Senior journalist Salil Tripathi has long-standing experience in advancing the business and human rights agenda. As a researcher at Amnesty International (1999-2005) he participated in negotiations that created the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme and represented Amnesty in the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights process from its inception until 2008. Tripathi is a contributing editor at Mint and Caravan, and was formerly a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in Singapore. His recent book, The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy, has been critically acclaimed.
On building owner and 40 others being charged in the Rana Plaza collapse
Salil Tripathi: It is good that the government is finally taking it seriously because industrial safety in Bangladesh is very poor, and it is only an incident of this nature that has forced the government to act for two reasons. First was the scale itself--1000-odd deaths, and the other about an industry facing a lot of pressure from abroad. So, there was a lot of pressure on the government to come up with proper responses.
On international unions being sceptical about the progress
Salil Tripathi: Any commitment that is not binding is usually suspect in the eyes of the unions because they don't know how to hold people accountable if they (the latter) make promises and don't deliver. It is not about Gap or Walmart. It is not company-specific. What the unions resent is that it is non-binding, and also in the American system they don't have union representation in the governance of the system itself, whereas the European one does include the unions.
On need for the campaigns to look beyond the 2,000-odd factories
Salil Tripathi: I think the campaigns will be forced to enlarge their scope (sooner or later). The broader question in Bangladesh is that all these things are touching only the top-end of the problem: the industries that are selling to the West. What about the factories that make products only to be sold in Bangladesh? Bangladesh has a leather industry. It has a ship-breaking industry too. There also the worker conditions are terrible.
On these campaigns having a cascading effect on other industries
Salil Tripathi: That is the hope. It should be that way.
On how companies in the West can monitor situation in a far-away country
Salil Tripathi: I agree. Whenever I address the industry, I say you have to ensure that it is a Bangladesh-owned problem. Bangladesh will have to improve their own standards. The Bangladesh government will have to regulate it better. You can't always rely on the goodwill of a company, and the pressure of Western consumers. Take the ship-breaking industry that I mentioned, for instance. There's no consumer involved, since who will be interested in ship-breaking? Except for the one who is selling the scrap, and also wants to get rid of the problem, no one is. So, it is the Bangladesh government which will have to say that we have an obligation to look into this.
On pressure on Bangladesh being immense in the days to come
Salil Tripathi: Agreed, and therefore Bangladesh needs to diversify its economy. You can't be a single-product economy in the world any more. The oil industry is realising as much with oil at almost $30 to a barrel, and these countries are barely able to sustain themselves. So, Bangladesh too will have to think of other industries in order to grow.
On fast fashion and Bangladesh being a producer of such apparel
Salil Tripathi: People want to buy t-shirts for only five dollars. Consumers in the West also wear some of the blame. They want to buy a t-shirt that they will wear twice and throw it away. Because if it a five-dollar-tshirt, you are not going to wear it 15 times. Because of that there is pressure on manufacturers to keep squeezing the costs further and further, so that they can sell it very cheap.
