[Reader-list] Farmers mourn their third martyr in anti-nuclear power struggle, pledge against another Fukushima (Fatehabad, India)

[asit das]

Farmers mourn their third martyr in anti-nuclear power struggle, pledge
against another Fukushima (Fatehabad, India)

<http://www.dianuke.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/100_0916.jpg>

late Ishwar Singh Siwach

While nuclear establishments in the entire world are known for going to any
extent <http://antinuclear.net/2011/04/26/dangerous-liaison-who-and-iaea/> to
deny attribution of every possible single case of death to their hazarduous
wastes at every step of the nuclear fuel cycle, and even in case of major
accidents, people know their martyrs.

Even though the immediate cause of Ishwar Singh Siwach (62)’s death is
heart-attack, people in his village – Gorakhpur (just around 210 kms from
Delhi by road, in the state of Haryana), and those in the neighbouring
villages made no mistakes – this is the third
death<http://www.dianuke.org/protest-against-farmers-death-at-fatehbad/>
in
the 14 months long ongoing agitation against setting up of nuclear power
plants in Fatehabad<http://www.dianuke.org/nuclear-madness-at-delhis-doorsteps/>
district.
Denied of any political or administrative negotiation, the exhausting
struggle has seen two such deaths earlier – Bhagu Ram and Ram Kumar.

*The agitation*

Starting August 17 last year, farmers of the area have been continuing a
sit-in protest in front of the mini-Secretariat office in Fatehabad town
peacefully bearing rain, heat and cold. Needless to say, the ‘national
media’ has given very little coverage to their agitation as it lacks the
spectacle, celebrities and also the quick, harmless and formulaic solutions
that can be offered on TV by anchors before going for a commercial break.

While the entire country is witnessing peasant struggles against
land-acquisitions, the state of Haryana is considered comfortable by
industrial mafia and the government as the farmers in the state have settled
for better compensation packages in the past. But in the case of Fatehabad,
people have gradually realized it is more about getting better paid for the
land- it’s about their health, life and livelihood.

Ironically, the Chief Minister of the State was on a trip to Japan for
wooing investment when Fatehabad villagers were on streets with Ishwar
Singh’s dead body refusing to
cremate<http://www.newkerala.com/news/2011/worldnews-63966.html> it
until their voice is heard.
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Condolence meeting - 20 September 2011

On Wednesday this week (20th September 20011), the local community had
organised a condolence meeting for Late Ishwar Singh which was attended by
around 1000 people from the neighbouring villages. Although the atmosphere
was grim, Ishwar Singh’s co-agitators, most of whom have been his close and
old friends, turned this opportunity into an occasion of reiterating their
pledge to fight their battle without compromises till the end. They also
openly and honestly outlined the need to be more united in struggle.
Representatives of almost all the political parties barring the ruling party
and prominent social activists of the area, including leaders of farmers
unions and the State Secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s
Association (AIDWA) also attended the meeting and expressed their support
for the cause.

Ishwar Singh’s family – his wife, daughters and sons – have been unflinching
in their support to the cause he lived and died for. When it came to
demonstrating with his dead body, the family-members left the decision to
the agitators committee (the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti).
*The proposed Nuclear Power Project and its hazards*

Gorakhpur Nuclear Power Project (GNPP) will create 4 heavy water nuclear
power plants of indigenous design, with a capacity of 700 MWs each, two of
which will be constructed in the first phase. These would be the biggest
indigenous nuclear power plants so far built in the country and the NPCIL
has no experience of running such huge reactors. The Project has raised
concerns because of a number of reasons – displacement, land-acquisition,
environmental damage, possibility of devastating accidents, and
appropriation of valuable canal water essential for the thriving agriculture
in the district.

A total of over 1500 Acres of land is being acquired from Gorakhpur, Badopal
and Kajal Heri villages. Notification for this acquisition was issued last
year the land – under ‘urgency clause’ (Section IV) of the archaic &
colonial Land Acquisition Act 1894. The agitation in the area started soon
after the villagers received this acquisition notice. Far from heeding to
the farmers’ demand, the government sent another notice last month under
Section 6 of the Act which is a step further and only asks if anyone has any
objection to the compulsory land acquisition.

The area around Gorakhpur is *densely populated*. The village has a
population of 25 thousands. A township for the GNPP will is planned in the
neighbouring Badopal village, which already has a population of around 20
thousand people, violating Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB)’s own rules
which says not the ‘sterile zone’ (a circle of 6.6 km radius around any
reactor), not more than 10 thousand people should be living. Also, towns
like Fatehabad, Ratiya and Tohana fall in close vicinity of the project and
a big town like Hisar (population – 200, 000) is just 30 kms away. The
fatehabad district has a total population of nearly 8,00,000. In case of a
major Fukushima-like accident, the fallouts would engulf New Delhi also,
which is at a ‘as-the-crow-flies’ distance of 150kms.

The proposed power plants would rely on the Bhakhra branch canal’s water.
The reactors would suck up huge quantity of water even in their normal
operation. And in case of a Fukushima-like accident, the Nuclear Power
Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has no plans as for the supply of large
amount of *water required* for cooling.

The Bhakhra branch canal lifeline for the famers in the area and gives them
better than national average output with three crops every year even when
the average rainfall in the district is meagre. Majority of people in the
district make their living out of agriculture-based trades and occupations –
export, marketing and processing of agro-products, agro-chemical and
agro-equipments business and transport required for all this. The farmers in
the district and the State as a whole are relatively prosperous than their
counterparts in other regions of India.

The Fatehabad district is home to rich* bio-diversity*. The lush-green
landscape and the large number of birds and Black-bucks whom the local
Bishnoi community reveres, are threatened by this project.
<http://www.dianuke.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/100_0920.jpg>

The Bhakhra Branch Canal which is supposed to supply water to reactor - in
its normal operation and also in case of large accidents !