*DEBATE ON INDIA’S NUCLEAR OPTIONS:

REJECT GNEP, HELP UN TO LIBERATE AND REFOCUS IAEA

By Engr. K Vijayachandran FIE

India, as a well-established non-weapon nuclear power, with one of the largest national research programs dedicated to the peaceful use of atomic energy, and representing one-sixth of humanity, is privileged to take the lead and help the UNO and its IAEA to re-draw the nuclear map of the world.

Manmohan’s nuclear agreement with President Bush was commented on by this author, as a pipe dream of our elite classes, to put USA on the driving seat of India’s Power sector. Passline, in its July/August issue, had published this commentary, which had cautioned: “… US had refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol, with the main intention of pushing its nuclear technologies, fuel as well as equipment and systems, in the global market, using its hegemonic hold and monopolistic position…. In the coming days we may expect a sizable media build up on the desirable role of US Nuclear Technology in solving our power problems and the need for dumping indigenous programs for nuclear power development…It appears that, India will be permitted to keep the bomb component of its nuclear program, which will be used as a symbol of national pride by the ruling classes, but the real target of US Imperialists will be its power component.”

During the past six months, editors and column writers of national newspapers were busy pushing out stories, eulogizing on the minimum credible nuclear deterrent provided by our indigenous nuclear program, but denigrating its energy component for inefficiency, high costs, lack of transparency, poor accountability, tardy progress and poor safety records, and generally supporting the views of US officials, who were visiting India, for expediting the Manmohan-Bush agreement. Dr. Kakodkar, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Secretary of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), was forced to come out in open defense of India’s three-stage nuclear development strategy, primarily based our own natural resources and aiming at the energy independence of the country in the long run.

Kakodkar as well as the establishments of AEC and DAE needs to be complemented for their patriotic defense of India’s Nuclear Program, formulated during the Nehru days. It is to be noted that USA, Russia, France, Canada, Japan, Germany and China are the only other countries that have a nuclear power development program comparable to that of our own, and India’s broad based and well-integrated program has several outstanding features. Atom for peace policy of independent India was a unique initiative and we have made substantial progress towards the peaceful applications of nuclear science and are poised for a major breakthrough in breeder technology that promises energy in plenty, within two or three decades. The program with its focus on the use of Thorium, occurring in the beach sands of Kerala, deserves the special support of the people of the state, with very scanty energy resources of its own.

With the near-term addition eight reactors (3960 MW) and commissioning of a new generation 500 MW Fast Breeder Reactor by 2009, to the already existing 15 reactors (2720 MW), the national program will be ready for a leap forward by the end of this decade, if allowed to proceed uninterrupted. But the Chairman of AEC coming out with an open defense of this prestigious national program, was not relished by the foreign secretary and other senior bureaucrats in Delhi, who were keen to tailor it to meet the exigencies of a foreign policy, that was turning more and more subservient to US interests. Editors and commentators of several national newspapers were annoyed and had even demanded political disciplining of the erring technocrats of our nuclear establishment.

Such acrimonious debates, denigrating India’s civilian nuclear program, are not entirely new: similar pleas and media propaganda were used for killing the 10000 MW of nuclear power by 2000 initiative, launched by DAE in the late seventies, with the active involvement BHEL, L&T and other major power equipment industries in the country. It was a bold program for the series manufacture of standardized 200 MW reactors within the country, inspired by the French success in building nuclear power plants and addressed to optimizing of costs and efficiency at all levels. Had this program been supported politically and provided with adequate funds, contribution of nuclear electricity could have been nearly four times what is today, and commanded a respectable share of more than ten percent of aggregate electricity generation in the country.

Environmental fundamentalists and foreign funded NGOs played a key role in killing this one hundred percent indigenous nuclear initiative of DAE. However, global perceptions on nuclear power plants have dramatically changed during the past few years, despite the Chernobyl tragedy, especially after the recent US refusal at Rio to ratify the Kyoto protocol on carbon emissions and global warming. Throughout the seventies and eighties, US administration was was the largest single benefactor of global environment movement that had looked at nuclear power plant, as an enemy of mankind, a worse enemy compared even to nuclear bomb. American society had invented even the derogatory word “nuke” for describing the cultural identity of the protagonists of nuclear power plants.

In fact, nuclear research in USA during that period was centered on neutron bombs, star-war and other horrendous weapon systems, conceived during cold war days, for containing communism. For long decades, research on nuclear reactors and power plants was stagnating in USA, thanks to political pressures from environmental and oil lobbyists. In many respects, India has gone ahead of USA, in reactor design and construction, as pointed out by Kakodkar in his recent public revelations. Situation is rapidly changing: US is trying to regain quickly its lost ground for it looks at nuclear electricity, as electricity of the future, and wants to end the pre-eminent status enjoyed by petroleum fuels, as an integral component of its medium term geopolitical strategy. US is now shaping up a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), obviously under its own leadership and aimed at a global shift in the primary source of energy, from fossil fuels to the atom.

US Administration seems to believe that all countries could be persuaded or forced into this new global initiative under its leadership, with the support of OECD countries and possibly even that of Russia and China. In India, environmentalist organizations and their spokespersons, who had successfully blocked DAE’s earlier initiative of 10,000 MW by 2000, have turned global protagonists of nuclear electricity and welcome the role of GNEP in solving the capacity problem currently faced by the country, through a massive import of nuclear power plants and systems on a war-footing. However, they continue their opposition to the indigenous program, by attacking its credibility based on all sorts of fallacious arguments.

Sekhar Gupta, the Chief Editor of Indian Express, for example, argues in his edit page article of 11^th February that, DAE has a culture of hoodwinking the Parliament by following the dictum: never lie to the parliament, but never tell a straight truth either: He simply forgets the fact that this is a near universal practice in Parliamentary Democracy and not a monopoly vice of India's nuclear technocrats. This only shows that, for critics like Gupta, any weapon is good enough for scandalizing and subverting our nuclear initiatives. Arguments on lack of financial accountability with regard to the nuclear program are also patently untrue: Accounts of Nuclear Power Corporation, Uranium Corporation, Electronics Corporation of India, Indian Rear Earths and other pubic sector undertakings and autonomous bodies under DAE, are subject to public audit as well as concurrent audit by the CA&AG of India and their audited annual accounts and reports are placed in both houses of the Parliament for their review on annual basis.

The good old vision of atoms for peace continues to decide the, priorities, content and direction of India's nuclear program even today, in letter and in spirit, despite the two explosions. Lion-share of the manpower and financial resources of DAE is claimed by energy and non-energy applications, with little or no focus on weapon manufacture and development. This can be verified from the budget allocations approved by Indian Parliament. India's atomic energy program, spread over activities like mining of atomic minerals, fuel preparation, power generation, agriculture, industry, health, basic technologies and fundamental sciences, is a unique one and its Board of Radiation & Isotope Technology and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board have a large network of establishments right across the country. True, restructuring and re-organization should improve efficacy and efficiency of organization but, this is an ongoing process within the DAE: The several public undertakings and autonomous boards, with well defined missions and objectives under a unified command, are proof enough for its organizational success.

Most of what happens within DAE and the numerous autonomous bodies and public undertakings under it, is an open secret known even to the US agencies, operating from Indian soil. Whatever remains as secret, can be reached, through the National Parliament if necessary, by even bribing its members. However, the two bombs that exploded at Pokhran were exemptions: They were mere political toys, fabricated and delivered with absolute precision and in secrecy, at very short notice by the political bosses. It proved only the technological capabilities of India’s nuclear establishment, which is extremely broad-based and competent. It is dedicated to peaceful objectives and has absolutely no secret weapon component.

India, like most other developing countries, does not have a sustainable development program, even for conventional weapons. What prevents India from developing its own nuclear or conventional weaponry of any practical significance is its extremely fragile national economy, dominated by private capital that play second fiddle to global monopolies, supported by Western powers. The ruling elite makes use of concepts like minimum credible nuclear deterrent etc mainly for hoodwinking ordinary people, and for establishing their hegemony over them. It is a mere hoax and everybody, including the US Administration, knows that India, Iran or Iraq can never be a nuclear threat to the world in the foreseeable future. India is not a nuclear weapons state, but thanks our broad-based atom for peace policy we are emerging as a super power in peaceful applications of nuclear energy.

Through bilateral deals and the GNEP, US is trying to legally bind India and other developing nations, to reveal information that can be used for putting up legal blockades and sanctions against their civilian nuclear program, and for legally infringing on their Intellectual Property Rights. What they seek is not information on secret weapon programs of developing countries, but legal rights for containing and intervening in their civilian programs, in order to curtail their bargaining power, continue one-sided commercial relationship and perpetuate dependency. Protagonists of GNEP in our country argue that it will help to open a global market for nuclear technology and related supplies, through the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Credibility of NSG in this regard is even more suspect than the International Atomic Energy Agency (IEAA), which has degenerated into a mere policing tool in the hands of USA. This organ of UNO, dedicated to international cooperation in nuclear energy, is not permitted to believe the findings and reports of its own officials, as was demonstrated in the case of Iran, Iraq or North Korea.

India had the moral courage not to refused sign the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on moral grounds: It was a discriminatory treaty, conceding the right of nuclear weapon states to hoard nuclear weapons. NPT has died a moral death but GNEP and NSG are even more immoral, because they deal with nuclear energy, which simply is the lifeline of future technological societies. India should say NO to GNEP and take the initiative for liberating IAEA from the clutches of US and refocusing on its original mandate for international cooperation on peace use of atomic energy.

India, as a well-established non-weapon nuclear power, with one of the largest national research programs dedicated to the peaceful use of atomic energy, and representing one-sixth of humanity, is privileged to take the lead, and help the UNO and its IAEA to re-draw the nuclear map of the world. This is our international duty and in discharging it, we will have the support of the vast majority of nations, within and outside the UN System.

End.

* Paper circulated at the inaugural session of Cochin Centre for Policy Initiatives, on 20^th February 2006.