This an overview of how the different stakeholders were affected by union carbide crisis.
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“A multiple-perspectives understanding of crises
This chapter employs a multiple-perspectives analysis of Bhopal (Shrivastava 1992). This approach seeks to understand the crisis from the perspectives of all key stakeholders. Stakeholders are individuals and organizations that influence, or are influenced by, the crisis. The key stakeholders in the Bhopal crisis included victims (i.e. the community in Bhopal), Union Carbide Corporation, and the Government of India.
A multiple-perspectives approach also acknowledges the complexity of causes and the importance of contextual factors. It interprets causes in systemic terms (Mitchell, Devine, and Jagger 1989). Technological, organizational, and societal systems are susceptible to multiple, simultaneous, and interacting failures. A main limitation of the traditional systems view of causation is that it does not indicate which causes are more or less important, and from whose point of view. The multiple-perspectives approach addresses this limitation and accepts the impossibility of unambiguously fixing blame for industrial crises. Attempts to affix blame are reductionist: they merely divert analysts from proper understanding of the events. Finally, the multipleperspectives approach regards controversies and conflicts as an integral part of crises. Such conflicts cannot be denied or brushed away: they are the central defining features of crises.
The most controversial elements of crises are their impacts or consequences. Consequences are difficult to ascertain because they are many, diverse, and difficult to measure. Some consequences are indirect, some are unknown, some are trans-generational, and some extend in space to unforeseeable areas. In the Bhopal case, victims saw the crisis largely in terms of personal losses: they lost their lives or faculties, their health, their sources of income, and their sense of community. An army of lawyers, government officials, activists, reporters, and researchers invaded Bhopal. The lives of residents have already been disrupted for months and years, and will continue to be disrupted for a long time to come. In these circumstances, recovery has involved efforts to rebound from multifaceted losses.
Officials at Union Carbide viewed this crisis as an unfortunate technological “incident.” Because of its long history in the chemical industry, the company was familiar with the types of losses such incidents generate. These include legal liability for damages, financial losses, and bad reputation. Union Carbide’s main concern was to protect its financial assets and reputation. It embarked on an elaborate strategy of legal defence, financial restructuring, and public relations (Union Carbide Corporation 1985).
For the Government of India, the crisis was a socio-economic and political disaster. As the institution responsible for safeguarding public safety, the government had failed abysmally. It needed to redeem itself in the eyes of the public, by deflecting responsibility for its role in the disaster. It was also saddled with the far more difficult task of managing recovery and rehabilitation of victims.”
Source : http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu21le/uu21le0c.htm#a%20multiple%20perspectives%20understanding%20of%20crises
