Onion Uttapam : India's Leading Satire Daily

On Terrible Tuesday, the Congress led UPA paraded three different arguments in favor of the 123 treaty, Pranab Mukherjee who doesn't suffer fools, speaking with a straightness, without having to twist words to represent a point but he did twist his face so much that one felt he was auditioning for Ram Gopal Verma's next film on the gangster-politician nexus that came out later in bundles of money floating down the well of the Lok Sabha. One expected him to mention France and he dutifully did because France is the only country whose energy needs are met by nuclear reactors dotted around the countryside. He spoke about the Hyde act but ignored the Jekyll provisions that would make India subservient to the demands of the USA.

The second speaker, P Chidambaram peppered his speech with facts and figures waving his hand this way and that but did not mention anything about the GDP. He brought China into the picture and spoke very eloquently like the lawyer that he is about how it was meeting its energy needs with nary a word about GDP growth. He too, like Pranab, was all energetic about energy.

The third speaker, Rahul Gandhi and now, P Sainath's latest friend, spoke sincerely about changing the face of Bharat. He blatantly pushed the 123 treaty without grasping  the need for a change in economic policy that the deal, in totality, envisages. Like his partymen before him, Rahul too argued about energy.The main focus on that day should have been about renewable sources but the speakers blinded by the immediacy of survival despite loud protestations to the contrary once again went back to the Brutus hug of the NSG. This was the same cartel that was set up to hinder countries like India from their nuclear and global ambitions, about 3 decades back.

The 123 treaty in essence requires us to change our policies in the foreign and economic spheres. It will make us to seek waivers from the NSG. Witness this statement from the recent G8 summit, "Look forward to working with India, the IAEA, NSG and other partners to advance India's non-proliferation commitments and progress… meet its growing energy needs in a manner that enhances and reinforces the global non-proliferation regime." Though India's polity may have its internal divisions but it has been united in railing against the discriminatory nature of the international non-proliferation regime. So in our supposed quest for energy, what we are also doing is to subscribe to a system that is abhorrent. It is therefore not simply a matter of how 'Hyde' or '123' are interpreted. It is also a question of the time they are  invoked. In 1990, US concerns changed and the Pressler amendment was invoked on Pakistan. As it is Behenji's dreams bring on shuddering nightmares and they notwithstanding, the question is can India be held hostage to the US govt's whims and fancies?

Transparency is a word that is not found in any politician's dictionary. If one were to look at the renewable energy potential that is available to India, it is upwards of 1.2milliomn MW and this does not include solar. Soalr energy is in a different league altogether. It is available at 20MW/sqkm. The land area is 2.97 million sqkm. Assuming 20% of it is forest land and another 15% for concrete forests, that still leaves us with a potential 38.61 million MW from solar energy alone. Contrast this with the 123 Treaty. It envisages a meagre 0.04 million MW at around Rs 300,000 crore. Perhaps a few must have also noticed that the price of uranium has gone up by 4 times in the period that crude oil moved from 100 USD to 147 USD per barrel giving rise to the feeling that a cartel of Uranium suppliers is beginning to show its head which can make a mockery of all plans and costs of energy derived from sources nuclear.

If one were to use perspective which the 275 MPs did not have, the future lies in tapping the renewable sources at a fraction of the cost to the country's exchequer if this 123 Treaty goes through. Lofty speeches about energy security apart, it would take a simpleton to figure out that we cannot be energy secure if the entire agreement focuses on one single point...that of importing the Uranium to power our reactors.

What was that about MKG's oft-quoted thrust on being'swadeshi'?

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