Manmohan Singh alleges that NGOs opposed to the Kudankulam N-plant are funded by foreign countries.
Taking a leaf out of Indira Gandhi's book, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has exhumed the "foreign hand" bogey blaming it for putting the brakes on both the Koodankulum nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu and the commercialisation of GM food crops.
Going ballistic against people's groups in an interview which will appear in the journal Science on Friday, Singh alleged that NGOs opposed to the nuclear power project were funded by foreign countries.
In the 1970s, Indira Gandhi used to conveniently blame the "foreign hand" for all ills plaguing her tenure as Prime Minister. She even justified the imposition of Emergency on this pretext.
While never actually identifying the foreign hand, the country she was mostly pointing the finger at was America. In fact, Congressmen - even under her son Rajiv - targeted the CIA for every campaign against them and for nearly every failure to control law and order.
In the UPA government, however, this is the first time that the highest authority has raised the issue of "foreign money" propelling domestic movements and has cast aspersions on civil society groups opposed to the nuclear plant. Till now, such allegations had been flung only by relatively junior functionaries in the government.
This is also the first time that the government has named the US and Scandinavian countries as the source of foreign funding of NGOs behind the antinuclear stir in Tamil Nadu and anti-GM movement in different parts of the country.
Virtually declaring a war on civil society activists, Singh said: "The atomic energy programme has run into difficulties because these NGOs, mostly I think based in the United States, don't appreciate the need for our country to increase energy supply."
The PM was alluding to the stalled commissioning of the 1,000-MW, Russian-aided Kudankulam nuclear power plant.
Continuing his scathing attack on voluntary bodies for opposing the government's pet projects, the PM observed: "There are NGOs, often funded from the United States and Scandinavian countries, which are not fully appreciative of the development challenges that our country faces."
Singh backed his government's resolve to develop nuclear power as well as biotechnology in India, despite the opposition from various quarters.
He said he saw a major role for nuclear energy even after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011. "The thinking segment of our population is certainly supportive of nuclear energy," the Prime Minister was quoted as saying in the interview. The journal is published by the American Association for Advancement of Science.
Till now the tirade against NGOs was led by minister of state in PMO V. Narayansamy, who recently alleged that civil society groups behind the Kudankulam agitation had received foreign funding. But when S. P. Udayakumar - the man spearheading the agitation - slapped a legal notice on the minister, he backtracked.
Will he now sue the Prime Minister because he had made similar noises? Udayakumar, the coordinator of the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, said he would consider all options.
"The PM's statement is complete falsehood. We are not funded by any foreign source. The ministry of home affairs knows this because it has audited financial records of scores of NGOs and Church- affiliated organisations in Kanyakumari, Nagercoil and Tuticorin in the past few weeks and found no evidence," Udayakumar pointed out.
"It is surprising why the PM is refusing to acknowledge that the people of this country have a mind of their own," he added. The remarks evoked a sharp response from other members of the civil society as well.
"There isn't an iota of evidence that foreign funding and nationals are instigating the anti-nuclear agitation. It is totally indigenous and has deep roots among the people. The only foreigners in the area are Russian personnel invited by the Nuclear Power Corporation," Praful Bidwai of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace said.
Eminent scientist Dr Pushpa Mittra Bhargava also felt amazed at the statement: "I am surprised the Prime Minister believes that the US will fund NGOs that would oppose nuclear power projects and GM foods. He must surely know that the US has been the biggest supporter of India's investment in nuclear power so that it can sell its reactors - for which there is no market in the US - to India."
In response to a question on the moratorium imposed by his government on the commercial release of GM brinjal, Singh supported biotechnology in agriculture while blaming NGOs for stalling the commercialisation of GM foods.
Anti-GM groups, too, reacted angrily to the diatribe. "Why is promotion of GM technology by foreign agencies not a cause of worry for him? What is scientific or democratic about the government forming a biased opinion about GM technology?" retorted Kavitha Kuruganti of the Coalition Against GM Foods.
She specified that the biggest opposition to GM crops had come from farmers' unions, which were not foreign-funded. "Sadly, the foreign hand in India's domestic policy today is the PM himself," green activist Vandana Shiva said.
"People's movements are trying to prevent farmers' suicides, which are a result of mounting debt linked to costly seeds. We want to promote sustainable agriculture that safeguards the livelihoods of farmers and nutrition of children," she added.
Exuding scepticism, another GM food critic Devinder Sharma said: "It is amusing to hear this talk of foreign funding of NGOs from a PM whose entire economic prescription is based on foreign direct investment. Whether it is GM crops or nuclear plants, the PM is more interested in the commercial interests of American and European companies. He is not concerned about the environmental and human impact of these risky and unwanted technologies on his people."
