What’s wrong with the India-Japan Nuclear Deal? – Plenty
Reasons to Oppose the India-Japan Nuclear Deal – Nuclear Free by 2045 ? Dennis Riches 14 Aug 14 In late July and early August, a leading member of India’s Coalition for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, Kumar Sundaram, visited several Japanese cities in order to speak to the mass media and Japanese citizens about the proposed Japan-India nuclear energy agreement. He timed his visit to Japan to precede that of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the end of August. Modi will meet with his Japanese counterpart in hopes of finalizing a deal to allow the purchase of vital components of nuclear power plants that are proposed or under construction
Mr. Sundaram wished to draw attention to numerous problematic aspects of India’s nuclear energy ambitions, negative aspects which the mass media, intellectuals and politicians have failed to criticize sufficiently.
On July 31, Mr. Sundaram gave a press conference in Tokyo at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. During his hour at the microphone, he gave a detailed explanation as to why he believes the plans for nuclear energy development in India will lead to disastrous consequences for both India and foreign countries. This report summarizes the information given by Mr. Sundaram, with additional background information and commentary.
The Nuclear Energy — Nuclear Weapons Connection……….
In addition to the US deal, India now has bilateral arrangements with France, Canada, Russia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, and Australia. The present push for a Japan-India agreement could be seen as a multi-lateral effort that aims to facilitate nuclear deals for multinational corporations.
The preferential treatment for India set an obvious dangerous precedent. It signaled to other nations that there was a double standard, and it suggested that if they too defy international agreements to not develop nuclear weapons, they merely need to endure rogue status until pragmatic considerations force other nations to legitimize their nuclear power status. It signaled to China that the US was tacitly approving India’s nuclear weapon status in order to have a strategic balance to China in the region. It signaled the same to Pakistan, with the added message that its political instability would prevent it from getting the same treatment as India……..
The present Japanese government is willing to abandon the strong stance on disarmament and non-proliferation and instead just pay lip service to the issue, as it did this month with regard to the 69th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Times of India reported that on August 10th, the foreign ministers of India and Japan, Sushma Swaraj and Fumio Kishida, met on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum to exchange what, to my skeptical eye, was no more than cynical pieties regarding the Hiroshima memorial. ………
Neglecting safety, local opposition, environmental damage, economic viability, and the decline of nuclear energy in developed nations
Mr. Sundaram pointed out that even among various Indian government agencies the methods of developing nuclear energy have not been unanimously approved. Official environmental reviews have raised strong objections. Even among those who are, in general, supportive or undecided about nuclear power have voiced objections about the methods and the scale of the nuclear expansion. Nonetheless, diplomatic imperatives always sideline these concerns.
For example, after the Bhopal disaster, laws were strengthened to make foreign corporations liable for the damage they may cause, but these laws are now being rolled back in order to please the corporations that are building nuclear reactors. …….
Mr. Sundaram concluded by emphasizing that the pursuit of nuclear energy is an anachronism. India has been targeted by multinational corporations who can no longer make profits from nuclear energy in the countries where they built plants in the past. In this sense, India might be the lynchpin that the global nuclear industry is depending on for its survival. Indian elites are allowing themselves to be used in this way in order to legitimize the nation’s status as a nuclear power, but they have failed to consider whether it is necessary for any other reason……
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Mr. Sundaram is right in saying that majority of the nuclear power plants in India have been installed in seismic region. Besides that unsatisfactory safety coupled with local opposition to such nuclear power plants shows its extreme vulnerabilities. These power plants are pron to natural calamities like tsunami.
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India’s conclusion of a proposed civilian nuclear power agreement with Japan remains in limbo given fallout from the damage to the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power plant. On one hand, the disaster has hardened the position of the Japanese government and public regarding the dangers of nuclear power and renewed concerns over the need for more stringent compliance with international norms and rules on the proliferation of civilian nuclear technology. This has led to the persistence of restrictions on the supply of enrichment technology to India.
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Meanwhile, the Indian government has promised to take a fresh look at safety measures for all nuclear plants in the country, following the Japanese disaster. But it insists there will be no “re-think on the nuclear energy programme”. The problem is that India’s safety regulations are not good; no one really knows where the buck stops when it comes to safety.
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Now it is a long debated issue that India should not deal with the Japan over nuclear supplies and technology. Fukushima incident reports clear stated that Japan technology was out dated and not properly follows under the IAEA safeguards but Indian establishment here is only thinking to somehow operationalize their flawed nuclear liability law.
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