I do not want to comment on the cause and course of the protest for nuclear power plant at Koodankulam, but I wish to snapshoot the following things as the precipitating factors for the People’s Agitation.
Today( 16th December 2011), as per the news item in “The Hindu”, the protestors have demanded certain copies of the document that were a part of the design, construction and operationalisation of the Dam. It is not known what that would lead to. The matter being a ‘fait accompli’ and the nuclear reactor is fuelled and hot run has been conducted, there is no point in stopping the power plant from operation.
At this instance, let me draw my observation as under:-
Lacunae on the part of Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant
1. This is a project that began in 1989 and its roughly two decades, where a generation of students have become citizens. Proper awareness ought to have been given through schools. Even now by concerted efforts this is possible.
2. The ‘Mock Drill’, that is said to have pressed the panic button in people should have been carried with recent research tools of participatory approach.
3. It is still a point of concern that the ‘pro active disclosure under Right to Information Act, 2005’, needs to be effectively implemented in all the Nuclear Power Stations. The Government should be candid in announcing that the end product of used fuel is an asset for developing nuclear weapons, which would put an end to this lack of transparency.
4. The global fear of far reaching consequences of mishandled nuclear wastes should be effectively addressed by the scientific community.
Restoring Negotiations with the Local Population
What is the need of the hour is to restore the confidence of people by more participatory approach through Scientists and Academics, well versed with the scientific truths about Nuclear Power generation from the Higher Institutes of Learning in and around Koodankulam and school and college students need to be provided awareness by arranging visits to other nuclear power stations and the locality. The divide between the elite scientific community and Local population need to be minimised in order to allay the fears of loss of livelihood and the representatives of the Local Bodies are to be taken for confidence by the State apparatus. People also say that the earlier public hearing conducted by the State was a mockery and people having almost lost belief in similar reconciliatory approach.
Arguably one can say that the sarkari style of functioning and the lack of transparency has been the precipitating agent of the initial stage of the protest. The power generation plants and the Department of Atomic Energy should take concrete steps to win people’s confidence. People who favour nuclear plant also say that that people’s ignorance have become the investment for fuelling this uneasiness by vested groups. The reinforced fears that Trivandrum in the neighbouring Kerala would be wiped out because of the Power Plant is no doubt fictitious that there is also some substance in the furious counter arguments of Dr. Iyer, Member, KKNPP Expert Group and Radiation Safety Professional calling for law in this country against press spreading such canards? This is the time for the media to act on an objective part than fuelling fear psychosis in the minds of innocent people.
It is a matter of fact that clean energy is our current quest and to achieve energy self sufficiency there emerge an urgent need for greater awareness among citizens towards nuclear power generation. Also it becomes the moral responsibility of the Government for clarifying the doubts of a common man on disproportionately feared issues of Safety Concerns of Atomic Power plant and related waste disposal mechanisms.
And the issue has been only a local issue and not even a matter of concern or attention for the people of the region or the state, which means, there is still some scope for the Government to act and take control of the situation. So far the issue has not cropped up into an ideological warfare against nuclear power generation but just a local uneasiness for fear of loss of livelihood. When similar projects in the pipeline in Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra are met with simmering public resentment the issue needs to be viewed more empathetically departing from the conventional mindset like “Legitimacy of State” and “Larger Public Interest” lest it would aggravate as the biggest headache for the State and Central Governments. If a careful and a well synchronized action is taken by the Government with confidence winning measures, the impasse would be easily resolved.
Whatever the case, one can never undermine the demands of a liberal democracy to win the hearts of people as any achievement at the cost of resentment will only undermine the belief and their respect for democracy that we are witnessing in the recent years and Koodankulam should never become yet another disaster of Democracy because it is more dangerous than a nuclear disaster!
dear kumaresan, read your write-up and found your wonderful effort behind it and also I appreciate your approach of handling both sides of coin in a rightful manner.
ReplyDeleteBut in my opinion i feel that the agitators have tightly closed their ears and wearing spectacles which only views the theoretical endangers and have shaped their minds only to believe, though most of them are semi literates, what a handful of people say are right.
Thanks for the Comments Sir.
ReplyDeleteI wish to further observe that ,the protestors started their agitations and successfully managed to grab media attention in the beginning stage but abruptly at the midcourse of the agitations seems to be lost, bungled with the conceptual clarity for the very cause of the protest as (1) whether the protest is ideologically opposed to Nuclear Power Generation per se or (2) the supposed threats of Livelihood because of the project. I feel they are lost inbetween the two.