Rubik’s Cube of Power

The winds from Koodamkulam have already stopped flowing into our porticos. For many of us the issue is closed, or so have we been trained to live the hyperreal. The first phases of power generation are already on. ‘Experts’ have ‘ensured’ us that there won’t be any leak. Even if there is, we could be told that the effect won’t cross state borders!

But even after the chapter was closed for many of us, reminders come in at intervals and press on us to see how ‘cubulets’ of power fit together. It is difficult to work back the combinations, in the way the final patterns take effect. But it will be disastrous not to do so.

Presently, the ‘biggest’ nuclear deal is in the making, through the special economic zones in the Gujarat region. But before getting into the specifics of the joint venture between Westinghouse, Reliance Infrastructure and the state, let’s pause a bit on the symbolic and exemplary connotation of ‘Gujarat’.

Starting from the cover up campaigns following the communal riots that killed thousands, through ‘Vibrant Gujarat’, there have been concerted attempts to sell the state as a brand. Million dollar contracts were given to PR companies to do this clean up. The resultant model was a nexus of violence and wealth. It inaugurated the new algebra of growth. So there is a white wash on all the miserable social indices and histories of caste and communal violence from the region. Instead the ‘lion-brand’ is etched atop. The Weiden Kennedy’s Indian subsidiary along with Coke and Nike manufactured, for a lump sum, the logo for the nationalistic gimmick of the government. The model from Gujarat now casts a pall over the entire nation state; voted in thanks mostly to the combination of a miserable and corrupt system that left office and for the serious lack of any alternative.

Koodamkulam, in ways, represented the model that left office. Manmohanomics and state, tackled the crucial questions raised by people with GDP figures (something which the present ones also are not averse to) and personnel from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS). As Praful Bidwai, then wrote, so “arrogant is India’s nuclear establishment that it brazenly brands its critics insane and in need of psychiatric treatment. It has asked the state-run National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) to "counsel" the tens of thousands protesting against the Koodankulam nuclear power station in Tamil Nadu that it’s perfectly safe”. For the state, the whole resistance was nothing but a neurotic problem.  Elsewhere, like in and around the mining regions in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand or Odisha, where people have been further off the state, paramilitaries or militaries were deployed: the Salwa Judums, the Cobras, the Greyhounds (literally to hunt the ‘small creatures’ in the hills!).

The present state works in a different way, there is much more professionalism involved in cover-up campaigns (with or without ‘vibration’) and brand selling.  The state, the corporate, and finance capital, have been entering into dialogues at an increased pace throughout the 90s, albeit with some remaining, probably ‘unintentional’, checks and balances from a planned-developmental state. These checks and balances have now been totally gotten rid of.

Government out…Governance in: Read this with the efforts to formulate new land policies, to do away with social impact assessments, public private ventures through smart city networks, promotion of private ports and SEZs, private military arrangements, corporate farming and agreements with agribusiness companies (Monsantos…Cargills…the kind that was involved in illegal BT trials and food price inflations), as well as favourable terms set in patents and intellectual property agreements. It is not for nothing that the entrenched media celebrates and writes travelogues from New York to Nairobi or from Kremlin to Lahore.

So there won’t anything positive on the human front. The Koodamukulams will go on, and worse, there will be more in the offing. Agreements with companies like Areva from France, with very bad track records on safety, are on.  The French state gave shape to Areva mostly to export its nuclear technology, especially after the leaks and ‘small’ issues in its own backyard! After all who expects safety from private companies that seek ONLY profit and after such accidents like Fukushima? It is learned that the French government aimed to reduce its reliance on nuclear power by a third after Fukushima. So wouldn’t they love a warm hug from India!

Now, Westinghouse Electricals will enter into joint ventures with the Reliance Empire, with support of the state, in order to set up networks of nuclear reactors across Bavnagar area. Reliance infra founded in 2002 has revenue nearing 200 billion Indian rupees.  If one goes a bit back in history, there was the Pipavav- the first ‘private corporate facility’ to get clearance to be involved in military infrastructure. Not that state involvement and increased investment in military infrastructure in itself, was too nice or safe. But corporate involvement means something significant and something profoundly insecure.

Pipavav came in the scene towards the end of 90s, and thus exemplifies the impact of post nineties financial reforms. Even otherwise, the 90s end started working against people; not the least in the agricultural sector.

Bhavnagar, the early diamond cutting centre with some of the most precarious labour conditions, by 2003-2005 periods had the most number of agreements signed with huge private companies. In 2007, after the bloody- state -mediated pogroms in Gujarat, it was raised as an exemplar for development and that too with a totally privatized port. It went well along with the already burgeoning empires by other corporate vampires.  By 2015 beginning Reliance Infrastructure went on to acquire major shares of Pipavav, and later Anil Ambani took charge of the company. An ever more energized an entrenched Reliance is now getting together with United States based giant Westinghouse in the nuclear sector.

Try to see how the Rubik’s cube of power works out its colours once again. The state of governance twists and tweaks the governmental apparatus, in steps and in procedures that becomes more and more obscure. The celebrations of machismo, communal state of affairs, the violence of fascist groups that prowl the streets as well as destroy the cultural and educational infrastructure; all create a violent haze that effectively mars vision even further.