Lost irony
Sir: The title assigned to my last dispatch ('Only MIC leaked', 15 December) cries out to be corrected. What offends is the word 'only'. Though factually it is quite possibly the case that it was only MIC that spilled into the Bhopal air from the Union Carbide plant in the early hours of 2 December, my quarrel is with the impress- ion the title gives, viz, some more horrid gas might have spilled but no, thank God, it was only MIC after all. As there is nothing in my published story to support this suggestion of relief I presume the title was inspired by the last paragraph of the story I had filed. In this paragraph (which I suppose was edged out for reasons of space) I had quoted extracts from an interview with Mr Mukund, the Works Manager of the Bhopal Union Carbide plant, conducted on the morning of 2 December, only hours before he was arrested. In this interview he had said that the effects of MIC on human beings were much less severe than those of phosgene, that it was lucky only MIC had leaked. (This was at 4.30 a.m. on 2 December: Mukund was smiling and trying to assure reporters who had got into the Union Carbide plant that everything was under control, that no one had died and that the dispensary was working.) As we now know, Mukund's claim was absolutely incorrect. MIC is a far more toxic gas than phosgene. Mine was an ironic paragraph written to show that the Union Carbide officials were either mendacious or ignorant, possibly both, at any rate' untrustworthy. Without this last paragraph, however, the title loses its intended irony, becomes a weird joke, the work of a moral pervert, or at the very least the work of someone in the pay of the Union Carbide public relations depart- ment. I hope this letter will help make it clear that I am neither, but instead merely your faithful correspondent
Dhiren Bhagat
12 N Apsara, 61 B Pali Hill, Bombay
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