The End of the Beginning
A one para blurb in the newspaper today announced the decommissioning of the CIRUS nuclear reactor.It simply said that it was part of the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal agreed between Manmohan Singh and George Bush.
This barely a few days after it completed its landmark of 50 years and barely a few years after it was refurbished at a cost of millions of dollars.And all this at a time when there is still a muted debate on the nuclear liability bill and even before the USA actually gets around to helping us move forward on its commitments as part of the deal. Actually the use of the word commitment in the previous sentence is a misnomer.Its actually the Indian government claiming to represent the people of India that is making all commitments and the USA and other developed nations are just saying thank you.
It is perhaps the result of our inherently subservient attitude. Notice the way we hold foriegners in awe during personal interactions and are almost apologetic about our own existence.So as a people we get the leaders that we deserve. And when suddenly we have a government with economists and law-makers influenced by Harvard, Cambridge and other nurseries of western thinking and not influenced by our own history we become part of a free-market which will give us what we may not want and take from us everything that they believe we should not have.And we go to great lengths to appease them to enslave ourselves to their decisions. This is precisely the fate that the CIRUS has met.
In fact the CIRUS was the second Nuclear reactor in India.The first was the Apsara, an indigenously built reactor which went critical a few years before the CIRUS itself. So it is evident that we always had the capability, one which was again demonstrated in our stunning Pokhran II done stealthily and successfully.But instead of consolidating our beginnings and moving towards self-dependence, we are needlessly heading towards being a dependent nation.If only our political forefathers had concentrated more on an Indian growth story rather than pursuing idealistic goals like the Non-Aligned Movement, it would have been a different story today. And it is this beginning of Independent India, in trying to appease the rest of the world to lay claim to an equal status that continues to manifest itself in the nuclear deal.I really wonder if it is going to light up dreams of millions of Indians.For now, the twinkle is only in the eye of the Americans.
This barely a few days after it completed its landmark of 50 years and barely a few years after it was refurbished at a cost of millions of dollars.And all this at a time when there is still a muted debate on the nuclear liability bill and even before the USA actually gets around to helping us move forward on its commitments as part of the deal. Actually the use of the word commitment in the previous sentence is a misnomer.Its actually the Indian government claiming to represent the people of India that is making all commitments and the USA and other developed nations are just saying thank you.
It is perhaps the result of our inherently subservient attitude. Notice the way we hold foriegners in awe during personal interactions and are almost apologetic about our own existence.So as a people we get the leaders that we deserve. And when suddenly we have a government with economists and law-makers influenced by Harvard, Cambridge and other nurseries of western thinking and not influenced by our own history we become part of a free-market which will give us what we may not want and take from us everything that they believe we should not have.And we go to great lengths to appease them to enslave ourselves to their decisions. This is precisely the fate that the CIRUS has met.
In fact the CIRUS was the second Nuclear reactor in India.The first was the Apsara, an indigenously built reactor which went critical a few years before the CIRUS itself. So it is evident that we always had the capability, one which was again demonstrated in our stunning Pokhran II done stealthily and successfully.But instead of consolidating our beginnings and moving towards self-dependence, we are needlessly heading towards being a dependent nation.If only our political forefathers had concentrated more on an Indian growth story rather than pursuing idealistic goals like the Non-Aligned Movement, it would have been a different story today. And it is this beginning of Independent India, in trying to appease the rest of the world to lay claim to an equal status that continues to manifest itself in the nuclear deal.I really wonder if it is going to light up dreams of millions of Indians.For now, the twinkle is only in the eye of the Americans.
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