Thursday, September 27, 2012

Might is Right?

Japanese Coast Guard ships using water cannon on Taiwanese fishing boats.  The world was surprised by the scene, and is going to be more, as long as Taiwan claims the Senkaku islands as their own.
China and Taiwan, and Hong Kong, are united on this point.  These islands have been taken over from China illegally, by aggression.  Unfortunately they are not able to show any evidence.  They never put such a claim before the discovery of oil and gas in the area before the end of 1960s.  No matter what Japan might have done in taking away their territories in the past, these are not part of them.  China is not true to the facts.  Are they taking the same policy in the South China Sea?
China also says that Japan's decision to nationalize the islands was taken only two days after Chairman Hu, on 9 September, requested Prime Minister Noda to be cautious, and therefore China lost face.  This is not to be brushed away.  But it was in a 15-minute meeting standing in the corridor, if it can be called a meeting at all.  The two should by all means should have a full discussion based on facts and nothing else.
The anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, no matter how the loss of face may have instigated it, and popular dissatisfaction may have been reflected in them, once again showed the deep resentment against Japan based on the 15-year war, 1931-45.  Moreover the Japanese judiciary has not taken enough note of the past history whenever the legacies of the war come up before them in the form of legal issues.
So we have to face the backwardness of the Japanese politics, often encouraged by the US military consideration.  At the same time we are also watching, for instance, the coming deployment of the "Liaoning", the first carrier of the Chinese Navy, itself stimulating such ideas among our conservative leaders as the sending of the Marines to the Senkaku.
Might is right in East Asia?  China should ask herself, and again, if she is not violating 'the threat or use of force' stated in the UN Charter.  
      

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

What a US Naval Analyst Says on Japan and China

In view of the recurring anti-Japanese riots in Chinese cities, a US naval analyst wrote an essay on "The Sino-Japanese Naval War of 2012"(Foreign Policy, 20 August).
It says that 'China's navy is far superior in sheer weight of steel' if all its three fleets are put together.  But there may be other factors operating at the time of a decision.  The Senkaku islands in question are 'the hardest assets to defend from the Japanese standpoint', but 'a war would set back their(China's) sea-power project to construct a powerful oceangoing navy'.  He gives no conclusion, the analysis is 'in strictly military terms', and that makes it very sensible.  It is also good not to go into the nature of the Japan-US military alliance.
Without going into this alliance, the 'weight of steel' of the Japanese fleet, and the Constitutional question on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, one wonders why China is so keen, as is often reported, in building 'a powerful oceangoing navy'.  Apparently there are, and can be, no hypothetical enemies.  China is building it for its own sake, and to the extent it is accomplished, it claims more of overseas territories and resources.  Such a huge country is now keen on wrestling a groups of small inhabitable islands from a small one.
What is surprising is that a few, still a few, military men are talking of a possibility of a military action on the Senkaku by China.  That has not happened in Japan, as yet, although the possibility is always there.  Most worrying for us is that some people, like our usual conservative ideologues, will easily be tempted to respond that 'Didn't we tell you?  Our present Constitution is not enough to defend the country.  It should be amended to make our right of collective self-defense usable'.  This is exactly what our people have been preventing to happen, especially by a network of thousands of Associations of Article 9, renouncing a war and the armed forces.  Do we have to see it eroded by the Chinese propaganda?
Propaganda?  But what other name?  The rioters are unaware that those islands have been not only once put on Chinese maps as Japanese territories, until the attention of the Chinese authorities was called to the existence of resources in the area around 1970.
Why not make use of the resources jointly then, in a friendly way?  Many Japanese will agree.  For that, however, the Chinese authorities must speak the truth, and make their own people well-informed, to suit a great people.
What about the Japanese factories and shops destroyed and looted in the broad view of the whole world?  Better come home, and create jobs there.         

Monday, September 17, 2012

How the Japanese are Viewing the Nuclear Energy

In the previous blog, I have introduced an invitation to a whole-day meeting to discuss the troubles the ongoing nuclear energy programme in India is bringing about at six or seven places in that country.  It is a meeting held about a month back, but it would hopefully interest some people.  I very much wish I could have been there.
What about Japan?  I have shown that our country went through a nuclear-free period, though very   short, which has awakened and encouraged us.
From July to August, 2012, the Government has conducted a survey to ascertain the public opinion to see how soon they would like to see the nuclear plants to cease operation, if any.    While so doing they put three choices as to the desirable proportion of the nuclear energy in 2030, 0%, 15%, and 20-25%.  In the fiscal 2010, the year before the Fukushima disaster, the proportion was 26%.
The survey was done in three different ways.  First, they invited 285 persons to discussion meetings.  They were the people who were interviewed by telephone, and expressed willingness to participate in the meetings also.  When interviewed by telephone, only 32.6% supported 0%.  After the discussion, however, it went up to 46.7%.
Second, about 89,000 people conveyed their view to the Government, following their announcement, either by internet or fax.  81% wanted immediate stop to the working of the nuclear plants, and the other 9% phased stopping.
Third, public hearing was held at 11 places.  Of the 1,447 persons who expressed their opinion, 68% supported 0%.
From the above the people's view is clear.  We hope the Government will sincerely listen to it.        

Sunday, September 16, 2012

A Call from India for a Joint Endeavour on Nuclear Energy



People's Hearing on Nuclear Energy
Date and Time:
August 22nd, 2012
11 am - 6pm

Venue:
Gandhi Peace Foundation,
221-223, Deendayal Upadhyay Marg
New Delhi-110002

A people’s hearing will be held on August 22nd in New Delhi on nuclear power in India to discuss grassroots concerns and people’s experiences, and to take note of violations of their human rights.
People from all the sites will make presentations with a special emphasis on Koodankulam and Gorakhpur. Also, experts will present their testimonies to a panel of judges consisting of eminent citizens, who will examine this evidence and give their verdict.

Background:
The Government of India is pushing through a massive expansion of nuclear energy in the most undemocratic manner, overlooking its dangerous impacts on the health, safety and livelihoods of local communities, the larger perspective of energy security for India, the economic and environmental costs of nuclear energy, and the global decline in the salience of nuclear energy after the Fukushima catastrophe.
There has been an upsurge of strong grassroots struggles against nuclear power projects and other installations in the recent past. At Koodankulam, for instance, a mass agitation involving tens of thousands of people has been sustained for a year since August 16, 2011. At Gorakhpur, in Haryana’s Fatehabad district, farmers have sat on a dharna every day for 2 years in protest against the planned nuclear power station. They are particularly agitated over a fraudulent public hearing which was held on 17th July without giving copies of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report to the people, as is mandatory.
Strong agitations have been launched in Jaitapur in Maharashtra, where the world’s biggest nuclear power park has been planned. Similar protests have broken out at other planned sites all over India.
The government has vilified these movements as “misguided” instigated by “outsiders”, has criminalized them and has filed hundreds of police cases against them. It has studiedly ignored their concerns about nuclear safety heightened after Fukushima and refused to part with basic documents such as Environmental Impact Assessment and  Safety Evaluation Reports (SERs) and the inter-governmental contracts etc.
The repression has led to blatant violations of basic rights at different sites – for instance, nearly 7000 people in Koodankulam who have led consistently peaceful protest face charges of sedition and war against the Indian state. Similar repression and undermining of democratic norms is under way at the other nuclear sites such as Jaitapur, Chutka in Madhya Pradesh, Mithi Virdi in Gujarat, Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh, Kota in Rajasthan, etc. More recently, a fresh protest broke out at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan where a nuclear fuel complex has been planned. The recent tritium leak in the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station exposing 38 casual workers to dangerous radiation has also put a question mark over the safety of existing nuclear facilities.
People’s testimonies: Koodankulam, Jaitapur, Gorakhpur, Chutka, Mithivirdi, Rawatbhata
Independent Experts: Praful Bidwai, Soumya Dutta, Surendra Gadekar, M G Devasahayam and others
Jury: Justice A P Shah, Admiral L. Ramdas, Aruna Roy, K S Subramanian
We cordially invite you to this public hearing. Please also circulate this invitation to your friends.
With best regards,

Sundaram (CNDP) – 9810556134, cndpindia@gmail.com
Bhargavi (Delhi Forum) – 9582452343, bhargavi@delhiforum.net



A.G.Noorani's Eye-Opening Book "Jinnah and Tilak"

It took me quite some time to finish reading the above-mentioned book, published by the Oxford University Press in 2010.  Quite some time, because it deals with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and through him, Mahatma Gandhi also, in a very different way from many of the existing ones.
To be very short, its conclusion is that 'the last clear chance of averting the mishap', (p.220),meaning the partition of India and Pakistan and all the accompanying destruction, bloodshed, etc.,was not in the hand of Jinnah and the Muslim League, but that of Gandhi and the Congress.  Therefore 'the final responsibility for partition was not his'(pp.269-70).
Indeed very few works apart from the official records of the Muslim League have written in this clear mode.
One notable thing that the author has been persistently fair to Gandhi, or Jawaharlal Nehru, though they have been the target of severe criticism by the author many times in the book.
For instance Nehru has often been criticized of being cold to Jinnah, the Muslim League or the Muslims in general.  But once the country was divided, and he was put in the topmost administrative post, 'Nehru...fought manfully for secularism and for the Muslims' place in India till his dying day'.  Similarly on Gandhi the author writes that 'Gandhi bravely fought communal violence...He knew he was courting death.  Gandhi consciously chose the path and died a martyr's death'(both p.262).
The author's criticism of Nehru, and more so of Gandhi, most conspicuously concern their role in  breaking up the idea of the three-tier federal system, a way of keeping a united India without creating Pakistan, presented by the British Cabinet Mission in May 1946.  Gandhi's intellectual and physical energy as is shown in Chapter 5, entitled The Gandhi-Cripps Pact, and the author's persistence in reading a consistent motive on the part of Gandhi of wrecking the proposed Indo-Pakistani unity, is really startling.
What Gandhi thought at that time may not have been legally completely wrong.  But once he torpedoed the original Plan by his own interpretation, what could he have done to save the situation?  Did he have a different idea of keeping the unity of India?  Did he have something with which to make the Muslim population at ease?  No, nobody was able to see any other way of keeping peace then, Gandhi or no Gandhi.  Once the idea of unity was broken up there was only carnage and bloodshed.  This has been testified time and again until now, 2012.
My point of writing this piece, however, is not to attribute responsibility to Gandhi.  That has been done enough by the author.  I would like to say a little bit rather on Jinnah, as the author, though having been fair to him also, has not said enough about him.
First, even seeing the end of the Mission Plan, where was the reason of the direct action in Calcutta, and elsewhere by the Muslim League?  It was massacre and  arson and destruction on an un-heard of scale in modern Indian history.  It is this that decided that the coming partition would be full of bloodshed.
Second, the author writes that Gandhi 'was mentally prepared for partition' in his letter of 17 December 1946(p.218).  The letter in question must be a small note titled "Note on Constituent Assembly".  It was from Noakhali, where Gandhi was almost single-handedly facing the communal animosity, the hatred by the Muslim League, and said that one must understand what Pakistan is like from Noakhali.  He was not necessarily pre-determined.
Third, as Dr.T.R.Sareen's recent work has shown, the Muslim League's position was assured not just once by the British authorities, who had almost confirmed the Pakistan resolution of March 1940.  Jinnah was not on the same level as Gandhi.  He was in a much more privileged position.
Fourth, was there anything Jinnah thought of giving the Muslims by carving Pakistan, apart from the limited number of legislators, civil servants, and army officers posts?
Finally, fifth, the author rightly says that the Hindu-Muslim composite culture was damaged a great deal by the partition(p.268).  It is Gandhi, if at all, who showed feeling of deep sorrow on this point.  Jinnah did not care himself at all, as is shown in his Pakistan speech where he stressed the divisiveness of different cultures of the different nations in India.