPI – later leaves
• Establishes Destitute
Pensioners’ Struggle Front
• 1984 focuses on gas
affected pensioners
• Welfare provision and
campaigning for adequate
state provision
Sadhna Karnik: •
political programme•
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Educated, middle class, unmarried
looking for answers in voluntary work
Came to Bhopal in 1984 to support
relief effort
Active in Poisonous Gas Event
Struggle Front, active in People’s
Health Clinic
Led ‘split’ faction of Front after 1985
Joined CPI, married CPI official and
union leader
Worked with railway workers and
families
Co-established BGPSSS as solidarity
organisation with CPI affiliated
organisations
Local struggle only makes sense if
part of political programme
Sathyu Sarangi: ••
anarchist intellectual•
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Educated, from far-left background.
1984 abandons PhD in metallurgical
engineering to support victims
Grassroots activist in Poisonous Gas
Event Struggle Front. Established
People’s Health Clinic. Arrested.
Expelled from Front in 1985 after
criticising leadership
Established Bhopal Group for
Information and Action – intellectuals
supporting grassroots struggle
Split with Abdul Jabbar and Women
Workers’ Campaign
1995 Establishes Sambhavna Trust
with international funds to provide
health care for survivors
1999 Collaborates with Greenpeace to
expose soil and water contamination
2001 joins with Stationery Workers’
Union to form ICJB. Builds links with
international supporters.
People’s democracy, anti-corporatist
Issues from Bhopal for
community development?
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Outsiders – Insiders
Educated - Uneducated
Funding
International relationships
Role of the state
Role of political parties
Militancy vs compromise and concession
Role of learning – who is the educator?
Trades unions and NGOs
Gender and leadership
• My message to young people who are into this work is
that they should do it as long as they can do it sincerely.
If they lose interest they should quit. People who they
claim to work for can do without them, they do not need
their help or they do not insist on getting help from
community workers. People can survive with what they
have. People who are not assisted by community
workers also survive and people who know how to fight
for their rights will do so without any assistance. So my
message to the new generation is if they want to do
community work they have to be honest and sincere,
they should not take advantage or exploit. There is a lot
of power in truth. And truth will also be your hindrance
because it will cause a lot of problems for you and get
you into trouble.
•Rabiya Bee, founder of the Bhopal
Gas Affected Women Workers’
Campaign (Bhopal Survivors’
Movement Study 2009 p 68)