The toxic waste that activists say continues to seep from the factory and pond remains a big point of contention. Samples of water tested in 2009 by the Bhopal Medical Appeal, a nonprofit that works with the survivors, showed high levels of contamination. Dow says that, since the 1989 settlement, any responsibility for cleaning up the site has belonged to the government.

“If Dow Chemicals clean up in Bhopal, it would be an admission of their guilt,” says Rasheeda Bee, who helps run Chingari Trust. “They would rather provide safe drinking water elsewhere,” says Bee, referring to Dow’s corporate social-responsibility activities in other parts of the country that involve water purification.

In 2006, Dow installed water purification kiosks connected to a plant in two villages in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. A reverse osmosis plant, which desalinates water, was designed to provide about 600 people in Dasaigudem village with clean drinking water. The plant uses membranes manufactured by Dow. Kiosks have been set up in the western state of Gujarat as well.

“The installation is all fine, but the maintenance of these kiosks is expensive. In that, the villages will be perpetually dependent on the membranes that they will be forced to buy from Dow,” says Jayaraman, the independent researcher. The groundwater in the villages is brackish, he says. The company could have ensured the safe disposal of industrial waste and improved environmental safety in the villages, he says, rather than simply treating the symptoms of unsafe water.

India’s chemical sector has grown by 13 to 14 percent in the last five years, according to a government report. India is also the largest market for the chemicals produced here.

“It is important to see how a tainted company like Dow returns to India after being accused of the worst industrial crime ever,” says Sarangi of Sambhavna Trust. “That clearly means that there is a nexus between the government and the chemical industry. This nexus makes it easier for the government and the company to transfer the responsibility to each other for crises like the gas leak.”

Bhopal victims continue to challenge Dow in courts. In 1991, the Supreme Court of India reinstated criminal charges against Union Carbide and eight of its employees. Since then, the courts in India have issued summons to Dow Chemical several times, unsuccessfully.

In 2004, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a class-action lawsuit filed against Dow that the company could not be absolved of all responsibility for the disaster. Two years later, Bhopal victims petitioned the Indian government to increase the 1989 monetary compensation package by five times, citing inaccuracies in the number of dead and injured listed in the settlement. But in 2012, a separate appeal for monetary compensation from Dow was dismissed on several grounds by the U.S. courts.

Since 1984, Shezadi Bee and her friends have fasted three times to make their voices heard, but to no avail. The longest fast was for 21 days, three years ago, during the 27th anniversary of the tragedy. She says she will continue to challenge Dow’s attempts to bolster its public image.

“It is a dangerous precedent that Dow is setting through its [corporate social-responsibility] initiatives. It is sending out a message to other such companies that their negligence can cause disabilities in some children and maim them for life if they shell out some change to provide prosthetics to others,” she says. “Looks like several future generations will have to carry the fight forward.”