Just like we go to Hiroshima, Chernobyl and Ground Zero in New York to remember and pray for victims," said Babulal Gaur in 2009, "so many people from around the world want to visit the Bhopal Union Carbide factory to learn about the disaster."
Gaur was then minister of relief and rehabilitation for victims of the gas leak of December 3, 1984, and he was justifying a decision to open the factory site to tourists in the disaster's 25th anniversary year.
The announcement triggered an uproar and the government did a quick U-turn.
Rama Lakshmi, a museologist and reporter for a United States newspaper, recounts the protesters' argument, "There are pending issues. First address the issue of toxic materials, underground water pollution -- address these issues and then think about a museum."
But the incident raised a long-term question, as Lakshmi says. "Will they [that is, the government via an official museum] sanitise the story? The story didn't just begin on December 3 and end on December 4. It is continuing."
Image: A security guard walks in front of the Union Carbide Corp, now part of Dow Chemical Co, pesticide plant in Bhopal
Photographs: Reinhard Krause/Reuters
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