Better Late Than Payable

In the great circle of time the past is as the future, and the environmental well-being of present and forthcoming generations is subject to scruples befitting the subcontinental asset-strippers of the Honourable East India Company. Mere decades after an industrial disaster that killed some thirty thousand people and continues to poison the local expendables, the Indian government has commenced a token clean-up operation. In December 1984 the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal, which was no doubt lightly regulated and relatively unencumbered by Health and Safety straitjackets, exploded and released forty tonnes of toxic waste into the air; and thanks to the Indian government's cordial relations with the business community the intervening period has yielded neither a proper decontamination of the area nor a non-derisory compensation scheme. Less than one per cent of the contaminants have now been removed, and there is every possibility that their disposal will cause yet further environmental damage; so the enterprise scores Britishness points for effectiveness as well as for promptitude.