Koodankulam anti nuclear struggle will spread beyond the region

The significance of the struggle waged by villagers in the south of Tamil Nadu stretches well
beyond the Koodankulam nuclear project itself.

because the Koodankulam project is closely intertwined with plans for expansion of the Kalpakkam complex, the struggle is bound to reverberate throughout the state of Tamil Nadu and beyond…

Anti-Nuclear Struggle Has Large Fallout, International News magazine, Peter Custers LEIDEN, the Netherlands, Oct 5 (IPS) – The anti-nuclear struggle in India did not gain the same national prominence as the hunger strike waged by Anna Hazare against rampant corruption among India’s top politicians. Yet a landmark it surely was in the history of India’s nuclear programme.

On Aug. 17, a group of activists started a hunger strike near Koodankulam at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu state. The action was directed against Indian government plans to commission a 1000 MW Russian-built nuclear plant.

From the very start it was apparent that this was not a struggle waged by a small disgruntled minority. The hunger strike was preceded and accompanied by mass demonstrations where thousands of fisher folk from surrounding villages took part.
The Gandhian style protests were temporarily suspended in late August, but they were resumed after the Department of Energy (DAE) indicated it would ignore the protestors’ demand.

Then, in the second phase starting Sep. 11, the movement peaked once more. This time, more than 100 people, including priests and nuns, went on indefinite hunger strike in the village Idinthakarai. Every day 10,000 people or more would gather from the surrounding area to demonstrate their support.
And every day support kept expanding, as students boycotted schools, merchants closed their shops, and gruel kitchens were set up in adjacent villages where fisher folk refused to go out to catch fish.

This time Tamil Nadu’s politicians just had to respond. On Sep. 19, Jayalalitha, Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, insisting the protestors be heard. Jayalalitha’s move capped an initial success for the protests, which arguably are the most widespread and sustained local protest ever to have occurred against nuclear energy in India. They closely follow the open discontent registered earlier this year against nuclear construction plans in Jaitapur along the Maharashtra coast.

Both Jaitapur and Koodankulam are crucial links in India’s plans to expand its reliance on nuclear energy. But whereas the technology for the new nuclear plants in Jaitapur is to be supplied by the French company Areva, the reactors being installed at the plants in Koodankulam are Russian in origin.

They are known as the VVER-1000/392 design. Though based on light-water reactors in use for long, the design is a new variant. Indian scientists have long questioned whether Russia’s VVER-1000 technology is safe. Doubts have further been fuelled by last March’s Fukushima disaster in Japan, and by the new assessments on nuclear safety made since then.

In a report leaked to environmental organisations in June, an amalgam of Russian state agencies admitted that Russia’s nuclear industry is extremely vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters. Some 31 security flaws were listed…..

Fishers in Tamil Nadu are also concerned that dependence of the light-water reactors on sea water for cooling, and the flushing of effluents into the sea will seriously disrupt the ecology along their coast.

Furthermore, Koodankulam protesters have pointed their finger at experiences gathered at Kalpakkam, the nuclear complex located close to Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai along the eastern coast.

Here the wider significance of their movement becomes quickly evident….. Kalpakkam has already proven to be a dangerous hotspot…..

The significance of the struggle waged by villagers in the south of Tamil Nadu stretches well
beyond the Koodankulam nuclear project itself. Resistance was called off after the union government in Delhi sent minister of state V. Narayanasamy to Tamil Nadu to talk to the Koodankulam protestors.

Still, it would be wrong to believe that the demand of the protestors – that no nuclear production in Koodankulam be started – will easily be accepted. The stakes are very large, since India’s nuclear lobby has set its mind on turning India into a plutonium power. Yet because the Koodankulam project is closely intertwined with plans for expansion of the Kalpakkam complex, the struggle is bound to reverberate throughout the state of Tamil Nadu and beyond…

http://www.international.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2698:anti-nuclear-struggle-has-large-fallout&catid=80:politics&Itemid=120

October 6, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, opposition to nuclear

No comments yet.

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope