From silence to strength: reclaiming Bhopal’s legacy

A city that breathes in memory

Every night, when the lights of Bhopal shimmer across the lakes, they illuminate both beauty and memory. For many, Bhopal is the city of lakes. For the world, it is still linked to the 1984 industrial gas leak, when toxic methyl isocyanate spread silently across neighbourhoods and overwhelmed the city's ability to cope.

Forty years later, I believe we must expand the narrative not to forget, but to reclaim Bhopal as a living classroom of resilience, where communities continue to heal, rebuild, and lead.

Resilience is not recovery it is renewal

During my learning journey with UNITAR Japan's Women's leadership in DRR Programme, I discovered that resilience goes far beyond surviving a hazard. It means communities learn, reorganize, adapt, and transform.

In Japan, as I studied post-tsunami recovery, I saw resilience rooted in trust, decentralised governance, and women-led action. Mothers planted community gardens where debris once stood. Schools became centres for safety learning. Local leaders shaped plans with their communities, not for them.

In Bhopal, I see similar examples. The women of the Chingari Trust support children with long-term disabilities linked to toxic exposure. The team at the Sambhavna Clinic provides community health, monitoring soil, air, and water safety.

Environmental groups document industrial pollution and advocate for safer practices. Each of these efforts strengthens Bhopal's resilience: reliable health systems, stronger awareness, and empowered communities.

Yet we rarely frame their work as resilience. We call it struggle. It is time we change this lens because resilience is not a policy word - it is the heartbeat of a community that chooses to rise.

Women: the quiet architects of recovery

When hazards strike, women hold families, neighbourhoods, and social networks together. I have seen this in Bhopal for decades - women rebuilding homes, caring for survivors, supporting livelihoods, and keeping hope alive.

Japan showed me the same pattern. Fisherwomen coordinated shelter management. Women mayors led reconstruction plans. Volunteer mothers became pillars of evacuation preparedness.

Across countries and cultures, I see an unspoken sisterhood of resilience. Women do not wait for systems to act - they become the system that acts.

To strengthen this natural leadership, I believe every city needs women-led resilience committees trained in early warning communication, household preparedness, and community mobilisation. These committees must hold authority, not symbolic roles.

Women bring knowledge of social networks, vulnerabilities, and local realities - all essential for disaster risk reduction.

Reimagining Bhopal: A city of resilience

Imagine Bhopal as India's resilience learning hub.

A city where schools teach everyday risk awareness, where universities host research labs on industrial and urban safety, where health centres monitor environmental hazards, and where women's collectives lead neighbourhood preparedness.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030) calls for inclusive governance, gender equality, and locally driven resilience. Bhopal, if we retell its story, can contribute powerful lessons on memory, healing, and risk-informed development. It can show how communities transform a tragedy into a movement for safer systems and stronger futures.

Building resilience: what Bhopal can do next

In my view, these actions can strengthen disaster risk reduction in Bhopal:

• Create community-based early warning systems for industrial hazards.
• Conduct regular risk audits of industrial sites and share results publicly.
• Train women and youth as first responders and preparedness leaders.
• Integrate risk awareness and safety education into all school curricula.
• Strengthen coordination between the municipality, health institutions, and community organisations.
• Promote participatory governance, where local communities shape policies related to urban safety and environmental management.

When communities lead, resilience grows naturally.

A call to the people of Bhopal

I write this not as an academic, but as a daughter of this soil, someone who has seen the beauty of Bhopal coexist with its invisible pain.

Let us shape Bhopal's global identity through how we rebuilt, not only through what broke us.

Let us honour the past by building a safe, inclusive, risk-aware future, with empathy, education, and empowerment.

Because resilience begins the moment we choose to act, to speak, and to lead.

Shiree Khan is a participant of UNITAR Japan's "Women's Leadership in Disaster Risk Reduction 2025" programme and an education & resilience researcher from Bhopal. Her work bridges community memory, gender, and global disaster governance.