The controversial effigy seen at the rally to mark the 41st anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
A rally in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday (December 3, 2025) to mark the 41st anniversary of the 1984 gas tragedy ran into trouble after a group of right-wing activists objected to an effigy, which they alleged portrayed a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, with a First Information Report (FIR) lodged against the organisers.
Two effigies were seen in the rally taken out by four organisations working for the tragedy’s survivors in the old city area near the now-defunct Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) factory — one effigy portraying DOW Chemical, a United States-based firm that now owns the UCIL, and the other of a man in white shirt and khaki half-pants.
As the rally progressed, a group of RSS and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers obstructed the way and objected to it, leading to a heated exchange between the two sides.
Rakesh Baghel, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Hanumanganj told The Hindu that an FIR had been lodged against various organisers — Rachna Dhingra, Satinath Sarangi, Balkrishna Namdeo, Sarita Gupta and others — under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Sections 196(1) and 223.
The police immediately took the effigy under its control to prevent any further tension, Mr. Baghel said.
“This is an annual rally but the use of such an effigy this year looks like an attempt to gain limelight by some people. The organisers tried to say that it looked like a jailor and not a worker of an organisation but a jailor does not wear a black hat. The arguments between both sides kept getting intense. So we had to disperse the rally midway only,” he said.
The organisers, however, refuted the allegations and said that the effigies only represented the companies responsible for the tragedy and how governments have shielded them.
“We were not targeting any particular organisation and only looked to highlight the plight of the survivors while those responsible for the tragedy still haven’t been brought to justice,” Ms. Dhingra of the Bhopal Group of Information and Action said.
Ms. Dhingra, one of the organisers of the rally, said that the “RSS workers tore off the particular effigy and began to call the participants anti-national”.
“We tried to explain to them and even offered to remove that effigy, and asked them to let the rally take place. They did not listen, and to avoid any confrontation we had to suspend the rally within 500 metres,” she said, adding that the organisers were also mulling filing a complaint with the police.
Various activists working with the survivors also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government of supporting the Dow Chemical, which they alleged was shielding the UCIL.
“The level of support the Indian government has extended to Dow Chemical will shock anyone. The latest is the transport of discarded chemical plant machinery by Dow Chemical from Stade, Lower Saxony, Germany and using them for its factory in Dahej, Gujarat. Dow has had to dismantle many of its chemical plants in Germany and other parts of Europe because of strict environmental regulations,” Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, said.
The infamous Bhopal gas tragedy, on the night of December 2 and 3 in 1984, killed 5,479 people after highly toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide unit in Bhopal. The tragedy also disabled and caused serious health implications in over five lakh people over the years, as per government estimates.
Published – December 03, 2025 10:50 pm IST
