Nuclear Programme and Haripur Dilemma
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
"We need to formulate a nuclear programme"
AN eminent scientist, Dr Bikash Sinha of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, now Director, Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre and Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, is all for nuclear power plants in the country, specially in the backward regions.
In this interview with Subhrangshu Gupta in Calcutta, Dr Sinha is of the view that nuclear power is a must today to cope with the growing needs. Otherwise, we will remain in the darkness and go back to the candle-light days of the past. Excerpts:
Of late you have been championing the case for setting up large scale nuclear power plants in the country, particularly, in the backward areas. But why? Is it really necessary? Don’t we have plenty of thermal and hydel power plants?
Yes, it is really necessary. We have power from conventional resources. But they are insufficient and in future, the shortage will be enormous.
Then, we can go for more thermal and hydel plants to meet our needs. Why nuclear power?
No, we can’t go for thermal and hydel plants for an indefinite period. This is not possible. For thermal and hydel power generations, we need uninterrupted and prolonged supply of coal and water. But is this possible? I believe the 200 billion tonnes of coal reserves in the country will run out long before the next century. Hydro-potential is renewable, and would continue to be available, though at a level much lower than the total need. What do we do then? Should we go without power?
Don’t you think in a poor country like ours, setting up of nuclear power plants is too expensive a proposition?
No, this is not true. It is not too expensive. Apparently, the generation cost of nuclear power is slightly more expensive but if the transportation cost of coal from collieries to the plant is added, the total generation cost of both thermal and nuclear power would add up to the same amount .
What about the danger involved in nuclear power?
Danger? No, there is no danger. Rather, it is the safest and most environment friendly. There has been misconceptions about nuclear power as it is always associated with the atom bomb. But you know, atomic power has nothing to do with the atom bomb. You should note that the radiation leak from the uranium reprocessing plant in Japan was entirely man triggered, the result of private industry trying to cut corners. India’s nuclear safety record is one of the best in the world and has been so, for a long time, right from the Apsara stage in 1956. Large scale development of nuclear power is inevitable. Here again, the country’s uranium deposits are limited while its thorium deposits large. Hence, we need to formulate a three stage nuclear power programme.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000709/spectrum/main6.htm
Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (PBKMS) has appealed for international support to resist Haripur Nuclear Power Project. Meanwhile it is said that Bengal is off nuclear plant list. But officially it is not confirmed as yet. Mind it, it happened in Nandigram also. Where only militant resistance by Muslim Dalit United Peasants uprising stalled the controversial Chemical Hub!
India and the U.S. came closer to a final agreement on a civilian nuclear accord after making ``substantial progress'' on narrowing differences on the agreement during talks in Washington. The success of the accord, a pillar of President George W. Bush's foreign policy and one that officially ends India's exile from the nuclear club, will need to be approved by both governments.
``The discussions were constructive and positive,'' the statement issued in New Delhi by India's Foreign Ministry said. The statement lacks any specific timeframe for finalizing the accord, which will give energy-starved power plants in India access to nuclear technology and fissile material.
Accusing the opposition of hindering the industrialisation process in West Bengal, veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu today asserted that the Left Front Government would push ahead with its move.
''They are doing what they wish to do...they are not allowing industrialisation to take place. But we shall do it,'' he told reporters after attending the CPI(M) state Secretariat meeting.
The comments of the CPI(M) patriarch came few days after he alleged that the opposition was not playing a responsible role and called for cooperation to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government for all the 'good work' being done.
Mr Basu, who had an impromptu meeting with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee at his residence last month, asked the fiesty leader to hold dialogues with the chief minister to end the political deadlock on setting up a small car factory and a chemical hub at Singur and Nandigram respectively.
He had regretted that the Trinamool Congress supremo was not inclined to pay heed to his advice and go for a negotiated settlement of the differences.
Even though the Government pulled out of Nandigram with its plan for setting up of the proposed chemical hub, the issue was made a plank for campaign by a combined opposition that chalked out a significant victory over the Front in the recent municipal election at Panskura near Nandigram.
Spurred by the success, the Congress-Trinamool-BJP combine put up common candidates against the Front nominees also in the adjoining Haldia which goes for municipal election tomorrow.
However, Mr Basu asserted that the Left Front would retain control over Haldia municipality, even with lesser majority.
''We shall win. But last time we won all the seats there. I can not say whether we will be able to retain all those seats,'' he said.
PBKMS has now taken the lead in organizing resistance to the latest government land seizure, a project to construct a nuclear power plant on 5,000 acres of productive farmland in Joonput-Haripur to provide electricity to, among other consumers, the industrial facilities being established (on highly favorable terms to investors) on expropriated farmland. On November 16th, a technical team came to West Bengal to inspect seven possible nuclear power plant sites. PBKMS, after learning of their plans, organized a blockade at Joonput -Haripur, leading 5,000 residents to resist the officials’ entry on November 17. Resistance continued on the 18th, despite a huge police presence. On the 19th, government officials continued their attempts to enter the area while the team of nuclear experts met the Chief Minister, who officially designated Joonput-Haripur the chosen site despite massive local opposition.
PBKMS members in Joonput-Haripur are resisting the land seizure for two reasons. First, the rich, multi cropped land is used to grow the rice, wheat, mustard, potatoes, betel leaf and chilies which support 25,000 people. It also includes a sea beach which supports some 20,000 fisherpeople. The buffer zone for a nuclear plant in India includes a 1.6 kilometre radius where no one is allowed to live. Only 10.000 people can live within a 5 kilometre radius, 20,000 within a 10 km radius and 100,000 within a 30 km radius – in this case all rich and densely-populated farmland.
Secondly, the residents of Haripur justifiably fear the potential effects of radioactive pollution on their health and their lives. Fisherfolk fear a drop in fish yields due to heating of the sea water which will be used to cool the reactor.
PBKMS was part of a successful state-wide campaign in 2000 to stop construction of a nuclear plant in the ecologically sensitive area of Sunderbans. It has been preparing its members in Joonput-Haripur for the nuclear industry invasion for the past 5 months. Educational meetings with nuclear experts, street meetings and the distribution of leaflets against land acquisition and in support of the Singur struggle have been organized. PBKMS members were therefore well prepared for the visit by the nuclear establishment.
On November 20, PBKMS took the lead in forming the citizen’s committee Parmanu Chulli Birodhi O Jeeban Jeevika Bachao Committee (Committee Against Nuclear Plant and For Life and Livelihood), which includes all political parties and trade unions. The West Bengal government is pushing nuclear power as part of its strategy of industrialization at all costs. Its nuclear enthusiasm is also connected to the recent Indo-US nuclear deal, which has been strongly resisted at the national level by the parties that form the West Bengal government. Despite national protests against the agreement, the Left Front in West Bengal appears to want to be the first to take advantage of an agreement which is crucial to salvaging the fortunes of the sagging US nuclear industry.
People's movement against Nuclear plant
March 2007 Edition
WEST Bengal?s chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee may have quashed most dissent in Nandigram by assuring withdrawal of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) but in Haripur a non-violent people?s resistance movement is gathering momentum against the building of a nuclear plant along the district?s coastline
The 10,000 MW nuclear power plant is to be built at a projected expenditure of Rs 30,000 crore. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is all set to begin the project, a gift to the state from the Union government.
This plant is one of several that India will have under the aegis of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Project which the US and the Bush administration have initiated to promote nuclear energy in the developing world. The plant is to start off with two reactors, with four more to come up in phases.
The plant, the biggest in the subcontinent, will require evacuation of about five km area in and around Haripur, Junput, Aladarput, Baguran-Jalpai, Bichunia, Kadua, Gopalpur, Deshdattabar, Majilapur and Saula, and affect more than 50,000 fisherfolk, besides another one and a half lakh vendors, farmers, and traders.
Although the major part of the 1.6 km core area will be government land, the buffer zone that has to be cleared for security reasons will spell the end of Junput resort, and fertile farmlands lining the coast. It will mean the end of miles of cashew and betel leaf plantations, as also paddy and vegetable producing farmlands. The market town of Junput where tonnes of fish are traded daily will disappear. Of the 42 fish landing centres that are an integral part of the economy here, 17 will go. So will 45 primary schools and four high schools that have been serving the community for years.
Meanwhile, the radiation caused by the nuclear plant is bound to affect marine and agricultural produce up to 30 km along the coastline. This means it will have an adverse impact on fish from Khejuri to the resort town of Digha. So far this region has been called the ?fish basket of Bengal?.
Fishing in Haripur is done all year round, with the major catch concentrated around September-March. From April to August, pin fish and shallow water species fill up the nets. A good part of the catch is dried and processed to be sent to markets in Tripura and North Bengal.
http://www.mediaforfreedom.com/ReadArticle.asp?ArticleID=2143
India, between nuclear euphoria and Naxalite insurrection
by Alberto Cruz
Global Research, July 5, 2007
CEPRID - 2007-07-18
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India is the second most populous country in the world and at the same time one of the most unknown. While on the one hand China and Russia are courting India so as to create a real counterweight to the United States (1), the country's oligarchy want to break with that proposed alliance and to do so are using the issue of nuclear power. Still, US proposals to share technology and nuclear fuel with India lack India's agreement on a crucial matter : whether or not to carry out new nuclear tests. The US opposes them, while India thinks that agreeing to US demands would limit its right to process depleted uranium fuel, a key step to obtain plutonium and, thus, would limit its sovereignty.
This is not only the official government position but that of the opposition, on both Right and Left, and of scientists, who demand that the agreement not be ratified unless Parliament does so beforehand. On that, both the Communist Party of India (Marxist), with 44 seats of the New Delhi Parliament's total of 543, and the right-wing Bharatiya Janata (138 seats) agree and without them it is impossible to get a parliamentary majority. The pressure is such that if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ratifies the agreement without parliamentary approval it would bring down his coalition government. It is worth noting that the government is made up of a centrist three party alliance led by the National Congress Party of India (145 seats), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (21 seats) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (16 seats), supported from outside government by the Left Front ( Marxist Communist Party of India with 44 seats, and the Communist Party of India with 10 seats) together with other regionalist and ethnic parties.
The Bush administration began the process of agreement with India on the nuclear issue in March 2006, at the same time as the beginning of the nuclear crisis with Iran.(2) That rapprochement consisted of the recognition by the US of India's nuclear capacity, justified as part of an effort by Bush to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons, avoid an arms race between India and Pakistan and reinforce India-US ties. It put an end to the 30-year embargo on nuclear material imposed on India in 1974 when India - which is a non-signatory of the Nuclear Arms Non-Proliferation treaty, while Iran is - carried out its first nuclear test. In accordance with the agreement, which is up in the air for now, India would accept the presence of International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) inspectors in 14 of its nuclear installations and would clearly separate the civilian and military aspects of its nuclear programme.
But the agreement went even further : it sought to have India break off all its energy and military agreements with Iran. The US offer included stronger trade links with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, two Central Asian states with large energy reserves, especially gas, and likewise with Afghanistan and Pakistan to make good India's energy deficit if it were to break with Iran.
Both India and Pakistan have signed an agreement with Iran to build an oil pipeline, "the oil pipeline of Peace" worth US$7bn, to distribute gas to the three countries and this is expected to be formally signed on June 30th. This is something the US is trying to avoid at all costs since at the end of June it intended to return to the UN Security Council asking for a new set of harder sanctions against Iran for not halting its nuclear programme. Already early pressures are being applied by the US to the member countries of the UN Security Council so as to include gas companies within the sanctions.(3) As usual, US foreign policy carries an undeniable element of coercion and in this case more than usual : in exchange for the signing of a nuclear agreement, the Bush Administration would support India's entry into the Security Council as a permanent member, although without veto rights.
According to the UN reforms timidly initiated by Kofi Annan, the UN Security Council would be enlarged taking into account new global realities and would include as permanent members, without right of veto, Germany for Europe, Nigeria or South Africa for Africa, Brazil or Mexico for Latin America and India or Japan for Asia. The criterion used by Kofi Annan was demographic and economic weight, dressing it up with criteria of greater representation in the UN's executive body for different peoples and cultures.
Maoist insurrection and the struggle for land
India aspires to become an unrivalled regional power by 2015. But, to achieve that, guaranteeing its energy needs (oil and, preferably, gas) is vital and it is in this regard that nuclear energy plays an important role. Since its independence from Great Britain, India has tried to set out from what one might call "an economy of size", taking advantage, in other words, of its geographic and population potential. However, despite enormous social differences revolutionary forces, or the Left, if you like, have had difficulty making progress given that capitalism has developed slowly but constantly. The explanation for this situation is that since independence in 1947 India had relatively developed industry and a wealthy, powerful bourgeoisie very adept both at international politics (one should not forget India's importance in creating the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries) and national politics, integrating social measures - although without abolishing the caste system - with outright capitalist ones.
However, during the last 18 years, India has implemented neoliberal policies, gradually dismantling its centralized economy and privatizing its main sectors under the wing of a battery of laws to protect Direct Foreign Investments, especially those from the United States that have now increased from US$76m to US$4bn. At the moment, India's gross domestic product is about US$786bn, four times that of the rest of countries in South Asia.
This policy has led to an increase in the middle classes to around 300 million people, the Bollywood movie watchers and migrants to Europe or the United States and who are more and more isolated from disadvantaged classes not only along traditional caste divisions but in economic matters too. It is reckoned that more than 700 million Indians live in the most absolute poverty. Almost all of them are rural workers who live on small plots of land of less than one hectare and who depend on big private businesses for supplies of seed, fertiliser and other inputs. Furthermore they have to survive amidst impressive industrial projects (especially mining projects) and water projects that flood their land or else expropriate them at absurd prices. To that one has to add the traditional oppression that lower castes have suffered since time immemorial and the ever-increasing presence of paramilitaries in the service of big landowners.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6229
Even the Marxists, meanwhile, can take comfort that military nuclear facilities will soak up a good deal of that cash which they fear would go towards military purchases from America. In fact, the tone and wording of the Official Statement of the Communist Party (Marxist) of India this week, was surprisingly mellow, once stripped of the usual garbage coating. The CPM's US-located camp followers the FOIL, however, did not disappoint: they came up with the usual condemnation - this time perceiving a slight to Communist China in the US-India alliance.
http://www.india-forum.com/articles/37/1/P-6-and-Nuclear-Truth
Bengal off nuclear plant list
23 Nov 2004, 0225 hrs IST,Subhro Niyogi,TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/931925.cms
KOLKATA: West Bengal will remain nuclear-free. At least, till the end of this decade. It isn't official yet but Department of Atomic Energy chairman Anil Kakondkar admitted that West Bengal was off the list of prospective states where nuclear reactors would be located in future. So are Orissa and Jharkhand. DAE had earlier scouted the region to identify potential sites for nuclear plants. "The aim was to have dispersed nuclear reactors across the country to meet the energy needs. The quest for location-neutral nuclear capability led to preliminary examination of several sites.
But, east is off the radar right now," Kakondkar said. This puts to rest furious debates that broke out following a National Power Commission proposal to locate a nuclear power plant in either the Sunderbans or Purulia. The state government had rallied behind the proposal and even promised land despite strong objections from within the ruling party as well as environmentalists.
The DAE chairman was, however, quick to point out that the reason for overlooking West Bengal and other eastern states was a commercial one.
"East does not make sense due to two reasons – first, competing against thermal power was tough as the region had abundance of coal reserves; and second, there is a mismatch in the grid capability at present," he said.
Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AER
chairman S.P. Sukhatme too, agreed to Kakondkar's rationale. "It makes sense for nuclear plants to concentrate in south, west and central India where coal reserves are low or absent.
Power from new nuclear plants is more expensive. Till the disparity remains, it is commercially unviable to pursue thermal generation in the east," he said.With the country's current nuclear capacity at 2,700 mw and 4,600 mw more under construction, Nuclear Power Corporation is required to add a further 2,700 mw to achieve DAE's target of 10,000 mw by 2012. That means setting up at least four nuclear reactors of 700 mw capacity. Though West Bengal is not on the nuclear grid at present, Central Electricity Authority chairman H.L. Bajaj felt it was inevitable in the long-term.
"Nuclear is the future of India's power needs. From the current 3 per cent, the nuclear component in country's power generation capacity needs to touch the international benchmark of 17 per cent," he said. Kakondkar did not rule out the state's re-evaluation in future.
The Chornobyl Nuclear Disaster
http://www.infoukes.com/history/chornobyl/elg/
Nagarik Mancha on West Bengal Land for Nuclear Plant
[In the current issue (28 January 2007) of the central weekly ‘organ’ of the CPM, People’s Democracy, party general secretary, Prakash Karat takes ‘the modern-day Narodniks who claim to champion the cause of the peasantry’ to task for opposing the historic task of industrialization. Inculded among these ‘modern day narodniks’ are ‘the likes of Medha Patkar’ and many other ‘Left intellectuals and progressive personalities’ apart from the hated naxalites, of course - all of whom have ‘ganged up’ with the Trinamool Congress, BJP and the Congress. Mr Karat is saddened by the this development but nonetheless ends up admonishing these Left intellectuals and asking them to ‘ponder on the question of why they have placed themselves in the company of the virulent anti-Communist gang in West Bengal and CPI(M)-baiters in the big business-run media’.
We will reserve a more detailed comment on the series of points - alibis, to be more precise - made by the CPM leader for a later occasion. For the present pardon us for simply asking whether Karat thinks his company - that of the Tatas, the Salim group, and indeed the Ananda Bazar/Telegraph, is that of some ‘pro-communist’ philanthropists? Indeed, the tone and tenor or Mr Karat’s piece is at once pathetic and arrogant. Witness his attempts to argue that West Bengal is caught in a strange predicament and “will have the basic features of a liberalised capitalist economy” and so, “Those who believe that it can be otherwise are only deluding themselves” he admonishes. Well, Mr Karat, it is not everybody else’s problem that the CPM in West Bengal (and indeed in Kerala, if the ADB loan story is anything to go by) has painted itself into a corner.
Be that as it may, many of Karat’s points call for a longer discussion, if not for his sake, at least for that of those who are still hoping to find a way out - and such people are there in his own party - of this delightful corner. For the present, we present without comment, Karat’s definition of ‘Narodniks’ that appears in a note at the end of the article, that will provide enough food for thought, along with Buddhadeb’s letter to Sumit Sarkar and other misled Left intellectuals regarding the ‘end of history’ - without Tatas and the bourgeoisie, that is. He says:
Narodniks in late 19th century Russia believed that with the overthrow of Tsarism, a traditional village based communal system could go towards socialism. Considering capitalism and industrialisation regressive, they idealised the old peasant-village economy. Ultimately they resorted to individual terrorist actions against the Tsar and lost the sympathy of the peasants who were horrified by their actions (emphasis ours).
In the meantime, we present another story on the industrialization saga presented by Nagarik Mancha - AN]
BACKGROUND
Even as the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was ‘under-consideration’, the Government of India decided to set up five coastal nuclear power projects in the country. A 12-member Site Selection Panel, under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), visited a number of coastal districts in India during November 2006. The Site Selection Panel is said to have zeroed in on sites in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. Based on its final report to be submitted to the Atomic Energy Commission, the Government of India will finally decide on the sites. Only after that the Central Government-owned Public Sector Undertaking, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), ’spearheading’ India’s nuclear power programme, will undertake the job.
The NPCIL, the sole nuclear utility implementing authority, has a total of 16 operational plants with a capacity to generate around 3,900 MW, which is about 2.8% of the total electricity generated in the country. Seven more plants with a combined capacity of 3,000 MW are in advanced stages of construction, the first of which is expected to be operational by March 2007.
In all probability the proposed nuclear power plants will use light water reactors to be run on imported fuel. It is reported that Haripur will boast of six nuclear reactors each of 1650 MW - a total of 10,000 MW of electricity. Since the NPCIL can indigenously produce reactors capable of generating up to 700 MW, the Indo-US Agreement on Sharing of Nuclear Technology could pave the way for the transfer of US technology too.
http://www.kafila.org/2007/02/02/nagarik-mancha-on-west-bengal-land-for-nuclear-plant/
Anthropology Matters Journal 2005, Vol 7 (1)
1
Negotiating development: the nuclear episode in the
Sundarbans of West Bengal.1
http://www.anthropologymatters.com/journal/2005-1/mukhopadhyay_2005_negotiating.pdf
Amites Mukhopadhyay (University of Kalyani)
This paper examines the dynamics of anti-nuclear campaigns in the Sundarbans of West
Bengal. By focusing on a voluntary agency’s (in this case, the Development Forum)
engagement with the anti-nuclear protest, it seeks to interrogate the standard environmental
narrative in South Asia, which frequently characterizes the environmental movements as the
people’s spontaneous emancipation from a destructive and monolithic state. This paper argues
against such dualistic notions of state and society and documents local level negotiations in
the wake of plans to set up a nuclear power plant; negotiations that render problematic
theories treating the state or people as some kind of unified and monolithic unit.
Introduction
In July 2000, The Statesman, an Indian national daily paper, published a report in its
Calcutta edition on the Unnayan Sangathan2 (Development Forum) in Canning (a
place in the Sundarbans)3 and its campaign against the setting up of a proposed
nuclear power plant in the Sundarbans. The report said:
‘Two years ago the state’s Left Front government4 had come down
heavily on the Centre for conducting nuclear tests at Pokhran. Now they
1 I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. I am also thankful to
Sarah Franklin and Akhil Gupta for their detailed comments on an earlier draft of the paper which was
presented at the Anthropology and Science conference in Manchester in July 2003. I am grateful to my
supervisor, Pat Caplan for supervising with care my thesis out of which the present paper grew.
2 Unnayan Sangathan is a fictitious name given to the organization.
3 The region known as the Sundarbans (also spelt as Sunderbans) forms the southern part of the
Gangetic delta between the rivers Hooghly, in the west of West Bengal, and Meghna in the east, now in
Bangladesh. The area consists of low, flat alluvial plains intersected by several tidal rivers. The
Sundarbans encompasses an area of over 25,500 square kilometres, two-thirds of which lie in
Bangladesh and one-third in India. The Indian part of the Sundarbans (at the southern tip of West
Bengal) has about 104 islands (the rest is inhabited mainland), out of which about 54 are inhabited and
the rest are reserved for tigers. Frequent embankment collapse, soil erosion, and flooding are some of
the perennial problems facing the people of the region.
4 For the past 25 years West Bengal has been ruled by a Left-front government, consisting of the
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), as the dominant electoral partner, the Communist Party of
India (CPI), the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Forward Bloc (F. In the pre- and postindependence
period, the communists were engaged in various land struggles when they chose a
revolutionary path to assert the rights of the landless against the zamindars or jotedars (big
landholders). Later, the communist coalition partners, who came to power in 1977, were more reformist
than revolutionary (Kohli 1990: 367), aiming to radicalize the rural landscape through electoral means.
Anthropology Matters Journal 2005, Vol 7 (1)
http://www.anthropologymatters.com
2
plan to set up a nuclear power plant in the Sunderbans in South 24
Parganas. The CPI-M district committee is promoting the theory that the
plant will help develop the poverty-ridden area… [Unnayan Sangathan],
Canning, who held a convention with several [organizations]…
apprehend radiation and that’s the worst kind of development that this
area could do with… The Sunderbans, they say, do not need N-power to
light up their huts. They could do with non-conventional power options’
(The Statesman 10.7.2000).
However, this was not the first time a nuclear power plant had been proposed for
West Bengal. The earlier Annual State Plan Proposals also contained references to the
possibility of such a power plant in West Bengal (Government of West Bengal 1986,
1987).
What has united the different ruling regimes.the right, left and centre.is their
admiration for science as an indispensable constituent of the process of development
unleashed in postcolonial India. No wonder ‘science’ has been declared ‘a reason of
the state’ (Nandy 1988) that cuts across all political divisions and ideologies. If the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition at the centre conducted nuclear tests in
Rajasthan to show the country’s military might, the Left-front government of West
Bengal decided to settle once and for all the problems of the region by proposing a
nuclear power plant in the Sundarbans. According to left protagonists, a nuclear plant
for the purpose of generating electricity meant putting such technology to positive
use. This became clear when I interviewed Radhika Pramanik, a CPI-M Member of
Parliament (MP) from the Sundarbans and one of the brains behind the proposed
power plant. According to Pramanik, those protesting against the power plant could
hardly distinguish between nuclear power and the nuclear bomb.
Those protesting against the power plant claimed that the nuclear power plant was
only a ploy for making nuclear bombs. This was suggested because nuclear power
plants produce plutonium.a radioactive waste.which is used for making nuclear
bombs. Environmentally sensitive groups like the Development Forum expressed
concern over possible radiation and its impact on the region. The BJP government’s
nuclear tests at Pokhran in Rajasthan testified to the country’s nuclear preparedness,
but what went unconsidered was the fact that the impact of the nuclear explosion was
such that the houses in the vicinity of Pokhran showed signs of irreparable and
permanent damage. I will revisit some of the arguments for and against the proposed
power plant when I provide an account of the Forum’s anti-nuclear campaign in the
next section of this paper.
Amites Mukhopadhyay Negotiating Development
3
What makes the present proposal particularly significant is that this time the place
considered for the setting up of such a plant is the Sundarbans, which ranks among the
select few heritage sites. The Left-front government’s decision to install a nuclear
power plant in the Sundarbans was surprising in view of the fact that the same
government once evicted the refugees of Marichjhahpi island in the name of
conserving the delta’s rich wildlife. In this contex
