India Threatens Boycott over Dow Sponsorship
November 25, 2011
A petition has been organised by a group of India’s Olympians, medstore past and present, calling for the athletes not to travel to the 2012 London Olympics because of the £7million Dow sponsorship around the Olympic Stadium.
The subject falls on touchy grounds due to the US company’s ownership of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopical chemical disaster in 1984, where an estimated 3,000 people died in the initial disaster caused by. A further 15,000 have since died from poisoning.
“We feel that it will be against the basic principles of the Olympics charter to partner with Dow Chemical, which is responsible for the ongoing disaster in Bhopal,” the athletes wrote in their petition.
The petition has received the full support of Bhopal politician Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who demanded that the Indian government support a boycott of the Olympics if the Dow sponsorship continued. Chauhan said: “I do not think it is at all appropriate that a company responsible for a tragedy of this proportion should be allowed to sponsor an event like the Olympics, which are expected to be the ultimate expression of fair play and honest, healthy endeavour.
The funds intended for sponsoring the Olympics would be far better spent in alleviating the misery suffered by the people of Bhopal.”
Although India aren’t expected to beat any record medal hauls at the games, it is the world’s second biggest nation with an ever increasing economy, therefore must be seen as an important player on the sporting podium.
V K Malhotra, the acting president of the Indian Olympic Association said: “We will be meeting in 10 days to sit down together and decide what to do. The government has not expressed a voice and I don’t want to give an impression before the meeting.”
Without giving a clue to which way the outcome was leaning, he did indicate that any outcome will rely heavily on the government’s decision.