South Asia Citizens Web

THE March earthquake and tsunami in Japan have already claimed more than 10,000 lives, and some 17,500 people are still missing. This disaster has been compounded by the continuing threat of widespread radioactive contamination from the accidents at four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi site and the pools that contain their still hot, intensely radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Even if the nuclear accident is contained, it carries many lessons for South Asia.

150 million people live in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the peninsular India, 25 million more than that in Japan. It is the spices capital of the world. People cultivate cardamom, pepper, tea, coffee, ginger, turmeric, coconut, cashew and many more edible crops. Besides, our fishermen harvest exotic fishes high in nutrition and low in carbon footprint from the seas and the backwaters. These reach the food baskets of more than half the population of this planet. A large portion of the land in this Spice Capital of the world will be severely contaminated if a Fukushima type event occurs in one of the eight 1000 MW(e) reactors being built/ planned in Kudankulam near Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu. Besides ruining the lives of our farmers and fishermen, this will deprive billions of people of their spices.

On March 10, a week after the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minister for religious minorities, a bipartisan group of U.S. congressmen called on U.S. and international officials to formally oppose the draconian blasphemy laws that cost Bhatti his life by introducing a “Taseer-Bhatti resolution” in the U.N. Human Rights Council. The proposed resolution, named after Bhatti and Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who was also murdered recently for his efforts at repealing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, advocates for “the repeal of blasphemy laws and condemn]s] their adverse effects on freedom of religion and thought.”

A week after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there were already 7000 confirmed deaths with over 10,000 people still missing. This disaster was compounded by the nuclear accidents at four out of the six reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant, in the country’s northeast, and the continuing threat of widespread radioactive contamination. Radiation levels close to the reactors have been above the legal limit, while traces of radiation have arrived on the West Coast of the United States, 5000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. There are many lessons for Southasia from the earthquake and tsunami about the need to be better prepared for natural disasters, to anticipate and take precautions in designing buildings, public infrastructure and communications, to assume that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, and to be organised and transparent. But there are as many lessons regarding the nuclear accident and what it means for Southasia.

The Government of India and the Department of Atomic Energy refuse to take the Fukushima nuclear disaster seriously. In a typical ritualistic manner, the Indian prime minister has called for a review of the safety procedures in the nuclear power plants (as though their "review" would make the plants much safer.) The DAE chief Srikumar Banerjee has dismissed the Fukushima radiation claims in a press meet in Mumbai and claimed that "all of it was not factually correct." We need to tell our establishment that Indian lives have worth and sanctity. We are not dispensable people. As the citizens of the largest democracy in the world, we decide what we want for our better future. We are not for electricity; electricity is for us.