[Reader-list] Open letter to the prime minister of India to scrap the Indo US nuclear Deal

[Partha Dasgupta]

Hi Asit,

Just for a moment, lets not wear the blinkers of "US Imperialism" and
look at what the scenario is and what the options are:

1.  India has already started the Nuclear Race with Pakistan a long time back,
     and with the distrust between the nations, would be surprised if
they'd stop
     just because the current treaty is not signed. So what is this
talk about India
     being Nuclear Free?

2.  How does signing make India lose it's "hard earned sovereignty"? On one hand
      you talk of a nuclear race and on the other do not wish to sign
on the dotted line
      to use nuclear bye products for peaceful purposes!

3.  We're already chock a block on Coal and other power creators. With
the water based
     ones, the displacement will be high (not counting the arguments
with Pakistan & Bangladesh)
     and, of course, the recent posts on this list about the water in Kashmir.

4.  What sustainable method of power generation do you have in mind -
unless your contention
     is that India should live without power and that power is only
for cities. Sounds highly illogical
     to me.

In fact the whole message comes across as " they're the US, therefore
everything they do is evil" which is something I will not accept as a
reason. Both Russia and China have Nuclear capability for both power
and warfare, yet because it is the US that has offered it, the treaty
has become a tool of "US Imperialism".

Doesn't wash.

Rgds, Partha
....................

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:28 PM, Asit asitreds <asitredsalute at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Dear Friends
>
>                     Please see the following letter to the prime minister
> to scrap the Indo-US nuclear deal, if you agree with the political content
> please endorse the letter.And if possible please forward it to others.
>
>
>
> With Regards
>
> Asit
>
>
>
> AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINSTER OF INDIA TO SCRAP THE INDO US NUCLEAR
> DEAL
>
>
>
> To
>
> Shri Manmohan Singh
>
> Prime Minister
>
>
>
> Dear Prime Minister,
>
>
>
> We the undersigned demand scrapping of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal with
> immediate effect. The content of the Deal which is currently being
> negotiated between India and the US was the first laid out in the joint
> statement issued by the Prime Minister and the US President on July 18, 2005
> from Washington DC and further reiterated on March 2, 2006 in another joint
> statement by them issued from New Delhi. The signing of the Henry Hyde Act
> on December 18, 2006 is logical interference of the content of the Act
> legally making India a junior ally of the US Imperialism confiscating
> and  trunacating
> our hard earned sovereignty.
>
>
>
> We therefore demand that the Indo-US Nuclear Deal be scrapped given up with
> immediate effect and the ongoing talks between IAEA should be called off
> immediately.
>
>
>
> The Indo-US Nuclear Deal is patently anti-people, will make India a
> strategic ally of American Imperialism in South Asia to impose its hegemony
> over Asia. The Deal also negates the concrete achievements gained by the
> International and national peace movements for disarmament and Nuclear-free
> World. After the example of the ruthless genocide, devastation and
> occupation of Iraq before us, we feel that the Indo-US Nuclear Deal will
> become an instrument for ruthlessly imposing the neo-liberal economic agenda
> and pliant regimes over the impoverished people of the Third World and
> further tightening the hold through the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, US Imperialism
> will have a firm grip over the governments of   the independent
> nation-states of India and Asia. This makes a mockery of the cherished
> values of equal and democratic world order and the aspirations of the
> national liberation struggles including the whole spirit of decolonization.
>
>
>
> The Indo-US Nuclear Deal is an outrageous instrument of recolonization of
> India and Third World. The Deal, as and when comes through will, grievously
> undermine the current global;  regime of nuclear non-proliferation, as it is
> meant to make an unique exception in case of India, in gross violation of
> underlying principles of the International peace, workers, environment and
> women's movements.
>
>
>
> The fact that Pakistan has been brusquely refused a similar deal by the US
> in spite of persistent clamouring, and Iran is being demonstratively coerced
> to desist from developing its own nuclear power production allowed and
> encouraged under article IV of the NPT which further brings out graphically
> the abominable discriminatory nature of the Deal. The deal is likely to
> trigger a stepped up vertical and horizontal proliferations all over Asia.
> This goes against our commitment of Nuclear-free Asia and World. by enabling
> India to import fuel natural or enriched Uranium, from abroad the 'Deal'
> would make it possible for India to use the indigenously produced Uranium
> exclusively for bomb making. This possible escalation in its fissile
> material production capacity, in all likelihood, it will push Pakistan
> further to nuclearise even at great cost, and thereby aggravate tensions and
> accelerate the arms race in the region with horrifying consequences. The
> arms race will divert resources of the country away from development so
> desperately required by the toiling masses to overcome their current
> poverty.
>
>
>
> We totally reject the proposition that it will enhance India's energy
> security and, we categorically assert that nuclear power is prohibitively
> costly., therefore the Deal will distort India's energy options by diverting
> resource guzzling, and the intrinsically hazardous and potentially
> catastrophic, nuclear power at the cost of eco-friendly and many times
> financially cheaper renewable sources of energy.
>
>
>
> With the human development index of India and the Third World miserably low,
> we demand that instead of spending irrationally on nuclear power,
> expenditures on in health, education, food security, rural and urban
> employment be enhanced.
>
> We want to remind you that India as the leader of the Non- Aligned Movement
> and as vocal participant in various international forums including the UN,
> has always committed itself for a Nuclear-free World and abolition of the
> existing nuclear weapons. In the spirit of the above we want the Government
> of India to ban the entry of nuclear powered sub marines of the US and other
> major NATO countries. After six decades after of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
> nuclear tragedies, we demand that immediate steps to be taken for a
> Nuclear-free Asia and the world.
>
>
>
> The above Indo-US Nuclear Deal will further reinforce the unequal strategic
> relationship between the US and thereby would add momentum to the US
> imperialistic project for unfettered global dominance .We reject any
> ambitions of the Indian ruling classes to act as the a Big Brother in South
> Asia or to emerge as a global power basking in the reflected glory of global
> headman and goon. This will not only undermine India's position as a
> founding and leading member of the Non- Aligned Movement but will seriously
> undermine prestige of NAM as a whole;
>
> of meekly surrendering to the US Imperialism defying the democratic
> aspirations of the toiling masses of the Third World for a Nuclear-free,
> just and livable world.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Vijay Pratap(Convener Lokayan)
>
>
>
> Babu Lal Sharma (Convenor, Global Gandhi Forum)
>
>
>
> Rakesh Bhatt (Coordinator, SADED/CSDS)
>
>
>
> Kiran Shaheen(Media and Social Activist)
>
>
>
> Chandrika(Editor-Dakhal Duniya web magazine)
>
>
>
> Prakash Kumar Ray (Film maker and Research Scholar/Film Studies/School of
> art & Aesthetic JNU)
>
>
>
> Jeet Bhattacharya (Research Scholar, Film Studies, School of art & Aesthetic
> JNU)
>
>
>
> Rishika Mehershi (Research Scholar, Performing Arts, School of art &
> Aesthetic JNU)
>
>
>
> Asit (Researcher and Social Activist)
>
>
>
> Kumar Sameer(Social Activist)
>
>
>
> Peeyush Pant ( Editor-Lok Samvad)
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-- 
Partha Dasgupta
+919811047132