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Film-maker describes India’s repression of anti nuclear protestors

I’ve just been informed 30 people including the woman who helped me get to Idinthakarai have been arrested and detained by Tamil Nadu police. They joined another 54 activists who were arrested in September and have been refused bail, wasting away in dirty conditions in gaol after a big police operation invaded their village and beat the daylights out of anyone who could not run away fast enough.

David Bradbury on Idinthakarai’s anti-nuclear front line Independent Australia Posted by Sandi Keane  16 March, 2013 Award winning Australian filmmaker, David Bradbury, describes in chilling detail his visit to the epicentre of the Kudankulam anti-nuclear struggle in India – the beautiful seaside town of Idinthakarai. “……  We’re talking national security and big bikkies here – $140 billion in nuclear power contracts if the Centre Government has its way. He [ Deputy Superintendent NK Stanley Jones] repeated that the area was a prohibited zone under Section 144. I didn’t bother to draw the parallel for him that this was exactly the same rationale used by the South Australian coppers two months earlier in arbitrarily arresting people at Lizards Revenge outside Olympic Dam uranium mine.

There, SA police in similarly threatening Orwellian tones repeatedly warned us over loudspeakers, ‘You are now entering a Protective Security Zone. Under the Protective Security Act of the South Australian Parliament 2007, you are subject to arbitrary arrest, strip search and detention…’

It would seem the nuclear lobby worldwide has a special dispensation for suspending people’s normal rights of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of non-violent protest……..

The latest round of opposition to stop the opening of the Kudankulam nuclear power plants has raged for more than ten years now, with this last year seeing opposition to the Russian built nuclear power plants at Idinthakarai reach fever pitch.They are a hair’s breadth away from being fully operational. The nuclear fuel rods have been loaded. Tests are being done and are only waiting now for the green light…….

seaside villages all along the coast, not just Idinthakarai at ground zero, have opposed the opening every step along the way of the first two of six planned nuclear reactors. Tens of thousands of fisher folk who live off the ocean have taken part in a series of hunger strikes and imaginative land and sea based demonstrations and peaceful blockades. They’ve buried themselves up to the neck in sand at the approach to the plants. They’ve immersed themselves in the ocean and blockaded the harbour with their fishing boats. These rolling protests, born out of the non violent leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, have been continuous since 15 August last year – India’s day of Independence. Since then there have been two major police raids in March and September involving thousands of police each time.

In the last raid, the police lathi charged (with bamboo sticks) peaceful protestors and beat everyone in their path who could not flee fast enough: children, the crippled, women, old men and women. One fisherman was shot dead.

A plane swoops on the people at Idinthakarai during a peaceful protest. Another fell down and died from his injuries. People threw themselves into the sea as they tried to escape the tear gas and baton charges. The tear gas shells used showed an expiry date of 2002, ‘Made in the USA’ and they caused permanent horrible sores on the faces of the kids and those exposed to the outdated chemicals. The police entered the Lourdes church, broke the statue of Mary and urinated in the foyer area of the church. All of this I was given as first hand witness accounts. That is the price to people’s lives of going nuclear.

I filmed for the next ten days and was given a very humbling and wonderful insight into the life of this courageous little village. It will form the basis of my next film …..

That’s what’s happening in India right now. Certainly I enjoy the challenge and the adventure of going to places where authority and corrupt governance don’t want others to go and point a camera. It’s often quite nerve wracking though. Sometimes, dangerous to one’s life. However I don’t go to the edge for the sense of the adventure it brings. I go there so I can inform other Australians and my local community about what’s really going on and the hidden agendas operating. If taking the risks involved – physical, psychological and financial – result only in a pat on the back for the courage it takes, that’s not enough for me.

I want my community, my fellow Australians, to take ACTION with the information I bring back. Other communities who entrust me to film do so believing I can help them in their struggle. That’s the punch line for me. You have to take the information and run with it, and find ways of supporting the people of Idinthakarai by hassling the Indian Government through the local High Commissions in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra. Let both the Australian and Indian governments know you don’t appreciate this brave community being put through outrageous and anti democratic actions any more than you appreciate our governments opening up our local area to CSG mining and so spoiling the aquifers forever. It’s about human greed by a few at the expense of the majority of us. And it needs ACTION.

I’ve just been informed 30 people including the woman who helped me get to Idinthakarai have been arrested and detained by Tamil Nadu police. They joined another 54 activists who were arrested in September and have been refused bail, wasting away in dirty conditions in gaol after a big police operation invaded their village and beat the daylights out of anyone who could not run away fast enough. These activists have been charged with various offences including sedition, being ‘terrorists’ and waging war against the state. Some charges carry the death penalty. They are ordinary people like you and me. The police couldn’t get away with putting me in gaol, but they can do this to their own people.

We have to agitate for their release. They are only exercising their democratic rights to non-violently oppose the spoiling of their ancient environment, the same as people opposing coal seam gas fracking here. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/international/david-bradbury-on-idinthakarais-anti-nuclear-front-line/

March 22, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, India