| |
Debate
No public accountability
A new chance for human rights
04/2006 |
|
[ Comment ]
No public accountability
President George Bush’s deal on nuclear cooperation with India is danger-prone. It sets the wrong examples of,
first, not respecting multilateral standards and, second, promoting nuclear power without any respect for public debate.
[ By Usha Ramanathan ]
On the day that Mr Bush was visiting Delhi, banners strung across the city’s arterial roads warned: “Avoid India Gate – Connaught Place – Ram
Lila Grounds on 2nd March 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.” This was the Delhi Police, with their motto “We want you safe”, telling Dehliites to stay away
from Mr Bush’s route or else face the inconvenience and delay that heightened security would inevitably bring with it. If this seems a contrast
to a time when the people of a city were encouraged to come out in large numbers and to wave a welcome to visiting heads of state, so indeed it is.
The streets teemed with the tens of thousands who had congregated to protest the Bush visit. Distrust of the American establishment’s motive
in placing India on its policy map was reinforced when Mr Bush declared: “Men and women from North Korea to Burma [Myanmar], to Syria,
to Zimbabwe, to Cuba, yearn for their liberty ... We must stand with reformers and dissidents... ” The attempt to draw India into a friendly
fold where American judgment of the wrong, the unlawful and the evil would tutor Indian perceptions was received with unease, and
embarrassment, by the Indian leadership. Yet, it was the silence of politeness and not a rebuttal signifying difference and distance from
the US position which followed the President’s sweeping statement identifying their villains. Popular opinion, in contrast, was forthright
in its condemnation of US unilateralism.
The Indian government’s unwillingness to cry foul in the face of US unilateralism is, though, easily explained. The Indian nuclear
establishment, valiantly backed by the political bureaucracy, was banking on the US to step out of line to create a capacity to access
fuel to keep its nuclear programme on the rails. Separating the nuclear weapons programme from its civilian uses, and placing the
latter under the safeguards regime, was projected as an advance in the cause of nuclear safety and responsible use. Of course no one
is fooled when a country which has entered the nuclear weapons race is lent a legitimacy after having had sanctions imposed on it
when it conducted nuclear weapons testing less than six years ago. The timing is not lost on anyone either: when Iran is being
targeted and threatened for its nuclear programme, India, it would seem, is being rewarded. In justification, the US establishment
has been repeating, mantra-like, that the Indian state is “responsible”, implying that the US has the singular right not merely to
judge responsibility, but irresponsibility as well. The consequence, depending on its judgment, may be support in expanding a
nuclear programme, or annihilation.
One problem with this renewed focus on nuclear energy is that it is made in a climate of continuing opacity. The Atomic
Energy Act was enacted in 1962 to invest control in the Central Government over all nuclear installations and resources
needed for the programme. Nuclear installations continue to be protected from any manner of public scrutiny. The past 25
years have witnessed the emergence of hazard jurisprudence, which has been spurred into existence by the Union Carbide disaster
in Bhopal in 1984. Chernobyl and Bhopal have been stark demonstrations that industry is not invulnerable to disaster,
and that the consequences can be grave. Then, there are the enormous difficulties in disposing of nuclear waste. Yet, from
the Official Secrets Act, which has been on the statute books since 1923; through the Atomic Energy Act 1962; and the water
pollution law of 1981 which preserves the Atomic Energy Act while it overrides every other law; to even the 1991 enactment
which provides for interim relief to those harmed by an “accident” – except for one caused by “war or
radioactivity” –, the nuclear establishment stands clear of accountability within our land.
The Indian Constitution does not require treaties and agreements with foreign countries’ to be ratified by Parliament. Major policy
shifts, including the revival and expansion of a flagging nuclear programme, and complicity in US unilateralism, have been effected
by undebated scientific priority-setting and executive assertion of will. In this, the Bush visit and the nuclear deal speak equally of
a distortion of democracy and a choicelessness of risk.
Dr. Usha Ramanathan
is a senior researcher at the International Environmental Law Resource Centre (IELRC), an independent organisation based in Geneva.
She works at the Delhi office of the IELRC.
uramanathan@ielrc.org
http://www.ielrc.org
|
