The Unlaked Lake Of Bhopal

The temple of Bhojpur is situated at about 21 KMs from Bhopal. This temple has many myths associated with it, claiming that the temple was constructed by Pandavas during their exile, or here Kunti left Karna near the banks of Betwa (Betrawati) River. The present temple was most probably started by Raja Bhoj , the Paramara ruler who ruled from 1010-1055 AD. The temple, known as the 'Somnath of the North', was conceived on a grand scale. Standing on an immense platform, 32 meters long, 24 meters across and 5 meters high, its great entrance doorway, of richly carved stone, is 10 m high and 5 m wide. A huge Shiva linga is placed on a massive stepped stone pedestal. It appears that a much bigger complex than currently exists was planned. Building and layout plans etched on rocks and stone slabs close to the temple suggest that many more temples were proposed to be built. However, the plans could not be carried out, and was abandoned midway. Had the plans been executed, Bhojpur would have been one of the biggest temple complexes in the country. The temple is unique in being well preserved despite having been abandoned in the course of construction. Moldings and stone-blocks lie in adjacent quarries and an earthen ramp for raising stones survives. Numerous line drawings of architectural parts are engraved on the quarry’s rock surfaces. A roof made of fiber glass, has been recently added to the temple by the Archeological Society Of India (ASI) along with a missing column. The temple walls have been cleaned of dirt accumulated over the centuries. After a nationwide hunt, the ASI managed to locate similar stone in an area near Agra and master masons and sculptors were commissioned to carve them  in a style matching the original. A 12-tonne pillar, carved out of a single stone, was put in place a few months ago. "It took us more than six months to devise the intricate system of pulleys and levers required to put the pillar in its slot because a crane with a boom long enough to put the pillar in its proper place was simply not available in the country," said K.K. Muhammad, superintending archaeologist of the MP circle of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) . The temple boasts of two other pillars weighing 33 tons each, carved out of a single block of stone. "How fascinating it would be to know how ancient builders erected those pillars when, with all the technology and resources we have at our command nowadays, it took us six months to install a pillar of almost one-third the weight," marvels Muhammad.

No account of Bhojpur can be completed without a description of Bhoja's lake and dams. The Bhopal lake, known as the Upper Lake or “Bada taal” is ascribed to Raja Bhoj, the Paramara ruler who ruled from 1010-1055 AD. The lake created must indeed have been vast. The upper lake, itself considered to be one of the biggest, is a diminished form of the water body created by the king. The history of lake is very interesting. Historian and archaeologist William Kincaid, who surveyed the lake and published a paper in the year 1888, quotes the legend that Bhoja was stricken with a severe illness which the court physicians failed to cure. A holy recluse prophesied that the king would die of the disease, unless he was able to construct a lake so great as to be the largest in India, and fed by 365 streams. Skilled engineers were then sent along the valleys of the Vindhya range to explore the region and report upon the feasibility of such a lake being constructed. A valley was ultimately discovered and subsequently enclosed, which included the headwaters of the river Betwa. The engineers found, much to their disappointment, that only 356 springs and streams fed the waters flowing through the valley. The difficulty was eventually overcome by Kalia, a Gond chief, who pointed out a missing river which, with its tributaries, made up the requisite number and was accordingly named Kaliasot or Kalia’s river, a name it carries to this day.

According to Kincaid, this legend preserves two important facts: That the drainage area of the sources of Betwa was insufficient to fill the lake; and that the lake thus formed was of an unusual size. A study of the local topography and the remains of the civil works, in Kincaid’s analysis, clearly prove that the engineers of those days skillfully turned the waters of another river, which rises 32 km to the west, into the Betwa valley. This was accomplished by creating a magnificent, cyclopean dam in Bhopal. This is what remains today, known in Bhopal as the Bada Taalab or the upper lake. The Chota Talab or the lower lake was created much later by Chotte Khan from the overflowing water of Upper Lake.

Bhojpur appears to have been used as a summer residence rather than as a regular urban settlement like Dhar, built on a grid of crossroads, intersected by the king's highway. The Gond tales of Bhoj's boathouse, identified with two upright and one horizontal stone, from which he would sail out daily to Bhimbetka caves (mentioned by Kincaid as Bhimbet hills and Buddhist caves visited by Raja Bhoj everyday and return to capital for his midday meals) , of the mighty fort of Gonar, lake cities and spirits of the deep that interfered with the temple construction suggest a similar presumption. The remains of three cyclopean dams, built successively on river Betwa near the Bhojpur temple, on Kaliasot near village Mendua, and in Bhopal below Kamla Park,  can still be seen. The present day town of Mandideep was at that time an island or Dvipa, surrounded by this vast lake. The Siva temple stood on the bank of this man-made lake which existed for four hundred years. The breached dams can still be seen at various places. The 98 feet high dam over Betwa lies immediately to the north of the temple; its thickness is over 300 feet at the base, gradually reducing to a thickness of about 164 feet at the top. The core of this immense dam was of earth, faced on either side with stone slabs to an average thickness of 30 feet. The semi-dressed stone is from the same local quarries as the temple itself, and the measurements of the slabs are about the same as those of the ramp.

From the storage lake, a river flowed at a right angle to its former course around the hills and into the Betwa valley; it became a valuable feeder. The Kaliasot river carried its surplus waters into the larger lake for three full months after the rainy season had ended. Kincaid ran a line of levels from the waste weir discovered by him to the Bhopal railway levels. When plotted on the Bhopal-Malwa topographical survey maps, it was found that the ancient lake covered 65,000 hectares (ha). It must have then formed the largest artificial lake in the Indian peninsula — one unbroken sheet of water with islands adding to its beauty. It was, in places, more than 30 meters (m) deep, and was surrounded by high hills on all sides.

The waste weir cuts through the solid rock of one of the lower hills. It is situated at the apex of a triangular valley, and is probably 3 km from the great dam in a direct line. Its position, so far from the dam, according to Kincaid, provides further proof of the practical ability of the engineers of the time. Any error in levels would have quickly destroyed the dam which, though stone-faced on both sides, was filled in by earth and could not have withstood heavy overflows for long.

The destruction of this lake, sometime in 1434 AD by Hoshang Shah (1405-1435 AD), is described by contemporary historian Sahib Hakim in Ma’asir-e-Mahmud Shahi. While it took the army of Hoshang Shah  three months to destroy the dam, three years elapsed before the bed was empty and thirty before it became cultivable. One can clearly see the evidence of destruction of the embankment at a place called Mendua, not very far from the Siva temple at Bhojpur. The dam across the Betwa was also destroyed by the armies of Hoshang Shah. The embankment at Bhopal is still preserved and so is the lake in it’s present constricted size. It is said, following the destruction of the embankment and drying up of the lake, the climate of Malwa underwent a change, and the town of Vidisha became more prone to floods.

After 1000 years of Raja Bhoj water riots are breaking out in the areas where this great water body once existed. Mandideep, the island, is now an industrial area which faces acute water crisis. The feeding streams to the existing part of the Bhopal lakes have been encroached resulting in the lakes drying up in the summers. The city is now pinning its hopes on the Narmada Water supply project, already behind schedule, with a new deadline of March 2010. Covering a distance of about 60 km, the Narmada Water is being brought to Bhopal from Narmada River at Shahganj, considered the lifeline of Madhya Pradesh and laying of pipeline and other works for the purpose are underway.

Picture courtesy: Outlook India, Manal Sabri, Royal Asiatic Society and others

Update: Proposed urinal for birds in the middle of the lake

Seasons Greetings 2009

Happy, Happy Christmas, 

That can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, 

Recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, 

And transport the traveler back

to his own fireside and quiet home!

-Charles Dickens

Waterhouse Photographs - Bhopal and surroundings

In a compelling chapter on sartorial conventions by Rosemary Crill from the V&A, London, Crill describes the begums as ‘wearing an elaborate embroidered and plumed hat and, like so many of Waterhouse’s subjects, apparently enjoying the photographic session. How Waterhouse arranged the photographing of Shah Jahan is unclear, since although a number of portraits were made, in one of his notes Waterhouse briefly mentions that her photograph was ‘taken inpurdah, so I did not see her’. Presumably, the general arrangements for the photographs were made in her absence, possibly with a stand-in, and then Waterhouse either withdrew, leaving an assistant to make the actual exposure, or perhaps operated the camera himself, while concealed behind a curtain of some sort.’


An article by the Curator of Alkazi Foundation for the Arts. An exhibition of photographs based on the book, The Waterhouse Albums: Central India Provinces, edited by John Falconer and published by Alkazi Collection of Photography and Mapin, will run at Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi from 18 December to 6 January

Bhopali Rap

Babulal to Krishna - The Gaurs of Bhopal

Pre 1984:
Before the gas accident, a Bhopal lawyer called Babulal Gaur was involved in a dispute between Union Carbide and local farmers who claimed their cattle were being poisoned by the factory. Later Gaur became a minister in the local BJP government and to him fell the duty of caring for the city’s gas survivors.

2004:
He (Babulal Gaur) told the Christian Science Monitor that the groundwater was contaminated and complained that the previous Congress state government had tried to hush the matter up. In May of that year India’s Supreme Court ordered the state to supply clean water to the poisoned communities. Gaur’s government ignored this order.

2005:
A year passed and a group of women and children went to government offices to ask why nothing had been done. They were savagely beaten, punched and kicked by the police. A month later Gaur, by now the Chief Minister, announced an ambitious Rs 600 crore plan to beautify the city with ornamental fountains and badminton courts.
(Link)

July 2005:

Turning a deaf ear to criticism both from within and outside the BJP, Madhya Pradesh CM Babulal Gaur went ahead and appointed his daughter-in-law Krishna Gaur as the chairperson of the Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Corporation. She has been given a ministerial rank and the perks of a cabinet minister. Krishna Gaur, who has been a housewife till now took over the office on Thursday morning. Peeved BJP leaders were unable to say whether she is a member of the party and no one knew of her educational qualifications. Babulal Gaur's son Purushottam Gaur died of a heart attack in October last year. Three weeks after Purushottam's death, Krishna Gaur was seen accompanying the chief minister for most of his functions. Link

Even as Gaur was gloating over Jamuna Devi's complaint against Chauhan and his wife, the Bhopal media splashed a story (attributed to unidentified sources) that Gaur's daughter-in-law Krishna Gaur was also guilty of the same offence as Sadhna Singh. Krishna Gaur had, so goes the story, purchased three trucks and got them registered at the Rewa RTO on October 5,2005 (Babulal Gaur was then chief minister). Krishna Gaur had given her wrong residential address (JP Nagar) as Sadhna Singh had done. Krishna's trucks, too, had been leased out to JP Associates. Link

July 2005
With growing dissent in the party rank and file over her appointment, the BJP top brass in Madhya Pradesh today eased out Chief Minister Babulal Gaur’s daughter-in-law, Krishna Gaur, from the post of Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation chief. Her appointment, about 10 days back, had fuelled speculation that the Chief Minister was looking for his political heir. Gaur had lost his only son, Purshottam, to a cardiac arrest about six months ago. Link

October 2008
The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh is in a dilemma over the constituency from which the Madhya Pradesh Commercial Tax Minister and former Chief Minister Babulal Gaur would contest next month’s Assembly elections in the State. The question being asked in political circles with regard to Mr. Gaur is if he would contest from his traditional constituency of Govindpura in Bhopal or the veteran leader would make way for his daughter-in-law and State Women Morcha vice-president Krishna Gaur to fight in his place. In case this happens, Mr. Gaur will stake his candidature for the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat. Mr. Gaur who has won six times consecutively from the Govindpura seat, may not be in the fray this time for the Assembly polls and his daughter-in-law may fight from there, party sources said on condition of anonymity. “If party gives me a ticket from Govindpura seat, I will surely contest from there if Babulal Gaurji allow me to do so,” she (Krishna Gaur) says. Link

November 2009
It's clearly advantage for the BJP from the beginning. Krishna Gaur appears a strong candidate compared to Congress' Abha Singh, whose name was announced after much deliberations. In the end, Suresh Pachouri's writ prevailed. BJP candidate Krishna Gaur who is former Chief Minister Babulal Gaur's daughter-in-law has long been in the public domain, and is a familiar face in Bhopal. Abha Singh is the wife of an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. She says that her father Thakur Balram Singh was not just the Mayor in Bilaspur but was also elected as an MLA. The Congress candidate said that she was in politics for a long time and was in the legal cell of the state Congress. Though it will be foolish to call her lightweight, the truth is that a much stronger candidate was expected from the Congress. Though Pachouri is confident that Abha would crack down on Krishna and snatch away the pivotal seat due to several reasons. Sitting Mayor Sunil Sood has vouched to accompany Abha on her campaigning and several other leaders in close circles of Pachouri would also be seen besides her. The state Congress chief himself would largely be sticking to Bhopal as this has again turned out to be prestige issue. A very senior and influential leader of the party openly commented before the PCC chief that Bhopal choice might have been wrong. Many strong contenders were left aside to promote Abha, he said. She really does not stand a chance before Krishna Gaur. Though Pachouri did not like the comment, but he is sure worried about the decision and would give maximum time to Bhopal polls. Link

December 2009
Mr. Gaur, a former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, said the State government has sought Rs. 116 crore from the Centre to build a memorial for the victims in the factory premises spread over an area of 67 acres. However, he said that people would not be allowed to enter the Factory unit which once manufactured pesticides, adding the visitors can see it from a distance. Link

December 16 2009
Daughter-in-law of Babulal Gaur, Krishna Gaur, defeated Abha Singh of Congress by 15,321 votes as per result declared at 1:30 AM on December 16th 2009

Changing Lives In Bhopal

The Lifting of the Veils

In the years after the poison cloud came down from the factory, the veils covering the faces of the Muslim women of Bhopal started coming off too.

The Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (the Bhopal Gas-Affected Women Workers'

Organization), or BGPMUS, is the most remarkable and, after all these years, the most sustained movement to have sprung up in response to the disaster. The BGPMUS grew out of a group of sewing centers formed after the event to give poor women affected by the gas a means of livelihood. As they came together into the organization, the women participated in hundred of demonstrations, hired attorneys to fight the case against Carbide as well as the Indian government, and linked up with activist movements all over India and the world.

On any Saturday in Bhopal, you can go to the park opposite Lady Hospital and sit among an audience of several hundred women and watch all your stereotypes about traditional Indian women get shattered. I listened as a grandmother in her sixties got up and hurled abuse at the government with a vigor that Newt Gingrich would envy. She was followed by a woman in a plain Sari who spoke for an hour about the role of multinationals in the third world, the wasteful expenditure of the government on sports stadiums, and the rampant corruption to be found everywhere in the country.

As the women of Bhopal got politicized after the gas, they became aware of other inequities in their lives too. Slowly, the Muslim women of the BGPMUS started coming out of the veil. They explained this to others and themselves by saying: look, we have to travel so much, give speeches, and this burkha, this long black curtain, is hot and makes our health worse.

But this was not a sudden process; great care was paid to social sensitivities. When Amida Bi wanted to give up her burkha, she asked her husband. “My husband took permission from his older brother and my parents.” Assent having been given all around, Amida Bi now goes all over the country without her veil, secure in the full support of her extended family.

Her daughters, however, are another matter. Having been married out to other families, they still wear the burkha. But Amida Bi refuses to allow her own two daughters-in-law, over whom she has authority, to wear the veil at all. “I don't think the burkha is bad,” she says. “But you can do a lot of shameful things while wearing a burkha.” Half of the Muslim women still attending the rallies have folded up their burkhas for ever.

Sajida Bano's Story

Sajida Bano never had to use a veil until her husband died. He was the first victim of the Carbide plant: In 1981, three years before the night of the gas, Ashraf was working in the factory when a valve malfunctioned and he was splashed with liquid phosgene. He was dead within 72 hours. After that, Sajida was forced to move with her two infant sons to a bad neighborhood, where if she went out without the burkha she was harrassed. When she put it on, she felt shapeless, faceless, anonymous: she could be anyone's mother, anyone's sister.

In 1984, Sajiba took a trip to her mother's house in Kanpur, and happened to come back to Bhopal on the night of the gas. Her four-year-old son died in the waiting room of the train station, while his little brother held on to him. Sajiba had passed out while looking for a taxi outside. The factory had killed the second of the three people Sajiba loved most. She is left with her surviving son, now 14, who is sick in body and mind. For a long time, whenever he heard a train whistle, he would run outside, thinking his brother was on that train. Sajiba Bano asked if I would carry a letter for her to “those Carbide people,” whoever they are. She wrote it all in one night, without revision. She wants to eliminate distance, the food chain of

activists, journalists, lawyers, and governments between her and the people in Danbury. Here, with her permission, are excerpts that I translated:

Sir,

Big people like you have snatched the peace and happiness of us poor people. You are living it up in big palaces and mansions. Moving around in cars. Have you ever thought that you have wiped away the marriage marks from our foreheads, emptied our laps of children, bathed us in poison, and we are sobbing, but death doesn't come. Like a living, walking corpse you have left us. At least tell us what our crime was, for which such a punishment has been given. If with the strength of your money you had shot us all at once with bullets, then we wouldn't have to die such miserable sobbing deaths. You put your hand on your heart and think, if you are a human being: if this happened to you, how would your wife and children feel? Only this one sentence must have caused you pain.

If this vampire Union Carbide factory would be quiet after eating my husband, if heartless people like you would have your eyes opened, then probably I would not have lost my child after the death of my husband. After my husband's death my son would have been my support. But before he could grow you uprooted him. I don't know myself why you have this enmity against me. Why have you played with my life so much?What was I, a poor helpless woman, spoiling of yours that even after taking my husband you weren't content. You ate my child too. If you are a human being and have a human heart then tell me yourself what should be done with you people and with me. I am asking you only, tell me, what should I do?

Negative-Positive

The gas changed people's lives in ways big and small. Harishankar Magician used to be in the negative-positive business. It was a good business. He would sit on the pavement, hold up a small glass vial, and shout, “Negative to positive!” Then, hollering all the while, he would demonstrate. “It's very easy to put negative on paper. Take this chemical, take any negative, put it on any paper, rub it with this chemical, then put it in the sun for only 10 minutes. This is a process to make a positive from a negative.” By this time a crowd would have gathered to watch the miraculous transformation of a plain film negative onto an image on a postcard. In an hour and a half, Harishankar Magician could easily earn 50, 60 rupees ($2) in this business. Then the gas came.

It killed his son and destroyed his lungs and his left leg. In the negative-positive business, he had to sit for hours. He couldn't do that now with his game leg, and he couldn't shout with his withered lungs. So Harishankar Magician looked for another business that didn't require standing and shouting. Now he wanders the city, pushing a bicycle that bears a box with a hand-painted sign: 

“ASTROLOGY BY ELECTRONICE MINI COMPUTER MACHIN.”

Passersby, seeing the mysterious box, gather spontaneously to ask what it is. He invites them to put on the Stethoscope, which is a pair of big padded headphones attached to the Machin. Then the front panel of the Machin comes alive with flashing Disco Lights, rows of red and yellow and green colored bulbs. The Machin, Harishankar Magician tells his customers, monitors their blood pressure, then tells their fortune through the Stethoscope. The fee is two rupees (six cents). Harishankar doesn't

like this business; with this, unlike his previous trade, he thinks he is peddling a fraud. Besides, he can only do it for an hour and a half a day, and clears only about 15 rupees (43 cents).

Harishankar Magician is sad. He yearns for the negative-positive business. Once the activist Sathyu took a picture of Harishankar's son, who was born six days before the gas came. He died three years later. Harishankar and his wife have no photographs of their dead boy in their possession, and they ask Sathyu if he can find the negative of the photo he took. Then they will use the small vial of chemical to make of positive of their boy's negative, with only 10 minutes of sunlight.

From “Bhopal Lives” By Suketu Mehta

Published in: The Village Voice - 1991

(Photograph above : A Pre 1984 advertisement of Union Carbide)

The Business Of Gas

Jahar Lal doesn’t remember the night of the Bhopal gas tragedy, but he can’t forget it either. He was born on the side of a road, as his mother fled from the poisonous gases that swept through old Bhopal. When she finally reached a hospital with her newborn son, the doctors there christened him Jahar, or poison. The name stuck. He doesn’t like his name much. He has often thought of changing it but, he says, “It’s the name I’m famous by.” It draws 10-15 people every month to his small jhuggi in the mud-spattered lanes of Oriya basti.

More has been written on the Bhopal gas tragedy than any other disaster in India. In the 25 years that have elapsed, activists and government officials have surveyed the affected areas numerous times; curious tourists have wandered through the bastis in search of survivors’ tales; and journalists from around the world have scoured Bhopal for stories.The intense attention has, in its wake, created a network of attractions and occupations that survive on the memories, sites and effects of the disaster.

“There’s a whole chapter on me in Dominique Lapierre’s book,” says Gangaram, a gnarled old man, as we walk through the Oriya basti in search of Jahar Lal. He was also affected by the disaster and now survives on a few part-time jobs.He volunteers in a small community school in the Oriya basti, does the odd painting job, and spends his remaining time working as a guide for curious visitors.
“Everyone who comes to this part of Bhopal comes to me,” he says matter-of-factly. When we get to him, Jahar Lal is playing cards with a few friends. His clothes are threadbare, his sandals broken and he’s thin as a stick. He might be an attraction, but it hasn’t brought him much money. He works as a construction labourer for the 10-12 days he manages to get work.
But, he complains, he gets tired easily, suffers from a chronic cough and can’t put on any weight. The people of the basti are used to visitors, but a gaggle of kids still collects around us. Has the attention he’s got made a difference to his life? “People have been coming to see me for 10 years now, but nothing has happened,” he says. Someday, he hopes, someone will read one of the articles and give him a job. As we leave, Jahar Lal comes up to us and asks if we can spare Rs100 for “some medicines”.

A few kilometres away, Sanjay Verma is taking a foreign television crew through Arif Nagar, a shanty sprawl that sits by what used to be the solar evaporation pond of Union Carbide. He is their translator-cum-guide. Sanjay lost seven members of his family in the tragedy, and grew up in an orphanage in Bhopal.
He has taught himself fluent English, and now shows visitors the sites associated with Union Carbide. He is pursuing a degree in business economics, but has been guiding people for nearly four years now. On average, he takes 100 visitors around every year. It’s a good source of income for him.
His charges are Rs700 per day, but often “people give me much more than that”. His English has also improved significantly in the process. It was initially very difficult for him to return to the sites associated with his personal tragedy, but now he has gotten used to it.
“I feel that information on Bhopal needs to be passed on,” he says. Most media crews he takes to the factory, he adds, are horrified that the factory remains the way it was 25 years after the disaster.

But not everyone in this small network suffered in the tragedy. For every person that did suffer, there is another for whom this is a quick business opportunity. Mac is a resident of Bhopal who refuses to give me his real name. When we spot him, he is tearing down the dirt road in front of Jaiprakash Nagar with Miguel Legault, a photojournalist, perched precariously on his two-wheeler.


More pictures here

He claims to work in the pharmaceutical industry. He’s shown six people, including a Korean tourist, around affected areas such as Annu Nagar and Blue Moon Colony this year. “More often than not,” he says, “I’m the driver, guide and translator. I even get them a bottle of beer when they ask for it.”
In return he gets “some kind of gifts”. His motives, he claims, are not monetary. He wants to break the stranglehold that a few non-governmental organizations have on tragedy-related work. “Most of them get a lot of money through donations but promote a few people like Rashida Bee (profiled in Monday’s Mint story),” he says. “But this was a tragedy for everyone in Bhopal, not just a few people.”
His endeavour, he says, is to show people the neglected aspects of the tragedy. Mac seems to have forgotten that I’d seen him and Miguel briefly at Rashida Bee’s the previous day.
How do people find him? “You come to Bhopal and tell anyone that you want to see the Union Carbide factory, and you’ll find Mac,” he says cryptically.

Travel agencies in Bhopal also seem to have caught on to the opportunity. When I called him up, Rakesh Chopra of Radiant Travels Pvt. Ltd, one of the larger travel agencies in the city, said that he could easily arrange a guide for these areas. “We’ve shown many tourists these sights,” he says.
A guide would cost Rs1,750 per day. The biggest gains of this “industry”, however, have gone to the hundreds of dubious doctors, jhola chaap doctors as they are known in local parlance, who’ve set up shop along Chhola Road, a stone’s throw away from the factory. Every third establishment on the road is a clinic.
They sit cheek by jowl with tea shops, butchers and grocery stores. The garishly lit, matchbox rooms that they work from are crowded with a steady stream of patients. A bewildering number of them have degrees in Ayurveda.
Anil Tiwari claims that he is the only qualified doctor among the 85 who practise on this 2km stretch of road. “Doctors here get Ayurveda degrees since they’re easy to get, but all of them prescribe allopathic medicines,” he says. The majority of patients at the clinics seem to have a similar roster of problems— breathlessness, body aches, skin rashes and eye problems. They say that their problems started after the gas tragedy, but a number also blame severe groundwater contamination. “These quacks earn Rs1-2 lakh per month,” says Dr Tiwari, “and they pump patients full of steroids.”
P.D. Israni of Israni Dawakhana, was giving a woman an injection when I walked in. He claims to have a bachelor in Ayurvedic medicine and surgery (BAMS) and tells me that he only prescribes medicines according to his qualifications.
His charges per patient are Rs10-20. When I ask him about the injection he was giving, he turns defensive. “What can I do if the patient asks?” A hundred metres down the road, outside the Singhai Clinic, which advertises the services of Dr Singhai, BSc, BAMS, Ayur-Ratan, a patient is complaining.
He shows me a prescription that consists of a series of codes that only the in-house chemist understands. The medicines he takes out of a small plastic packet are allopathic, but none has a name. A similar story is repeated at every clinic in the area.
Patients who are entitled to free treatment at government hospitals don’t go there since the wait can often be long and the paperwork complicated. Some of them have also misplaced their “gas cards” and haven’t been able to get new ones made. They’re left with no alternative but to go to these clinics, they say.
K.K. Dubey, director of the Kamala Nehru Hospital, a government hospital for the gas-affected, confirms that such clinics are scattered across the affected wards. “The government has done nothing to control them,” he says.

The Bhopal gas tragedy seems to be becoming a small business. And as the 25th anniversary of disaster comes up, the profits are looking good.

-Akshai Jain @livemint.com