Focus on the Global South- India - Report of Public Meeting in Mumbai on Indo-US Nuclear Deal: Why? What? For whom?

Former Assistant Editor of the English daily ‘The Hindu’, Ms. Kalpana Sharma who chaired the meeting blamed media for creating confusion on the issue. People got divergent views which deserved more clarity, she stated.

Mr. Sukla Sen, an member of CNDP, blamed nuclear technology as immoral and profoundly unmitigated evil. It surpassed time and space barrier and its impact was widespread. It triggered the weaponisation programme and it was structurally incoherent logic to claim that it created ambience of deterrence. He gave example of what USA had been getting setbacks both in Afghanistan and Iraq. He stated that the latest measures on the part of mandarin of the country were to adopt Hydrogen bomb which had unfortunately larger potential for destruction vis-à-vis nuclear weapons. He suggested we should start a campaign against this deal because the Deal had not been clinched as it has to go through various stages like, separate treaty with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) laying down the scopes and terms of inspections of the 'civilian' plants, then agreements will be presented to the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for ratification. On consensual endorsement by the NSG the whole package will again be presented to the US Congress for final approval so as to enable the President to bring it into force.

If the deal was clinched it had the potential to grievously undermine the current global regime of nuclear non-proliferation and prospects of global nuclear disarmament, further aggravation of tensions and accelerate arms race in the region. So it’s a very serious negative development for global and regional peace and security. It would undermine the efficacy of NAM and other accountable bodies. It would create considerable dampener for efforts to develop ecologically benign renewable sources of energy – nationally and also globally.

Mr. Jayraman a nuclear scientist stated that the deal was done with the intention to reach into the strategic orbit of USA. It meant that UPA became a willing partner of USA strategic and assertive foreign policy which was in tune of Hyde Act which said clearly one had to be congruent of USA foreign policy. It will became nothing less than an instrument of USA foreign and security policies. It was not viable for peace and energy needs. Hence it would provide strong fillip to the aggressive ambitions of the Bush administration, he averred.

Mr. M.V Ramana, a well-versed nuclear energy analyst from Bangalore emphasized that nuclear technology was not cheap. It would bring a lot of problems when it would be difficult in all three dimension of nuclear adoption like availability, accessibility and affordability. More so it was not safe but a rather catastrophic technology. There was history of failure of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to produce large quantities of nuclear electricity. In 1962, Homi Bhabha, the founder of India’s nuclear programme, predicted that by 1987 nuclear energy would constitute 20,000 to 25,000 MW of installed electricity generation capacity. His successor as head of DAE, Vikram Sarabhai, predicted that by year 2000 there would be 43,500 MW of nuclear power. Neither of these predictions came true. Despite over 50 years of generous funding, nuclear power currently amounts to only 3,900 MW, just 3.1 per cent of installed electricity capacity of 1,27,056 MW (as of September 2006). Even if the DAE meets its current projections of 20,000 MW by the year 2020, it will only be 8-10% of projected total electrical generation capacity. He warned people about the stance taken by the proponent of nuclear technology which was propogated as safe through hyperbole about climate change, carbon and Greenhouse gas emissions.

In the end there was interactive session which clarified many queries with regards to the deal and related issues and created better understanding on that.