ABSTRACT
Until the sale in 1986 of its consumer products division, Union Carbide’s best-known consumer product was the Eveready battery. In India, as in the US and many other countries, Eveready is a household name, partly due to the company’s long-term promotional efforts. The relative responsibilities of Union Carbide and the Indian government for the state of the company’s manufacturing facilities there would continue to be the cause of controversy two decades later. Unlike governments in smaller, weaker nations, the New Delhi government could insist on certain concessions from large corporations wishing to do business in India. The Bhopal plant, producing and storing an extremely unstable compound like mic, lacking the state-of-the-art leak-detection equipment, and surrounded by teeming slums on every side, was a disaster waiting to happen.
