The Indian Olympic Association will formally ask organisers of the London Games to drop Dow Chemical as a sponsor over its links to the Bhopal disaster, acting chief Vijay Kumar Malhotra said Wednesday. “We will express our displeasure to London Games organisers and ask them to drop Dow as one of their sponsors,” Malhotra told AFP, adding that the company’s role was “unacceptable”. In 2001, Dow Chemical bought fellow chemical company Union Carbide, whose pesticide plant leaked gas into the central Indian city of Bhopal in 1984, killing tens of thousands in the world’s worst industrial accident. Malhotra said the Indian Olympic Association would formulate its demand over Dow at a two-day meeting of the body in New Delhi which is set to begin on Thursday. He stressed that India would not boycott the event. Indian activists have been battling for more compensation money with protests being led by Shivraj Chauhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state where Bhopal is located.
Malhotra said he had received a petition on Wednesday signed by 11,000 campaigners for Bhopal victims, led by former hockey Olympian Aslam Sher Khan. Union Carbide settled with the Indian government in 1989 by paying $470 million for the Bhopal victims. Dow, which is sponsoring a fabric shroud to be installed on the main Olympic Stadium, says all liabilities for the disaster were resolved with this payment. Malhotra, an influential member of the main opposition Bhartiya Janata Party, has sent letters to Sports Minister Ajay Maken and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking their advice on the contentious issue. “Olympics are about love, brotherhood and transparency and this company (Dow) is linked with (Union Carbide) which was responsible for killing thousands of Indian people,” he said. “It’s unacceptable that such a company is a sponsor in the Olympics.”
