LONDON: India’s nuclear power program has been ferociously attacked in a British television documentary. The Indian High Commission has reacted by describing the documentary as a deliberate attempt 10 malign India and a wicked distortion motivated by the fact that India refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

But James Cutler the producer denies any sure plot professes love for India and Indians and claims he is merely seeking to highlight something the Indian Government is hiding from its own people.

The documentary First Tuesday presented on the commercial network was shown at 10:40 M2 prime time for documentaries and is a grim picture of a government hell-bent on pursuing the nuclear option despite immense human costs.

It had harrowing pictures of men women and children deformed and suffering from cancers as a result of radiation. The documentary was even more devastating in its use of clips from Indian government information films saying vivid things like there is radiation everywhere and that milk has 50 times more radiation than a glass of water.

What made the film noteworthy was its portrayal of the secrecy with which India’s nuclear industry is run An extract from the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 was shown which prohibits anyone in India from possessing a Geiger-counter or taking pictures film or even sketching nuclear installations.

Professor Dhirendra Sharma a professor from Nehru university and the only Indian extensively quoted in the film emphasized that nobody can discuss nuclear power in India not even in Parliament but in some ways the worst thing about the film was it presented India as a closed society where nuclear power can only be discussed in whispers for fear of the big brother Indian government.

The secrecy was such that Cutler and his crew decided to go to India as tourists and shot nearly all the film using some video cameras of the tourists might use. Much is made of this in the film and Cutler who has made a reputation as an expert and a critic of nuclear power makes no bones about the subterfuge he used to make this film in India. “Yes I did use subterfuge. It was the only way to make the film I regret I was not able to make this film openly from talking to people who knew the subject. I realized I would not get permission or the freedom I would want. If I had approached the Indian authorities they would have known that I was doing and they would have stopped me.”

Cutler’s experience has convinced him that India “is not a free society. If you have a law saying you cannot take photographs of nuclear power stations from a public place then that is not much of free country India’s newspapers are open and critical but television is heavily controlled and I did not find India an open society atleast as far as nuclear power is concerned.”

Indeed Cutler suggests that on this question at least India is almost a police state. He is so worried about the Indian government and its snooping powers that while he is seeking to distribute the film in India (“That is where I want to show it. Here it will have no impact”) he refuses to discuss who he is taking to. “I don’t want to discuss too much about this. The Indian government may intercept my mail and stop plans to distribute the film.”

Cutler first became interested in India’s nuclear power sometime last year. He found that there was virtually no information about it in Britain and decided to visit India. It was then he says that he discovered the secrecy surrounding it.

He decided to return with a small crew got a tourist visa from the Indian High Commission in London and using home video cameras filmed in India.

Even now Cutler will not describe how he filmed in India. “I can’t say too much about the methods. I don’t want to give any clues to the Indian government.”

But even that does not detract from the film. It may be biased Indians will certainly find the film disturbing if not hurtful but it does raise some serious questions about nuclear power in India. Cutler took his home video cameras to among other places a uranium mine in Bihar and the atomic power station in Rawalbhata in Rajasthan. Everywhere he recorded tales of people who have suffered from radiation.

In some cases children being born deformed with Downs syndrome or mental retardation as in the Neen Dakana village in Kerala where background levels of radiation as a result of thorium on the beaches nearby are 300 times the normal found elsewhere in India. In Hyderabad a woman was shown dying in pain in Bihar there were some stories of cancer and in Rajasthani villager’s complaints of cancer and birth defects.

In the Press release issued before the program went on the air mention was made of the fact that one Vyas Tiwani “says men as almost naked on raw uranium as it arrives at the factory unaware of the dangers.” However the film made no mention of this act and Cutler says “The Press release had things in order to get the newspapers interested.”

That it had done so cannot be denied as the program was previewed on British new pages. Its real test will come Cutler manages to show it in India and the reaction it generates.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 18, 1992