Their constitutions permanently weakened by exposure to toxic gas from the 1984 Bhopal disaster, Rasheeda Bee and Tara Bai collapsed this week, after 18 days of protest fasting in New Dehli's scorching summer heat.

The two women were part of a group of 400 survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster and activists campaigning in the capital to prod the government into bringing to justice Warren Anderson, then boss of Union Carbide, and eight other top executives of the US-based company.

The survivors, consisting largely of people who lost family members in the tragedy, marched on Tuesday to Parliament, which opened for its month-long monsoon session on Monday.

One of those who collapsed on Tuesday, 46-year-old Rashida Bee, lost five members of her immediate family to cancer in the 18 years after deadly methyl-isocyanate gas leaked out of storage tanks at Union Carbide's pesticide plant in Bhopal city in December 1984.

Fellow protester, Tara Bai, 35, was pregnant when the disaster occurred, but suffered a miscarriage and became infertile after that.

Neither of them has received more than US$500 as lifelong compensation in all these years, despite the many promises that Union Carbide management made.

Now that the two women are in hospital for intensive care, the only person left to continue with their hunger strike, on since June 29, is activist Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA).

Instructions from Washington

According to Sarangi, discussions with three key union ministers have led him to believe that the central government is keen on accommodating Dow Chemicals, which earlier acquired Union Carbide's assets, in using compensation money due the victims for detoxifying the factory site.

Dow, which has accepted Union Carbide's asbestos-related and other liabilities in the United States, has so far refused to accept pending liabilities of Union Carbide in Bhopal.

While opposition parties including the Congress and the Left Front have pledged support in Parliament to the Bhopal survivors, the three ministers that Sarangi and the activists met in Delhi, ID Swami, minister of state for home, Digivjay Singh, minister of state for external affairs and SS Dhindsa, minister for chemicals, have shied away from making any commitment.

However, Dhindsa did assure the activists that money meant for distribution to the victims would not go to people in the unaffected areas of Bhopal for political purposes.

''It is clear that the Indian government has received instructions from its masters in Washington that Dow, which has assets and investments in India and could be held liable, should be let off the hook,'' Sarangi said.

Move to dilute

Earlier, Rashida Bee said that the government had in fact ''made it clear that if it came to choosing between holding Dow and Carbide liable and deserting the Bhopal survivors, it will opt for the latter''.

Bee also said that although charges of culpable homicide were filed against Warren Andersen and several other company executives in 1987, there has been no move to seek their extradition from the United States.

Instead, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's main sleuthing agency, moved court to reduce the charges from culpable homicide to one of negligence, prompting Sarangi to remark that this was like making the world's worst industrial disaster look like an ordinary car accident.

At least 10,000 people died and another 500,000 were seriously injured in the disaster, the seriousness of which, critics say, was matched only by the attempts of Union Carbide to wriggle out of its liabilities and to protect its executives from standing trial in India.

The present move to dilute the case would mean that Anderson cannot be extradited because the present extradition treaty between India and the United States covers cases of homicide but not negligence that caused the runaway reaction in the Union Carbide plant.

It has now been established by scientists that had the Bhopal plant's refrigeration units not been shut off as an economy measure to save about US$50 per day, the runaway reaction in the storage tanks would have been retarded and perhaps even prevented.

Summons ignored

Various Indian governments appear to have colluded with Union Carbide in a cover-up and in watering down the original damage suit filed for US$15 billion, activists say.

After arrogating to itself the right to represent the victims, the Indian government filed a claim for US$3 billion and finally settled for US$470 million.

Anderson was arrested in Bhopal on charges of culpable homicide, criminal conspiracy and other serious offences along with several Indian executives of the company soon after the disaster and were granted bail on the same day.

But Anderson he flew back to the United States subsequently, ignoring summons to face trial.

Nearly a fifth of the 500,000 survivors continue to suffer from a host of maladies, including lung fibrosis, impaired vision, asthma, body pains, loss of appetite and neurological disorders. But experts say the worst may yet to come in the shape of chromosomal aberrations in future generations. IPS