PROTESTS were organised against the India-Japan Nuclear Deal at various places across the country between December 11 to 13, during the Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India. The protests were co-ordinated by the Coalition for Nuclear Peace and Disarmament (CNDP).

The deal with Japan is actually a missing piece in the massively destructive nuclear energy expansion that India has embarked upon after signing the disastrous Indo-US nuclear deal. While the Indian ruling classes had left no stone unturned to push for the Indo-US nuclear deal and to portray it as something which is absolutely essential for India’s energy future, the actual experiences clearly demonstrate its vacuousness, with not even a single US reactor sold to India in the last ten years. The nuclear projects of America and France in Gujarat’s Mithi Virdi, Andhra Pradesh’s Kovvada and Maharashtra’s Jaitapur cannot move ahead without an India-Japan deal, as these designs use crucial components supplied by Japan.

The protest action in the national capital was also addressed by Prakash Karat, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M). He pointed how the agreement with Japan is necessary to facilitate the import of US nuclear reactors into India as Japanese companies have control of America companies like Westinghouse. The Modi government wishes to import American nuclear reactors as part of the nuclear deal with the US. The installation of costly imported reactors at Mithi Virdi (Gujarat) and Kovvada (Andhra Pradesh) pose a threat to people’s safety and the environment. In Jaitapur, expensive French reactors are to be installed. Karat said the local people are opposing these nuclear parks. The Japanese people are also overwhelmingly opposed to nuclear power and export of nuclear technology, given their recent experience of the Fukushima disaster. Abe and Modi share a common right wing, chauvinist, and ultranationalist politics. India has entered into a trilateral alliance between US, Japan and India at the American behest. He stressed that it is necessary to fight the nuclear policy of the Indian government and oppose the nuclear deal with Japan. Prakash Karat also remembered Praful Bidwai, who had played an important role in the struggle for nuclear peace and disarmament in the country.