Nuclear Power: The Politics of Power and Control

Major General Sudhir Vombatkere

Major General S.G. Vombatkere retired as the Additional Director General, Discipline & Vigilance in Army HQ, New Delhi. He is Adjunct Associate Professor of the University of Iowa, USA, in international studies, and is a member of NAPM and PUCL. He writes on strategic and development-related issues.

Contact details:

Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere (Retd) // 475, 7th Main Road // Vijayanagar 1st Stage // Mysore – 570017

Tel:0821-2515187; E-mail: <sg9kere@live.com>

Control of the nuclear fission process is the use of science and technology for political power. Electric power generated from controlled fission can be for social benefit and is thus a source of political power. Controlling the delivery of explosive power from nuclear fission is an even greater source of political power. Fortunately its use has so far been limited to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but serious threats remain. Control of nuclear fission was first developed in order to manufacture nuclear weapons. It was later adapted to naval propulsion and electric power generation.

The nuclear establishments (government-corporate nexus) in all countries have built a draconian legislative wall of secrecy around all matters nuclear. Secrecy is because of the intimate connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, since nuclear reactors provide the fissile material to manufacture bombs. In India, the draconian Atomic Energy Act, 1962, precludes interference with nuclear weapons, which are strategic tools that provide immense regional and international political power.

Scientists, technologists and engineers (STEs) directly or indirectly (like funded research in academic institutions) employed in the nuclear industry, are being used by the political establishment with or without their knowledge. The result is that STEs operating within the shelter of the Atomic Energy Act, selectively and unaccountably release or withhold information and knowledge fed to the public.

The central dogma of the nuclear establishment is that nuclear power is safe, clean and cheap, and is therefore the right choice for the future. In the 1950s, nuclear scientists in their euphoria and ignorance, averred that electric power from nuclear fission would be “too cheap to meter”. Today, from behind political, legislative and physical high walls and electrified fences, they aver that nuclear power is cheaper than thermal power (but withhold full details of costs), that it is clean because no unsafe (according to themselves) radiation has been reported (by themselves), and that it is safe because they have calculated (and they themselves have accepted) the low probability of serious nuclear accident. These self-certifying averments are being cogently questioned and systematically demolished by the discerning public, especially following the Fukushima nuclear disaster.