The horrifying prospect of the industrious people of Japan (pop. 127 million) suffering a second nuclear disaster following the tsunami-cum-earthquake of March 11, has raised a worldwide scare about the advisability of relying on nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, i.e power generation. Six decades after the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were razed to the ground by the US Air Force to bring World War II to a closure, Japan is once again confronted with the prospect of debilitating mass radiation following damage to the core reactors of the Daichi nuclear power plants at Fukushima.
If there could be a meltdown of nuclear reactors in Japan — a highly industrialised nation globally reputed for excellent manufacturing, management and safety standards — the chances of a nuclear disaster in India which has just the opposite reputation, are manifold greater.
Against this alarming backdrop, the reaction of India’s nuclear establishment and scientists to the national outcry for review and revaluation of the cost-benefits of this country’s nuclear energy programme is dismaying. This community unanimously rules out all possibility of major accidents or meltdown in any of India’s six nuclear power plants and insists there’s no need to re-evaluate, review or interrupt the country’s capital-intensive nuclear power generation programme, given the pressing demand for energy from Indian industry and the economy. This exaggerated self-belief of the nuclear power establishment is unjustified, because almost four decades after India commenced its nuclear power generation programme, it meets only 1 percent of the energy needs of the Indian economy. Therefore unlike the situation in France where the nuclear power industry supplies 70 percent of the energy consumption of that country, India’s nuclear power generation plants can be shut down in the public interest without significant inconvenience to industry.
Indeed, in retrospect the growth and development of India’s nuclear power generation industry — actually a camouflage for developing fissile warheads capability which has precipitated a dangerous nuclear arms race in the subcontinent — reflects the unsuitability of the capital-intensive centrally planned development model adopted by successive governments in post-independence India. Given India’s factor endowment of year-round sunshine, if the money, resources and material invested in the nuclear programme had been expended in researching and developing the solar power option, by now the country would not only have become self-sufficient in power generation, but also a global leader in developing this environment-friendly technology. Even now it’s not too late to redeploy the wealth of scientific and management resources invested in India’s nuclear power programme into developing solar energy. For instance the vast uninhabited expanses of the Thar desert could be transformed into the world’s largest solar power plant(s). The silver lining of the nuclear clouds wafting over distant Japan is that it offers us a chance to make good a lost opportunity of the past.
Middle East democracy fever opportunity
The mealy-mouthed statement issued by the Union ministry of external affairs (MEA) “regretting” the United Nations-sanctioned air strikes upon the troops and foreign militia of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who has unleashed a reign of terror against the people of Libya demanding an end to the 41-year dictatorial reign of the Brother Leader, is typical of the reactive and wary “Brezhnev era” bureaucrats who formulate foreign policy in South Block, New Delhi. Instead of unequivocally endorsing the swelling democracy movement in Libya and the Middle East countries, Asia’s self-proclaimed premier democracy is playing both sides of the fence.
Given its vast diplomatic network and easy access to the huge volume of information which RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) with its reportedly unlimited secret budget presumably collects from around the world 24/7, one would expect MEA mandarins whose most notable achievement of the past 60 years has been to antagonise all neighbouring countries apart from failing to resolve the status of Kashmir and border issues with China, to be fully aware that the prime perpetrator of the “violence, strife and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Libya” is the Brother Leader who has declared war against his own citizens legitimately and peacefully demanding end of his tyrannical rule. The recent air strikes were sanctioned by the UN Security Council after Gaddafi violated his self-declared ceasefire and marched on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi with loyalist troops and foreign mercenaries.
Therefore to equate the long-tenured dictator who has the state’s resources at his command with the poorly armed rebels as is implicit in the MEA statement, is hypocrisy of the worst sort and indicative of unwillingness to endorse the legitimate demand of Libya’s long-suffering people for democratic government. Instead of allying with Western democracies which have intervened on behalf of the people against the dictator, India has made common cause with the mafioso governments of Russia and China in regretting the imposition of the UN-sponsored no-fly zone over Libya.
The lazy mandarins of South Block need to become alive to the possibility that the outbreak of democracy fever in the Arab world and North Africa is an opportunity rather than a threat to India’s interests in this oil-rich region. Given traditional antipathy to the US in Islamic nations, this is a great chance for India which has experience of establishing democratic institutions of governance, to emerge as the tutor and mentor of the nascent democracies of the Arab world. Moreover given India’s ancient ties with the Middle East, its history of Muslim rule and its largely successful legislation and protection of minority rights, there’s a window of opportunity to transform the Middle East and North Africa into an Indian sphere of influence.
But transformation of a possible threat to the national interest into an opportunity, requires MEA to speak up unequivocally for the democratic aspirations of the people of the region, rather than play both sides of the fence. A diffi-cult proposition for the Brezhnev-era babus of South Block.