One fails to get away, other goes scot-free

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While one octogenarian, Keshub Mahindra, who headed the Indian arm of Union Carbide, has been convicted in the Bhopal gas tragedy case, yet another octogenarian, Warren Anderson, who was Union Carbide chairman and CEO in 1984, has managed to go scot-free. Here are brief profiles of the two men.
KESHUB MAHINDRA
Mr Keshub Mahindra, the chairman and patriarch of the Mahindra Group, is a quintessential businessman whose integrity till the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal and after was never in question. But as chairman of Union Carbide for 20 years, the 83-year old chairman of M&M is now facing a prison term of two years in the case.
A graduate of Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, Mr Mahindra had grand visions for Mahindra and Mahindra which, had they materialised, would have made Mahindra an auto and telecom giant way back in the 50s and 60s.
But when he joined Mahindras in 1948 there was the license permit raj and Mahindras were not allowed to enter the auto or later the telecom sector. He had way back seen these as the two sectors as growth sectors but was told by the government that he could not enter those sectors as they were reserved for the government.
They had a technical and financial collaboration with Willys Overland Corporation to assemble jeep-type vehicles in the 50s after General Motors and Ford left India as a protest against its anti-private sector policies. The Indian government wanted them to set up assembly plants here in India, which ironically all of them are doing now.
After economic liberalisation, M&M were the first to tie up with Ford.
Strangely though, a votary of the private sector and the free market Keshub was part of the Bombay Club that was formed after the economic liberalisation. The Club did not want the economy to be opened up immediately as the members felt that Indian industry would be swamped by MNCs. But this never happened and Indian industry shaped up to face global competition.
He, with his brother Harish (father of vice-chairman and managing director Anand Mahindra), succeeded their father who started the company. They were known for their philanthropy in the field of education and health.
WARREN ANDERSON
The head of Union Carbide in 1984 at the time of the leak, Mr Anderson, the son of Swedish immigrants, was born in 1921 in the US.
Declared an absconder by the Indian police after he jumped bail, a case of culpable homicide is registered against him. The courts in India even issued an arrest warrant against the fugitive, but to little avail. Mr Anderson remains a free bird.