On the night of 2nd December 1984, 40 tons of a deadly gas escaped from storage tanks of the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India and silently spread through heavily populated areas. The gas was methyl isocyanate, highly poisonous and lethal to the eyes and respiratory system. Official counts put the number of deaths at 3,000, with another 2,000 people dying over the next few years of complications, and over 100,000 injured. NGOs and other sources put the number of deaths at 20,000 or more. It is the worst industrial disaster ever.

In 1989, Union Carbide settled with the Indian Government to pay a sum of $470 million in damages to the government. Bhopal victims and advocates believe that this sum is too paltry to pay for all the deaths and injuries and the long-term harm done to the ground water and environment in Bhopal. In 1994, Union Carbide sold all its interests to Dow Chemicals.

In 2004, a shareholder resolution was voted on at Dow asking for a report describing new measures to respond to the problems facing survivors of the Bhopal disaster and to assess the impact that the Bhopal matter may have on the company, its reputation, its finances and its expansion in Asia and elsewhere. As You Sow carried out an extensive solicitation for this shareholder resolution creating a fact sheet and informing top institutional investors of financial risks faced by Dow because of its inaction concerning Bhopal especially as liabilities including the court case were transferred to Dow when it bought Union Carbide assets.