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It cannot be the case that the people protesting in Koodankulam have suddenly become knowledgeable about the dangers posed by a nuclear power station in their backyard. The bulk of the protesters seem to be the bus-ed in crowd, prepared to shout slogans and sit-in for a price as the organisers strut about mouthing stuff the audience barely comprehends about Koodankulam being a horrendous nuclear accident waiting to happen. The disaster at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power complex has provided them a handle. Unfortunately for the world, Japan has provided two intertwined benchmarks — the catastrophic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic weapons, and the Fukushima civilian nuclear plant disaster, until now when Fukushima is portrayed as a Hiroshima by other nuclear means.
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What has rendered Koodankulam an emotive issue, is the supposed shortfalls in nuclear safety that have ended up conjuring popular visions of a Fukushima in waiting. It brooks no reasonable debate as the issue has transited into the realm of faith, the physics and engineering of it be damned. This seems literally the case with the recently elected Koodankulam panchayat president Sandal V Muthuraja, who revealed to the Press that his election owed much to a parish priest of nearby Idinthakarai throwing his support behind him in return for opposing the nuclear power plant. It is possible that, unusual for a cleric, he is equally well-versed in Catholic liturgy and radiation risk analysis. More likely, however, he is an average Joe and a nuclear know-nothing convinced he is doing god's work if it also results in the filling of church coffers. The question then is the identity and motivation of the donors. The anti-nuclear lobby in India, unlike the well-off Green Movement in the West, is cash poor and so marginalised it has become irrelevant. But along with local opinion leaders, it has been co-opted by the well-funded Greens from abroad, to lead the fight against Koodankulam. This is what S K Jain, chairman, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd believes has happened, referring darkly to "Foreign nationals who are green from the US, Finland, France, Australia and Germany.... and backing locals in their agitation."
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The US reactor deals are thus hanging fire pending, at best, papering over of the differences between the Indian liability law and CSC. Russia, having grandfathered the Koodankulam plant under a 1988 bilateral agreement, has contracted to build four more VVER 1000 reactor units at the same location, which is seen by Washington as unfair advantage accruing to Moscow. This Russian edge is perhaps sought to be blunted by funnelling monies into a popular movement against the Koodankulam plant just before its commissioning. Considering its predicament, Russia may have encouraged the Communist Party (Marxist) to form the 'National Committee in Support of Jaitapur Struggle' and do in this Konkan fishing village what the Western countries may be doing to it in Koodankulam — using environmental and safety concerns to rouse the ire of people to stop the Areva plants from getting off the ground. This is equalisation process at work where the dog-eat-dog and dog-in-the manger principles of international politics intrude into the domain of high value nuclear reactor sales.