‘Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010’

Trading Indian People’s Life for Multinationals’ Profit

--Statement by Janpaksh

Once again showing its loyalty to the multinationals and imperialist masters the Congress led UPA government is all set to bring the ’Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010’ in the coming monsoon session of the parliament. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, 2010 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on May 7, 2010 which also happened to be the last working day of the Budget session. But due to vociferous opposition it was referred to the parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology for recommendation.

Though the avowed purpose of this bill is to “… define the “liability”, arising out of any nuclear accident, of an individual “operator” – independent of (and unaffiliated with) the Government of India.” But even a cursory reading reveals it’s brazenly pro-capitalist anti people bias.

The main features of the Bill are:

• It defines nuclear incidents and nuclear damage, nuclear fuel, material and nuclear installations, and also operators of nuclear installations.

• It lays down who will be liable for nuclear damage, and the financial limit of the liability for a nuclear incident.

• It creates authorities who will assess claims and distribute compensation in cases of nuclear damage. It also specifies who can claim compensation for nuclear damage, and how compensation can be claimed and distributed.

• It specifies penalties for not complying with the provisions of the Bill, or any directions issued under it.

[Source: PRS Legislative Research (PRS) website]

This government has been propagating that the Nuclear Liability bill would kick-start the process of construction of nuclear reactors thus solving the much needed energy requirement of the “growing India”. The protagonist of Nuclear energy needs to be asked one question, if nuclear energy is so efficient then why the USA for more than three decades has not installed new nuclear power reactors!

Is the nuclear energy the panacea for India’s power problem? The statistics reveals a different picture. As of now, the electricity production from nuclear energy stands at 4,120 MW, which is a little less than 3% of the total installed capacity of power plants. Even if we are to add a 100,000 MW in the next 10 years, as the Ministry of Power is assumes, what is the best-case scenario for nuclear power? According a study conducted by the Planning Commission’s entitled Integrated Energy Policy, 2006, it assumes that taking the most optimistic scenario, the electricity production from nuclear plants would be 15,000 MW by 2015 and 29,000 MW by 2021. This would be about 7% of total energy produced. That too when this highly optimistic figure is met!

What would be the cost of this? A green field nuclear plant costs about $4 billion. The technologies would have to be imported from US that too with several strings attached and a typical plant takes somewhere between 5 to 6 years, so claiming that the nuclear energy is the only viable and alternative left for Indian, sounds hollow.

The bill real intention is giving a free hand to the private companies and the international nuclear cartel to play with the life of the masses while reaping millions of dollars as mega-profits without any sting attached as demanded by the capitalist pressure group FICCI in its June 2009 Report .

The only raison d’être of private players pushing for this bill is their lust for profit maximization while being free from all liabilities. The American nuclear cartel led by GE and Westinghouse, with open support of the US government has been forcing India to adopt a legislation that would absolve them of all legal and financial liability in case of event arising out of a nuclear accident. This is a clear pointer to the kind of safety measures and standards these companies would adopt while constructing and maintaining the nuclear power plants in this country.

Deliberately, the liability to be paid by the nuclear operators (the private capitalist both multinational and Indian) has been kept abysmally low, to placate the interest of the ‘operators’.

In fact, the Clause 6 (2), states: The liability of an operator for each nuclear incident shall be rupees five hundred crores. The total liability for a nuclear incident has been kept as 300 million Special Drawing Rights (Approximately Rs 2100 crore at current exchange rates) of this the total liability of the operator would be a paltry sum Rs 500 crore or about $110 million. With the further rider, to lower it down to, even paltrier Rs. 100 crore.

If the liability exceeds Rs 500 crore, the central government shall be liable for the amount exceeding Rs 500 crore (up to SDR 300 million). If damage is caused in a nuclear installation owned by the central government, the government will be solely liable.

This means that in case of any mishap the real culprits would be only liable to damage in tune of Rs. 500 crore while the Indian people would be paying the rest of the compensation to the overall limit of 300 million SDR.

First, $110 million cap for the operator, or even higher $450 million total cap, would not cover even one-tenth of one paisa per rupee of damage in a worst case accident.

Further this bill violates the ‘Polluter Pays’ principle and the ‘Precautionary Principle’. In words of the former Attorney General of India, Soli Sorabjee, ‘the Right to Life as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India’. The bill also goes against significant Supreme Court judgments which have ruled that hazardous and dangerous industries owe an ‘absolute and non-delegable’ duty to the community to ensure safety.

A comparative analysis of similar laws in US and Canada revels the callous attitude of the multinationals and imperialist powers toward the life and property of Indians.

In the US any indemnity to be given in case of nuclear accident is governed by The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act (commonly called the Price-Anderson Act), in the event of an accident, the first $375 million is paid by the insurer(s) of the plant. It is mandatory to insure the plant. Beyond that, up to US$ 10 billion is paid out of a fund jointly contributed by the “operators” as mandated by the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. Beyond that, the Federal Government pays.

The Canadian government has introduced a draft legislation on April 16^th 2010 known as Bill C-15 which proposes to increase a nuclear plant operator’s liability to Rs 3,000 crores at current conversion rate (which is not only six times the cap of Rs 500 crores contained in the Civil Liability for nuclear damage bill 2010, but it also exceeds the “maximum amount of liability” of about Rs 2,300 crores set out in the bill.) The draft legislation further proposes to increase the civil nuclear liability cap from the existing $75 million to $650 million. The bill further proposes to increase the operator’s financial security of at least $650 million that they have to maintain.

Contrast this with the Civil Liability bills that Indian Government has prepared and the imperialist view of “Indians being an expendable commodity” appears to be true.

There must not be any overall "cap" on the quantum of compensation to potential victims. That is too unjust and inhumane. It has to relate to the actual damages caused. The overall “cap” of 300 million SDR, which works out to about 460 million US$, is even lower than the compensation amount of US$ 470 million ratified by the Indian Supreme Court to the victims of Bhopal Gas Disaster way back in 1989.

This reveals the extent that the Indian ruling class has mortgaged the interest of the common people to the international bourgeoisies and its Indian counterpart the comprador bourgeoisies, turning the country to a neo-colony of the imperialism.

The government of India has to answer the pertinent question: What was the need for this government that it is in such a rush to pass a bill that only favours the international capitalists and imperialists while gratuitously burdening the people of a country. A country where 836 millions (77 per cent of total population) live on Rs. 20 a day or less.

The bill in its current form is an open invitation to disaster giving a free hand to the multinational companies at the expense of the life of common masses, so they reap in maximum profit without any concern for the safety of the people. Another Bhopal is in offing.

This bill has to be opposed, it is high time that the progressive and Communist Revolutionary forces of the country unite and chalk out a clear cut agenda of action to defeat this bill and also the vicious interest of the capitalists and their lackeys. Only a united front of all the radical forces of this country in consonance with the international progressive movement can thwart this nefarious act of the international capital.

Note:

1 crore = ten million (10000000)

07/07/2010

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We mourn the death of Comrade Moni Guha

To the editorial board of “Revolutionary Democracy”

April 20th, 2009

Dear comrades,
please accept our deep regret about the death of the  great Communist Revolutionary Leninist-Stalinist MONI GUHA. The death of comrade  Moni Guha is a great loss not only to the Indian communists  but also to the communists and the workers in all countries.
Moni Guha remained an adversary of Krushchevian revisionism and adherent of the revolutionary line of Lenin and Stalin until the end of his life.
He is always be remembered for his struggle against revisionism of all kinds and expressions, for the spread of the communist ideas and for the progress of the working class.

With internationalistic feelings,

The Political Committee of the "Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55"

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The "K"KE leadership in the congress of the social-fascist "C"PI (M), slayers of the Indian people

The congress of the revisionist “Communist” Party of India and the “Communist” Party of India (Marxist) were held in Hyderabad, Central India, from the 23^rd of March to 2^nd of April. The delegate of “K”KE was Nikos Seretakis, member of the department of International Relations of the CC. Of course, we are not surprised by the participation of “K”KE in congresses of other parties which, while – like “K”KE itself – shamelessly present themselves “communist” they bear no relation whatever to Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism and they are guided by Khrushchevian revisionism or other versions of bourgeois ideology and they have defected to the reaction camp. This is true for both “C”PI and “C”PI (M). However, what is indicative of the complete ideological degeneration and bankruptcy of “K”KE, is the fact that it participates in congresses of parties such as C”PI and “C”PI (M) which are not only on the right of the, already anti-communist ideology of Khrushchevian revisionism, but they are on the fore front of promoting and propagandizing neo-liberal policies.

The “C”PI (M) is the leading party in the so-called “Left Front”, the government coalition which includes other smaller opportunist and pseudo-left parties besides “C”PI (M) and which is in power in the state of Western Bengal since 1977. The policies of the “Left Front” not only have nothing to do with socialism whatever but they are identical with the reactionary, neo-liberal policies of any bourgeois government. The land redistribution promised by the “C”PI (M) simply never took place. At the turn of the 21^st century, only 15% of the total arable land has been distributed. Even so, 13% of all those farmers who received once a plot, by 2001, ended up landless again while at the same time the feudal production relations remain virtually untouched. Following the instructions from the WMF, the government of the “Left Front” has proceeded to the establishment of the infamous Special Economic Zones (SOZ) by expropriating, in favor of local or foreign monopolies, the land upon which the survival of thousands of poor peasants depends. The local textile and engineering industry, stranded in a long-term crisis, are handed unconditionally to the foreign and multinational capital. One of the oldest leaders of “C”PI (M) didn’t mince his words: “We want the local and the foreign capital. After all we are working in the capitalist system, socialism, for the time being, is not feasible.” After 30 years of “C”PI (M) government, the working conditions in W. Bengal are characterized by miserable salaries, labor intensification and flexible forms of employment. The workers’ insurance funds are embezzled without any pretext. Every time the workers embark on a struggle, they confront state violence and terror that is always in the service of the industrialists. Nevertheless we read in “Rizospastis” that: “the Congress approved of the tactical political line of the party for the next three years and confirmed the party’s fighting position against the government’s neo-liberal policies” (“R”. 6/4/2008). In addition, the statement made by the general secretary of “C”PI (M), Prakash Karat in his concluding speech at the party’s Congress is utterly provocative: “the party is standing by the side of the working class and the oppressed strata” (“R”. 6/4/2008).

The fascist deviation of the “Left Front” government takes the form of blatant violation of the most fundamental human and political rights. The arrest and the abuse of all those who fight for political, social and national rights has become a frequent event. There have been many incidents of sexual abuse and humiliation of women by policemen “in the line of duty”. Apparently, the police have been authorized by “C”PI (M) to make uncontrolled use of violence against any “suspect” or “trouble-making” element. The murder of nine people in North Bengal and one young activist in the South – in both cases after their arrest – is indicative. In 2003, police officers killed two tea workers. However, the massacre in Nandigram on the 14^th of March 2007 was the limit.

At the end of 2006, the government decided the building of a petrochemical complex in Nandigram following an investment by the Indonesian Selim group in the local SOZ. As a result many families faced the threat to lose their land and expelled out of their homes. Having seen the government’s determination to move on with the project, the people of Nadigram revolted. On the 3^rd of January they blocked the access to the area erecting barricades, digging trenches and destroying bridges. This situation lasted until the 14^th the day when the police forces launched their attack opening fire against the crowd and beating indiscriminately whoever was on their way. Many cadres and armed thugs of “C”PI (M), disguised in police uniforms, took also part in the operation. The final toll was 14 dead and tens of seriously injured by bullets all of them from the side of the peasants.

In the “C”PI (M) congress the “need for an all-sided strengthening of the party as essential prerequisite for the setting of a course in people’s interests” was stressed (“R”. 6/4/2008). How much more “strengthening” “C”PI (M) hopes to achieve when it is already participating in state governments in Bengal and Kerala? And when it is obvious that by “course in people’s interests”, it means the most unpopular and brutal neoliberal policy. The events in Nandigram shocked the public opinion in India and the rest of the world showing what the “Left Front” government and C”PI (M) really are: a fascist gang of murderers in the service of the Indian and foreign capital. Let anybody judge the relations between “K”KE and the criminal scum of C”PI (M).

Published in Greek in newspaper "Anasintaxi" issue 273, 1-5 May 2008

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On the Events in Nandigram

* This article, translated in Greek, published in Anasintaxi issue 263

The 14 known dead, the wounded, the raped and the unknown number missing in Nandigram, the victims gunned down by the joint police and the CPI M cadre ‘action’ on the 14th of March, visibly signify the pain of the marginalised sharecropper suffering from capital and state terror. Singur and Nandigram share their grief with the people of Kashipur and Kalinganagar in Orissa, the farmers who have committed suicide in their tens of thousands, the victims of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, the dispossessed of the SEZs being instituted across the country, regardless of the political persuasions of the state governments. In these we see the resistance of the tribal and the peasant to the policies of an imperialist-sponsored neo-liberal global economic order, which is being prompted by the IMF and the World Bank and is being supported by the ruling amalgam of the big bourgeoisie and landlords and their political parties. Something like a united front has been established from the RSS to the CPI M which avers that ‘there is no alternative’ to the path of neo-liberal globalisation. Under the shiny packaging lies the reality that the poor peasant and the tribal are being divested of their means of production by non-economic coercion so that Indian and foreign capital can flourish. It is the process which Marx termed the primitive accumulation of capital. The Indian state itself facilitates this process by purchasing land for Indian and foreign capital at rates far below the market value and so subsidising the rich at the expense of the poor peasant and the tribal. This much is common across the state boundaries of India in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh.

West Bengal, in Singur and Nandigram, is witnessing a crisis resulting from a peculiar path of development. The Indian communist movement from its genesis, as elsewhere, advanced the proposition that the transfer of the land to the tiller creates an internal market which can facilitate the industrialisation of the country on the basis of a democratic path of development in the interests of the working people. The domination of reformism from the nineteen-fifties ended this project. It was the peasantry of Naxalbari and the communist revolutionaries in the nineteen-sixties who once again posed the question of agrarian revolution in India. In reaction to this the reformist democratic left front in West Bengal carried out a land reform in the nineteen-seventies which ameliorated the position of the sharecroppers while retaining intact the landlord structures. This was the basis of the three decade longevity of the political rule of the reformist left in West Bengal. The modification of the sharecropping system, although it led to a regeneration of Bengal agricultural production, never led to the abolition of landlordism as such nor the transfer of land to the tiller, no more than it developed a system of cooperatives of the sharecroppers which would have been consistent with the reform of the capitalist system in agriculture. Similarly, no perspectives were elaborated for the industrial development of the state based on the internal generation of financial resources through public institutions. The overall failure to evolve a democratic path of economic development, despite the marked productive advances in the agrarian sector, in the decades of the chief ministership of Jyoti Basu in West Bengal could only lead to the cul-de-sac of economic stagnation. Under the current chief ministership of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya the left front administration has sought to break out of this stasis and opted for a fully-fledged neo-liberal programme of economic development in cooperation with big Indian and foreign capital through the establishment of Special Economic Zones. A large section of the working people in agriculture who are already bereft of sustainable economic livelihood face a future where they will be stripped of their land in return for paltry compensation while those sharecroppers who do not have legal titles will have to be satisfied with no compensation at all. Many of the people of Nandigram face a future of pauperisation which compels them, whether or not they have given their support to the CPI M in the past, to defend their livelihood from the intrusion of the Indonesian Salim group and its projected SEZ.

The pressure of US imperialism is mounting on the political class to further push forward the neo-liberal globalisation agenda in India and to effect a deeper alignment of the country with the requirements of US foreign policy around the world. The two major parties of the big bourgeoisie and landlordism, the Congress and the BJP in the main concur with the economic and political policies of the US; sections of the CPI and the CPI M still retain significant reservations on this score. It must be considered positive that the current peoples’ struggles in Singur and Nandigram have compelled the central government to rethink and prettify their policies on SEZs in the country and led to a belated, half-hearted and partial re-evaluation of their role by the parties of the left front government in West Bengal. The need of the hour is to unite all the democratic forces who are opposing the effects of the current neo-liberal programmes in order to halt and reverse them and to substitute in their stead a programme of pro-people industrial development founded on adequate compensation for the potentially displaced and the consent of the working people: for this strong, steady and sustained pressure will have to be brought on the left front government of West Bengal. This is the immediate task of the genuine left and democratic forces in the country.

Revolutionary Democracy
25th March 2007

Notes:

SEZ: Special Economic Zones, where normal laws of the country do not apply, right to form unions etc.

IMF: International Monetary Fund.

RSS: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, National Volunteers' Organisation, a Hindu fascist organisation which guides the BJP.

BJP: Bharatiya Janata Party, the Indian People's Party. A Hindu Fascist Party which indulges in pogroms of Muslims. Some 3,000 Muslims were massacred by them in 2002 in the state of Gujarat.

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