India’s Death Mines

India’s Death Mines Chrysotile asbestos is banned the world over, except in India. MADHUMITA DUTTA questions the state’s silence as millions of workers die of exposure ON THE eve of the fourth Conference of Parties (COP) of the Rotterdam Convention, a UN treaty on chemicals, held last month in Rome, at stake was the fate of two dangerous substances — the industrial chemical, chrysotile asbestos and the pesticide, Endosulphan. African and Asian nations, the EU and environmental and labour activists lobbied hard to include them in the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) list, a legally-binding mechanism that ensures sharing of information on hazardous substances between trading nations, so that importing countries can make an informed decision. However, the Indian industry and, disappointingly, the Indian Government, had other ideas. Next in line? A worker in the Cuddapah asbestos mines of Andhra Pradesh will become ill in a few years Photo: P. MADHAVAN Since the Convention works on the principle of consensus, even a single country upsets the apple-cart. A chemical comes up for listing only after its case has been examined by the Chemical Review Committee, which consists of members nominated by parties to the convention. For the past two COPs, India has been obstructing the PIC listing of chrysotile asbestos, a fibrous mineral used in building materials, on specious grounds. The story in Rome was no different, except that this time India invoked science to defend its position. The Indian delegation informed the world: “We have commissioned a health study by the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) to understand the health impact of chrysotile asbestos on Indian workers. It will be completed in 2010 and until then we cannot take a decision.” Essentially, India is pleading that it doesn’t yet have the clinching evidence to say that chrysotile asbestos kills workers in India. But the much-touted NIOH study is tarnished by conflict of interest, as it is funded in part by the asbestos industry. Indeed, nine independent international public health scientists have dismissed the study as “methodologically incomplete and (having) insufficient evidence with misinterpreted data.” The scientists have suggested that the study had been so designed as not to find any health problem. Millions of workers in the unorga - nised construction sector are exposed to chrysotile asbestos every day in India. Over 100,000 work in the asbestos cement product industry, where 95 percent of chrysotile asbestos is used, mostly imported from the Russian Federation and Canada. Responding to India and a few others opposing the listing, the Director of Public Health and Environment from the World Health Organisation said: “While we are here in Rome, some of the 90,000 people that die each year from asbestosrelated diseases due to occupational exposure will lose their lives. All deaths related to asbestos can be prevented. About 125 million people in the world are exposed to this health threat at the workplace. At what cost? In Europe alone, the 400,000 asbestos-related cancer deaths expected over the next few decades would result in at least $500 billion costs for insurance and compensation.” But India need not worry about bearing the burden of such an immense indemnity. In the last 40 years of asbestos use in this country, India has compensated only 37 cases! While over 100 corporations in Europe and the US have gone bankrupt paying liability to asbestos victims and their families, the Indian asbestos cement industry is thriving, with a turnover of Rs 3,000 crore. The industrialists were present in full force in Rome, hobnobbing with the Indian delegation. At one of the crucial side meetings organised by the President of the Rotterdam Secretariat in a bid to break the deadlock created by India, all pretences of separate entities were dropped. The Indian chemical industry spoke on behalf of the Indian Government. Wedged between chemical industry representatives, the ‘official’ Indian delegate merely nodded in agreement. On the closing day of the plenary, India’s obstructionist position would have brought it dangerously close to being isolated by all parties but for diplomatic manoeuvring by the President of the Convention. In India, the life of a worker matters little — they die every day, unaccounted and unprotected, even as devious governments sign their death warrants at international conventions. (Madhumita Dutta is a member of the Corporate Accountability Desk — The Other Media, Chennai) From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 48, Dated Dec 06, 2008