Earth is flat, nuclear power is safe

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Sonam Mittal

Sonam Mittal is a journalist and has been involved in studying the impact of environmental degradation on climate and social life. She works as an activist to fight for a clean and sustainable environment.

She can be reached at sonam.k.mittal@gmail.com

Article Courtesy: Daily Pioneer

How do we recreate humanity when we can sit through the total disregard of human rights in Koodankulam? All that the residents there want is a revisit of the national nuclear policies

Even though recent times have witnessed several scams surfacing in the country, allegations of the presence of ‘foreign hand’, and even the crucial international conference on biodiversity at the recently concluded 11th UN Conference of the Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, the one issue that refuses to die and continues to grab media attention is Koodankulam.

Why? Because the violence at K00dankulam hasn’t stopped. It continues. But for how long will it do so?

Recreating history with Koodankulam

Kudankulam police station will remain etched in Indian history for being the only police station post-colonial rule to register over 55,000 cases for this protest, out of which 7,000 are charges for sedition. Ironically, even children have not been spared; nor people with disabilities. They have all been charged with “waging war against the State”. There are reports of houses being ransacked at odd hours in search of the ‘notorious’ anti-Government ‘rogue’ and the master-mind behind the protests in Kudankulam, SP Udaykumar. Villages wear a deserted look since people are too afraid to stay back in their own homes. They have preferred to camp in at the local church to escape  police atrocities.
Understanding sedition

Mahatma Gandhi once said that he was proud to be charged with sedition. Since the last decade, protesters at Kudankulam have invoked Gandhian methods of protest like satyagraha, hunger strikes and dharnas. These peaceful and non-violent protesters face arrest and oppression from state machinery when they choose to exercise their freedom of speech. Right to peaceful gathering has been abused by the Government, which on the contrary, should be respecting dissent and not thwarting it.