The perseverance of the Indian Government in going ahead with the nuclear energy program, inspite of the recent events at Fukushima and concerns of a large section of the population on the safety of nuclear fuel, is reminiscent of the story of a young monk who wanted to tame a tiger.
One day a monk was crossing the forest near his master’s monastery, when he came upon a new born tigers cub wailing by its dead mothers side. The monk took pity on the cub and carried it to the Monastery. Seeing the young man bring the tigers cub inside the monastery, the old master enquired on its presence. To which the young monk replied that its mother was dead and as the cub would surely die if left alone in the forest, he had brought it to the monastery for its safekeeping, he went on to say that he intended to raise it as along with the other animals in the monastery. The old master tried to dissuade his disciple from this undertaking, he told him, “Son, the tigers cub is a wild animal and it is against the law of nature for you to rear it as you would a cow or a sheep. It needs to learn to kill and live by killing, in denying it of these traits you are trying to work against the laws of nature. But, the young monk was adamant, he replied “Master, please let me bring up this cub I will feed it milk and other fruits and if it has never known the taste of meat or blood it will grow up as our other livestock. After all you have said so many times that it does not matter to whom a child is born what is of importance is how the child is brought up.” Realizing it will be of no avail to reason with him, the master agreed to the young monk’s request but made one provision that the cub was never to enter the living quarters of the monks.
The young monk, took good care of the cub, he reared it on milk, vegetables and fruits. It was allowed to roam along with the monastery’s other livestock. As the cub grew into adulthood and began filling up into a grown up tiger with its roar and the other livestock slowly grew to fear him and started to stay away from the tiger.
A few years later, the region was ravaged by storms, it rained for days as if the skies meant to empty the waters of the oceans. Finally the winds and rain calmed down and the Monks could venture out into the open. Some of them went to check on the livestock, as they neared the shed where the livestock were kept they could hear no bleating of the sheep or the mowing of the cows. Curious they entered the shed, and a ghastly sight awaited them, the tiger was lying on its side and scattered in the shed were the remains of the cattle. Hearing the monks the tiger got up and roared, where before the tigers roar was for the monks a friendly call it now seemed as if the beast was about to pounce and maul them. The monks got into a panic and ran out shouting into the safety of the monastery and shut its doors.
Hearing the commotion the old master came out of his room and enquired what the problem was. On hearing that the tiger had feasted on the livestock while the storm was underway he smiled and said. But, why are you scared now? The tiger you are running away from today is the same tiger you used to play with till a few days back. The monks started protesting saying that the tiger was not the same one, as the one they played with and reared was one that lived on milk and vegetables and fruits and not the fiend it had tuned into in the last few days. To which the old master replied, “No, the tiger is the same but what has changed is the way you look at it. At first you deluded yourself into thinking the tiger was tame like a cat but it was always an animal of prey. Only you never saw him as he is today you have realized that it has a natural instinct to kill and this has scared you. I knew this was bound to happen that is why in spite of you all asking it to be allowed inside our monastery I never permitted it. Now please let release tiger into the wild it will learn to forage for food on its own.
The moral of the story is “We believe man can tame wild beats but it is not so, God has made all animals and as it necessary that a fish learns to swim and a bird needs to fly so is it necessary that a tiger needs to kill to survive. If man thinks he can control and tame nature he is wrong. He has to respect nature and not play God.
Like the young monk in the story man today talks of taming and harnessing nuclear power to provide cheap electricity. The proponents of the Nuclear Energy, rub off all objections to it on the grounds of baseless fears and paranoia they try to justify the economic cost of nuclear energy vs conventional coal based energy.
Like the wild beast nuclear energy cannot be domesticated. It will always be a source of destruction and disease. We have had but a glimpse of the horror and suffering it could unleash, both in Chernobyl and in Fukushima. The devastation that Chernobyl caused has still not been assessed accurately. In a book published in 2007 by the New York Academy of Sciences under the title Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment. Dr. Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian President, has estimated Chernobyl-related deaths, including stillbirths, to be around 1.6 million. The official data from Ukraine's Health Ministry, shows 530,000 died from radiation in the former Soviet state between 1987 and 2004. Studies show heavy transuranium elements — strontium-90, cesium-137 and plutonium, have started spreading from Chernobyl across Ukraine with underground water.
The effects of the Fukushima nuclear incident will take years if not decades to be confirmed. The radiation leakage has not only contaminated the population, but is bound to impact the lives of generations to come. The very fact, that breast milk of mothers in Tokyo was found to be radioactive, is a chilling reminder of the lethal effect of radiation even miles from the disaster site.
Leave alone Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, there have been a total of 350 incidents of radiation leakage in the world before Chernobyl, and the effects of these have neither been documented nor lessons learnt.
Following the Fukushima nuclear accidents, Germany has temporarily closed seven nuclear power plants which went online before 1980, and has decided to phase out all nuclear reactors by 2022.
Unlike the young monk in the tale who realized the folly of believing he could tame a wild beast, the Indian Government is hell bent on going ahead with its plans to build nuclear reactors in Jaitapur in Maharashtra, and in Kuvvada, in Srikakulum Andhra Pradesh.
The project will destroy the health and livelihoods of the people living near the projects, not just for this generation, but till eternity. A Nuclear power plant emits deathly radiation which causes cancer, birth defects, sterility and other terrible diseases, not just in this generation, but for thousands of years, as the radioactive particles released into the atmosphere have very long lives. This is the reason why governments in many countries are phasing out nuclear power plants, and the US and many European countries have not built a nuclear plant for the last 30 years
There are other abundant non-polluting and safe renewable energy substitutes for nuclear energy like wind power, solar power, geothermal power and biofuel. These are comparatively less expensive to harness and unlike the fossil fuels and nuclear energy safe to produce. The Indian Government needs to look at these as the answer to our energy deficit, rather than imperiling the lives of a million citizens, a majority of whom are yet to be born.
Like the young monk the Indian Government led by PM Dr.Manmohan Singh is hellbent on going ahead with the civil Nuclear program.The argument put forth with great verbosity is that Nuclear Energy is the only way out of our energy deficit. It is for the India of today to decide if it is willing to pay the price of continuous low level radiation which these reactors will emit along with the scepter of a nuclear accident in our backyards for a few buckets of geyser heated water, microwave warmed hot dinner or like the old master say NO to nuclear energy.
Neera Kishore
