The fiction behind fission

The people of India have a right to know why and how India became a marketplace for foreign nuclear power plants and why top nuclear scientists and successive Indian Prime Ministers have been striving to import nuclear power plants to climb up the nuclear electricity curve from the present mark of less than 4% to 25% in the total electricity generation of the country.

A careful examination of the steps taken by the nuclear scientists and successive Prime Ministers shows one set of compulsions concerning nuclear power parks (NPP) at Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Mithi Virdhi in Gujarat and Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh and another set of compulsions concerning the nuclear power plant at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. Facts revealing these compulsions are required to be disclosed to the public in the constitutional democratic set up of India.

While uncovering these facts one is compelled to remember George Orwell, “In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act". To embark on such a revolutionary act, fortunately there is timely guideline from the DNA editorial “Jaitapur battle zone” Mumbai Edition (15-5-2015), which has far-sighted remarks and practical advice to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Successive Indian Prime Ministers who held direct charge of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have committed mistakes and Modi should learn from those mistakes. Civil nuclear power pursuit is different from nuclear weapon pursuit and informing the public fully and promptly on the safety issues arising in the civil nuclear power pursuit is mandatory according to Indian laws and International Conventions to which India is signatory. Such information dissemination would help in dispelling fear and confusion among the Indian public. People of India, thus informed, will be in a better position to express their opinions on the desirability and  the scaling up from 4% to 25% on the nuclear electricity curve.

Jaitapur, Mithi Virdi and Kovvada: From the time of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the DAE has been under the direct charge of successive Prime Ministers. With the type of decision-making process coupled with the secrecy surrounding the DAE, there has been all along a question mark. One gets an idea of a nexus when the Prime Minister holds direct charge of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and a senior atomic scientist commencing with Dr Homi Bhabha functions as the Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the highest policy making body in the atomic field and also works as the Secretary DAE of the Central government.

Only in the aftermath of the Indo-US nuclear deal, jointly signed by US President GW Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have some things came to the surface to reveal the way the Prime Minister could use the Chairman AEC and the way the Chairman AEC could also use the Prime Minister for their mutual benefit.

Singh was keen to accommodate the wishes of President Bush to promote nuclear power business in India and Chairman AEC & Secretary DAE, Dr Anil Kakodkar, was ready to fall in line, even though in the beginning he was not in favour of the nuclear deal. Singh had his own scheme and Kakodkar had his own scheme. The respective public offices held by them afforded opportunity to synergise their individual schemes and also to indulge in Orwellian doublespeak that what they were doing was in the interest of India’s energy security and to make India prosperous.

What looks like personal allegations against Singh and Kakodkar can be seen to be the raw truth when we pay attention to what Kakodkar told the Marathi daily Sakaal (January 5, 2011), “We also have to keep in mind the commercial interests of foreign countries and of the companies there … America, Russia and France were the countries that we made mediators in these efforts to lift sanctions, and hence, for the nurturing of their business interests, we made deals with them for nuclear projects.”

This statement of Kakodkar contains several revelations. Mediocre scientists who climbed career ladders in DAE by cultivating the politicians in power cannot deliver results without foreign collaborations. But sanctions come in the way of foreign collaborations. To help India get rid of the controls and sanctions, some countries in Nuclear Suppliers Group, including the US, UK, France, Japan wanted their pound of flesh in the form of sale of their nuclear reactors to India. In positions of power, the self-serving Singh and Kakodkar joined hands to formally position the Indo-US nuclear deal and cause India to sign deals for nuclear projects. A great deal of media spin is created to show all these foreign collaborations for nuclear projects as necessary to improve the energy security of India.

It shows conclusively that the deals for the nuclear power parks like the proposed nuclear power parks at Jaitapur in Maharashtra from the French Areva, at Mithi Virdi in Gujarat from the US and Japan (Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric Company) and at Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh from the US and Japan (GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy) are all  consequences of the compulsion to sign nuclear power plant deals with those countries for getting the sanctions lifted and not because India needs those nuclear power plants. 

Kudankulam: Two successive PMs, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, upon being convinced that scientists of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) were incapable of developing indigenous nuclear submarine design made plans to seek help from Russia.

The Russians were ready to help, but they proposed that India should not only pay for the help in the nuclear submarine project with Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) technology but should also be willing to purchase civilian nuclear power reactors of PWR design from Russia. Because of the incompetence in BARC and DAE, Indian leaders agreed to pay for the nuclear submarine project and also for the nuclear power reactors. Consequently, Kudankulam nuclear plant has come up in Tamil Nadu and the nuclear submarine project commenced at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Therefore, to say that those nuclear power plants are needed to achieve energy security for India is a deliberate attempt to mislead Indian Parliament and the nation.
There was the question raised by the then Member of the Parliament Anant Geete of Shiv Sena (regional political party from Maharashtra) whether India would do a re-think on nuclear power in the post-Fukushima scenario in which Germany and Japan have announced that they would give up atomic energy in a phased manner.

On May 16, 2012, during the Question Hour in Lok Sabha, the then Indian PM Singh replied to the question and asserted, “it would be harmful for the country's interest to pass an ordinance in the self-denial that we shall give up the option of having nuclear power”. Singh did not spell out the type and extent of harm that would come upon India if India like Germany makes a policy decision to give up the pursuit of nuclear electricity and fixes a time frame for phasing out all its nuclear reactors.

The truth is, India would reap enormous harm not by giving up further investment in nuclear power plants but by climbing further on the curve of nuclear power growth. It is  because the huge investment for nuclear electricity to the tune of Rs5.5 lakh crores would starve funds for other sources of power — hydro, solar, wind, bio and for energy saving schemes. India has to adopt its own energy policy based on its natural resources.

The writer is former Indian Navy Captain with PhD in nuclear technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay