Theory, Philosophy and Justice: The Bygone Words for Executive ?

                  पंछी नदियाँ पवन के झोंके 

                   कोई सरहद ना इन्हें रोकें 

                   सरहद इंसानों के लिए हैं 

                   सोचो तुम और मैंने क्या पाया 

                   इंसान होके !

If someone says that world regime of human rights started with the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' in 1948, then ask him/her a question that if they know about Hannah Arendt. Born in 1906 and passed away in 1975, she was a German theorist of politics and philosopher of Jewish origin. She actually questioned the arrival of Universal Declaration emphasising that it is actually the nd of universal comprehensive possible framework to build for protection of human rights. As she pointed out and later vindicated by many, the coming into force of Universal Declaration actually gave the privileges of that charter only to the citizens of the nation states and not to the people suffering from the crisis happening across sovereign countries. 

This was the key issue when Upendra Bakshi, noted Professor of jurisprudence and humanitarian law was speaking on "The Future  of Human Rights in a Home Away from Home: Towards Rethinking the Right to Have Human Rights" at the public meeting organised to mark the World Refugee Day. Before going in the comical, ironical and subtle commentry Prof. Bakshi lead from the front about the possibilities of converging the Human Rights Law and Refugee Law. Let me share what Bakshi commented on the divergence and divorce between thinkers and actors on the ground when it comes to protection of the human rights.

He agreed to the assessment of one of the audiences about Professors being great reflectors on the interpretations of the law affecting the operations on the ground but not the true actors which are embedded in bureaucracy and civil service are actually making things happen. Prof. Bakshi had very insightful answer. He quoted Marx who said around 1850 that the "Suffering people should start thinking and thinking people do need to suffer!" This was on the lines of quotation which goes like this: "Act like a man of thought and think like a man of action !" He delicately exposed the great divide between two and how it is actually making a mockery of the people who deserve immediate attention, care and legal help; either they are refugees, people trapped in natural and man made crisis land locked away from opportunities of employment, education and livelihood.

In this context, it was worthwhile to reflect on the recently unfolded massive controversy about liability, responsibility and accountability in Bhopal Gas Tragedy. He lamented the role played by the civil service and bureaucracy in failing to deliver the compensation and justice to the aggrieved people. This had lead, according to him towards burecratisation of suffering. Is the executive lead by the civil service truly 'civil' and 'in service' of the people? Is the porous boundary between civil and evil which is actually provoking us to ask the question that to which people these executives are serving other than suffered? 

Two memorable TV shows braodcasted recently made a very strong point about introvert and extrovert character of our systems which we claim to have evolved during the brief stint of Indian democracy during last 60 years. One show hosted on NDTV 24/7 actually tarnished the work done by successive governments in the role they played to take an action against the culprits in the Bhopal gas tragedy. This show which invited many people from law, civil society, investigating agencies, political parties, media, diplomacy concluded in affirming that "As a system we have not learned to think. And even we learn something, are we applying that learning to solve the urgent issues of people related to development, health and environmental problems." Point made by Prof. Bakshi was beyond learning. Actually he was complaining about sycophancy of political class claiming themselves as learned who actually are never interested in learning or being in the phase of learning. In another show on IBN Live, Karan Thaper interrogated Minister Salman Khursheed about lack of credibility, integrity and authenticity in the outrageously vague commentary of the Congress spokespersons regarding the fallout of Bhopal Gas Tragedy trial court decision on seven June 2010. Mr. Thapar grilled Mr. Khursheed very wisely and ruthlessly to compel him to concede before him that in case if it is found that spokespersons are lying with their knowledge he will apologise for that.

This is actually perfect case when looked in the perspective of what Prof. Bakshi was trying to say. He said, "We need to move forward to go beyond the commentary to statesmanship and oratory of law and justice." If it is to be interpreted in my lay man`s words then we need to be careful about the platitudes of media, politicians and government about the rhetoric of black and white, right and wrong in the discourse about justice. Prof. Bakshi was pointing out towards necessity to have more attention towards questions of Theory, Philosophy and Justice when the gravity of human rights is to be considered. These are the times when there is great disregard and disrespect for the aspects of theory, philosophy of any thinking which finally shapes the solution through the means of law, policy and other instruments of states intervention in the society. As Prof. Bakshi put, if actually, if not ideally, good and rigorous theory is epitome of pragmatic actions we can/may usher in. 

So, going ahead with the discussion about the human rights of the refugee he said that in today`s world we must remember that everyone of us can be a refugee, exile in some form or other. It is not only about being in refuge condition during the voyage across the borders of state or nations. Everyone of us are subject to so much vulnerabilities that we need to understand the law and other discourses of human rights and refugees so as to help ourselves to be prepared for future. As Prof. Bakshi emphasised that refugees are not the problems of the past but the obligations of the future. We have to be prepared for these obligations of future especially out of top ten countries receiving maximum exodus of refugees, seven are developing countries. May be developing countries are  nurturing the culture of hospitality through which they can understand the problems of deprived, migrated and sufferings originating from different problems of identities. This is where developed countries and debate about immigration appears so loud and so much assertive as witnessed in recent UK Parliamentary elections and pervasive in the integration and regulation of European Union. 

Finally, very crucially Prof. Bakshi made very subtle but philosophically distinct definition of Responsibility, Accountability and Liability. He said, "Over the years Indian government and system has become more accountable in terms of new laws, procedures, conventions and acceding to the wish list of political correct principles of justice. But actually with the increase of measures and appearances in the court of law to perceive themselves as more accountable, state has become less responsible and less efficient in justice delivery mechanism. Secondly, when it is claimed that liability is defined in terms of law and other regulatory frameworks it does not mean that people who are accepting liability are actually responsible to the people whose grievances need to be addressed in a responsible manner. And thirdly the mention of word 'Responsibility'evokes a sense of linguistic whitewash. 'Responsibility'according to Derrida should express the sense in which we are Responsive with the Ability to address the problems before us. So the sensitivity which is inherent in our natural emotions is actually very much reflective when we are responsive to the events occurring around us. A sense of responsiveness actually gives the evidence of our priority framework in which we view the world around us which is appealing us to take a call to protect human rights being violated every other nook and corner. "

When disparities, discrimination and differences are getting unnoticed from system and state then the sufferings get institutionalised through bureaucracy. Even though India`s role in the humanitarian efforts has been lauded over the world, our own domestic track record deserves serious study for further because we are inheriting the ticking time bombs in terms of domestic displacements which are actually our own citizens being treated as foreigners. 

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Whirlwind of Nuclear Debate

 The Civil Nuclear Energy Deal, The Non Proliferation Review Conferences, access to Uranium fuel from Nuclear Supplier Groups, heated debate about Nuclear Liability Bill in the context of Bhopal tragedy and aggressive protests against proposed Nuclear Energy Parks across the country have brought the diverse aspects of the nuclear issue weaved together in seamless web. The strategic angle is unavoidable whenever there is talk about civilian use, criteria of commercial viability and scaling up is inevitable whenever there is scholarly comment on executive responsibility towards development initiatives from the perspectives of Integrated Energy Policy of Planning Commission and dimensions of electoral politics are so crucial to ignore when there are larger questions about the implementation of these projects and its implications on sustainability of human lives.

Renewed interest in Nuclear

After end of the cold war, on one side where strategic thinkers are analysing the decreasing probability of nation states using nuclear weapons against each other, on the other side emerging opinion in think tanks across the world is converging around one common anticipation about terrorists, non-state actors, and sub-national forces acquiring small plutonium bombs to wreck havoc. The ongoing debate about nuclear disarmament through NPT Review Conferences revolves around these affirmations and fears. Compelled by calculations of energy use and geopolitics of fossil and renewable energy markets magnified by climate change debates, every sovereign country is trying to explore the nuclear option in the age of nuclear renaissance where some people are projecting it as a next green, perhaps most preferable green energy for long term solutions of mankind`s development priorities. Nearly 60 countries have approached International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to seek permission to start nuclear energy development in their countries. Looking at the composition of those countries it is significant to note that many of those are outside the ‘umbrella’ provided by P-5 countries and nearly 25 of them are not self sufficient to start the nuclear energy program. (http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2010/nuclnewcomers.html)

‘Enriched’ Proliferation Concerns

Even though there legitimate wishes of the countries to develop technologies for peaceful use of nuclear energy, ‘international community driven by NPT mandate’ fears it will lead to loosening of the grips of NPT regime. Because it will lead towards more sophisticated and clandestine parallel programmes which may lead towards development weapon grade Uranium, though quality of Uranium required for this purpose should be enriched upto the level of 85%. and more. This may inspire presently NPT member stated to opt out of the treaty. Especially example of North Korea is still fresh and very much alarming. So foresight experts are confirming the most probable ever increasing intensity of threat.  Thus, renewed efforts of ‘universalization of safeguards’ in the context of initiatives driven by IAEA supported by NPT establishment and Nuclear Energy Agency(OECD) increasingly being countered by the slogan ‘total nuclear disarmament’ especially by the countries like India who are often accused of double speak when there is question of commitment towards safeguards.

Negotiating NPT

Experts and strategic decision makers agree that accusation against India`s double speak was magnified when Indo-US Civil Nuclear Energy deal acknowledged the separation plan of strategic and civil nuclear energy plants. NPT`s consistent stress on Indian diplomacy to enter NPT as a nuclear non weapon state is actually negating the gains India has made over last few decades envisaged in the three stage nuclear power programme and commitment towards nuclear non-proliferation. DAE is firm on the belief that when negotiations about India-US Civil Nuclear Deal were in progress, there was no confusion in the minds of people representing India that this deal is going to give India status of Nuclear Weapons State. Going ahead they assert that “We maintain that when looked in the context of binary world in the eyes of NPT as NWS and NNWS, we are standing in between. We assert, we are not Non Nuclear Weapon State.” So, for India negating something is actually the effort to leverage gap between strategic asset of being NWS and liability of NNWS for greater future and to use that gap to create space for further strategic negotiations on the forum of NPT and other international forum. So, observers are not surprised on the failure of the NPT review conferences. They say, the success of non-proliferation initiatives largely depend upon the bilateral agreements like START and other negotiations outside the ambit of the NPT. So, lessons to be learned are that multilateralism is not always helpful framework to move towards the hopeful scenarios.

Asian Surge

Interestingly, the centre of nuclear knowledge and technology is shifting towards Asia. In East and South Asia there are 112 nuclear power reactors in operation, 37 under construction and firm plans to build a further 84 (at April 2010). Today out of total proposed nuclear power plants one third are from China. Mainland China has 11 nuclear power reactors in commercial operation, 20 under construction, and more about to start construction soon. Looking at the extent of fallout of Civil Nuclear Agreement and positive prospects of fuel supply from Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada, India is in the position of importing reactors and accelerating nuclear power production. India has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power program and expects to have 20,000 MWe nuclear capacity on line by 2020 and 63,000 MWe by 2032.  It aims to supply 25% of electricity from nuclear power by 2050.  Japan`s 54 reactors provide some 30% of the country's electricity and this is expected to increase to at least 40% by 2017. In South Korea there are 20 reactors under operation out of which six are under construction and 6 are planned. In this context of increasing initiatives of nuclear energy development are going to be hampered by growing fuel supply concerns, treaties related to Fissile Material, complex problems related to reprocessing spent fuel, deposition of spent fuel in deep underground storage facilities.

Issues of Nuclear Energy Development

India`s Nuclear Energy Development programme is going between two pronged approach, self-reliance and import. Given that Indian long term strategic programme, often criticised for it`s ambitious targets and inflated budgets, India has to ensure sustainable Uranium fuel supply for it`s second stage fast breeder reactors. This sequential three-stage program is based on a closed fuel cycle, where the spent fuel of one stage is reprocessed to produce fuel for the next stage. The closed fuel cycle thus multiplies manifold the energy potential of the fuel and greatly reduces the quantity of waste generated.

Advanced Technology Development

Considering the sequential nature of the indigenous nuclear power program, and the lead time involved at each stage, it is expected that appreciable time will be taken for direct thorium utilization. Therefore, innovative design of reactors for direct use of thorium is also in progress in parallel to three stage program. In this context, the frontier technologies being developed include the Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) and Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The ADS essentially is a sub-critical system using high-energy particles for fission. One of the significant advantages of this system is small quantity of waste production. The AHWR is another innovative concept, which will act as a bridge between the first and third stage essentially to advance thorium utilization without undergoing second stage of the three stage program. It uses light water as coolant and heavy water as moderator. It is fuelled by a mixture of Plutonium239 and Thorium232, with a sizeable amount of power coming from Thorium232.

According to claims of NPCIL, “The country has developed comprehensive capabilities in all aspects of nuclear power from siting, design, construction, operation of nuclear power plants. Comprehensive multidimensional R&D facilities have been set up. Capabilities have also been developed in front and back ends of the fuel cycle, from mining, fuel fabrication, storage of spent fuel, reprocessing and waste management. Infrastructure for other inputs heavy water, zirconium components, control and instrumentation etc. has been established.” Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has adapted its AHWR design, which features only passive safety features, to run on LEU-thorium MOX fuel. As a result of its fuel mix and fuel breeding properties, the 300MWe plant requires 42% less mined uranium per unit of energy produced than a modern high burnup PWR.  (http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2056393)

Introduction of Thorium Reactors

It is in this context DAE proclaims from time to time that introduction of Thorium based technology and commercial development of the Thorium based reactors are two different things. DAE is confident of having established Thorium technology on a smaller prototype operational scale. Though DAE has not secured patent for this technology (nuclear research and technology is patentable in India) establishment is confident of successfully launching Thorium based reactor by facing scaling up issues. They are also confident of securing international leadership in this particular area of thorium reactor design and reactor development. DAE has been claiming that they have calculated strategic timeframe to introduce commercial Thorium reactors for Nuclear Energy Development. Considering the total energy requirements according to the estimates surrounding year 2031-32 when power generation, capacity must increase to nearly 8,00,000 MW from the current capacity of around 1,60,000 MW. According to Integrated Energy Policy, “The substantial Thorium reserves can be used but that requires that the fertile Thorium be converted to fissile material. The three stage programme consists of setting up of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) in the first stage, Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) in the second stage and reactors based on the Uranium 233-Thorium 232 cycle in the third stage.

It is also envisaged that in the first stage of the programme, capacity addition will be supplemented by electricity generation through Light Water Reactors (LWRs), initially through imports of technology but with the long-term objective of indigenisation. PHWR technology was selected for the first stage as these reactors are efficient users of natural Uranium for yielding the plutonium fuel required for the second stage FBR programme.

The FBRs will be fuelled by plutonium and will also recycle spent Uranium from the PHWR to breed more plutonium fuel for electricity generation. Integrated Energy policy views FBR technology as critical to develop stage two of India’s nuclear power programme. “Without developing the wide-scale use of FBR technology, India will find it difficult to go beyond 10,000 MWe nuclear capacity based on known indigenous Uranium resources. Use of FBR technology would enable indigenous Uranium resources to support a 20,000 MWe nuclear power programme by the year 2020. Such a FBR programme is critical to developing the Thorium-based third stage of India’s nuclear power programme.” Problem of spent fuel depositories in still open for debate. Merely hiding it under deep depositories will not answer the questions of radioactivity. Still, DAE feels it as a question of combined sustainability of environment, energy and most importantly security.

Role of Media

Authorities in DAE and strategic establishment feel that lack of awareness on part of media persons and peoples representatives definitely creates the nuisance value in terms of strengthening the hands of NGOs which often highjack the debateable issues. One of the experts in strategic studies commented that there is enough material made available by DAE on its websites but journalists are not doing their homework rightly by accessing those documents. Apart from DAE, Parliamentary debates, reports of the Standing Committee meetings, documents of the other autonomous institutions like CAG throw significant light on the operations of the DAE. It seems that despite the validity in the oxymoron claim that DAE is actually communicating secrecy through the media, media is often lacking in studying the gravity of the issues properly considering the necessity to understand technical architecture and mechanism of nuclear energy.

There is massive ignorance about the linkage of nuclear energy issues and other societal aspects governing our lives. So, there is need of mobilising people from across the scholarly and professional disciplines committed to interact, study and propose concrete programme to remove this tag of privileged secrecy to move forward for creating an ambience of conversation. In the context of Nuclear Liability Bill, nuclear power initiatives are being criticised. Former secretary of DAE believes that Bhopal and Chernobyl happened around same time. The number of prompt fatal and sustaining deaths due to deadly infection due to hazardous elements is more in Bhopal, still there is more outcry about Chernobyl compared to Bhopal. Ironically the kind of architecture and design of Chernobyl is not being used in today`s reactor development process. It is learnt that DAE had organised a orientation programme for Parliamentarians and only two MPs turned up. Looking at this kind of callous attention towards this issue, it is not surprising that level of debate and understanding about the nuclear issue is appalling amongst the Indian lawmakers.

So, there is need to organise more and more orientations programs for regional media also. It is very important to address the concerns of the local population and educate the regional media persons from where the ground developments emerge. It is matter of investigation when was the last time, DAE has organised a tour for the journalists to create an awareness about the technical, scientific, legal issues of nuclear energy. It is better to debate after being informed rather than aimlessly beating the bush before knowing or engaging into effort to learn anything at all.

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