South Asia Citizens Web

At a time when the whole world has been shocked by the multiple and continuing tragedies that have befallen Japan and most people completely shit scared by the daily news of new nuclear catastrophes, various functionaries in the nuclear establishment in India are outdoing each other in a race issuing reassuringly outrageous statements.

The tragedy in Japan should serve as a critical wake-up call for India, which has announced a vast expansion of its nuclear programme. A close examination of the events that led to the Fukushima accident holds important lessons.

The tsunami havoc and the atomic catastrophe it triggered in Japan has not lessened Dr Singh’s zeal to persist with his mission to tether India’s future to nuclear power. In fact, the prime minister told parliament this week a familiar half-truth: the existing nuclear units were safe and a fresh safety review would be carried out to further reassure the nation that India was invincible to a Japan-like disaster. Japan’s tragedy is poignant because it genuinely believed in the safety of nuclear power while shunning its military use. This cannot be said of India or Pakistan. Both seem happy to flaunt their nuclear biceps and, as is the logic of nuclear weapons, not without being also prepared to sacrifice millions of unsuspecting lives. As a matter of fact, the accident which occurred in Japan was foisted by nature on a non-militarist state that had overlooked the danger of still playing with nature.

Fukushima in Japan is the global atomic industry’s worst crisis since Chernobyl, and the first nuclear catastrophe watched by the global public almost in real time. This may yet lead to a meltdown not just in Reactor 1 at Daiichi, but also in six other reactors, including Daiichi No 3, which burns a more hazardous fuel (mixed plutonium and uranium oxides) than most reactors do.

In a statement issued here, a group of civil society organizations that include PILER, PFF, SAP-PK, SPO, SAFCOW, CPCS and SUNGI, expressed solidarity with the people Japan in their difficult time and hoped the Japanese nation with the support from international community would recuperate from this one of the largest human miseries in the history.