3874 #4 7-8

Title of Mini Research Assignment

PAD3874: COMMUNITY RELATIONS THEORY/PR 180 (23322)

Your Name

State College

Professor

Date

Summary:

This journal article looked at the causes of the Bhopal Disaster which occurred at a Union Carbide plant in India which produced a popular insecticide known as Sevin. The article looked at not only the cause of the disaster but at the results of how a lack of company response and acceptance of responsibility as well as Indian government reaction to the disaster, cost many more lives to be adversely affected.

There were 3800 lives lost because of the chemical factory explosion but environmental impact of the disaster still is affected the local environment around the plant even today. The journal article concludes that if Union Carbide and the Indian Government had taken a more formal responsibility role and upheld environmental policy to a strict standard of safety, the disaster more than likely would have been averted. The article concludes that the disaster did make environmental regulations in India stronger however those laws are still often not well regulated.

Evaluation:

After reading this article I feel the author did a good job of evaluating the basic understanding of the Bhopal disaster. There is a great deal of information in academic journals regarding this incident which can make understanding this disaster a difficult one if not evaluated properly. I feel his evaluation of the events was written well and summed up in an easy to read and informative way.

The evidence he produced in the article; like the way Union Carbide blamed the crisis on deliberate acts from Sikh extremists, shows that Union Carbide engaged in acts of stonewalling and covering up the lax safety procedures in the plant. The authors conclusions about how Union Carbide settled for a very small amount of money in comparison to the impact the disaster, shows that India is still not serious about safety compliance in its production plants.

When comparing this article to others who have written on this disaster I would say the article provided an accurate assessment of the events following the disaster. According to a journal article published in Economic and Political Weekly, the government of India in an effort to cater to big international business took unprecedented full control of the disaster litigation process. This process allowed for Union Carbide to essentially be given a slap on the wrist despite a clear indication that many more people actually died as a result of the incident than were officially counted. (Muralidharan, 2004)

In closing the article was informative and I feel the Bhopal disaster is a textbook of example of what not to do when managing an unexpected and highly preventable environmental disaster. One can only hope that government of India and international corporate conglomerates will use the lessons of Union Carbide Bhopal incident to the betterment of plant safety standards and public relations procedures and management worldwide.

References

Broughton, E. (2005). Bhopal Disaster and its Aftermath: A Review. Environmental Health Journal, 4(6), Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142333/pdf/1476-069X-4-6.pdf

Muralidharan , S. (2004). “Bhopal: Continuing institutional crisis .” Economic and Political Weekly, 39(49), 5196-5198. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4415857