Ok, maybe I am dreaming. We just passed the Nuclear Liability Bill, managing to get a semblance of national self respect by changing the most obvious ways in which it was a sellout to the US. But now there are already rumbles that Washington wants us to backtrack, and drop all clauses that would hold nuclear equipment companies meaningfully responsible for failures in their equipment. And Dr. Manmohan Singh is actually said to be considering this!
What’s wrong with us? First, let’s accept the word “nuclear” gives too many Indians an erection. We thirst to turn our once-emaciated nation into a potent one. Our badge of national pride is also entangled with subliminal personal ambitions, historical resentments and powerful but inchoate feelings of inferiority. The honour of first proclaiming India’s phallic and psychological obsession with nuclear missiles goes to the Times of India, which welcomed the 1998 nuclear tests with the unfortunately worded headline: An Explosion of Self-esteem. No other country, certainly none that vaunts its “peaceful” nature, has heralded its power to destroy the world with such gusto. Ironically, it was the warmongering Americans who greeted the atom bomb by ominously quoting the Gita: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds”.
Manmohan Singh’s obsession with nuclear power has been even more intense. He was even willing to crash his government over the 1-2-3 Agreement with the US. What the PM doesn’t understand is that now his Nuclear Liability Bill is causing the nuclear bulge in our pants to wilt. Merely attaching the word liability to nuclear is like attaching premature to erection – it awakens you to the troubling reality that your equipment can malfunction. And nuclear malfunction can be bad. Ok, not as bad as an erectile malfunction, but bad. The last time one happened (a nuclear malfunction, that is) half of Russia and a good part of Europe had pregnant women having two-headed babies and cows giving radio-active milk. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, it was bad. Nuclear technology was dumped, and as is usually the case with dumped technology, began to be sold in India. And as is also usually the case, the Government of India is an eager buyer.
Maybe our PM missed the Chernobyl disaster, buried as he was in books as a National Fellow at the National Institute of Education in 1986. Maybe he just thinks Indians are already immune to adulterated milk. That’s the only reason I can come up with for Shri Manmohan Singh considering reducing the liability nuclear providers would bear for accidents to below even the paltry Rs 1500 crore it stands at today. That’s a bit like capping the fine on any doctor who causes your equipment to malfunction at Rs 15.
I, for one, proud and fond of my equipment as I am, demand more. If someone is going to bust my balls I want him to pay me more than Rs 15. I’m thinking at least Rs 15 crore upfront – and the chance to sue for damages. Translated into a nuclear fine, that’s about Rs 15,000 crore, or $ 4 billion – plus the right to sue. Coincidentally, that’s roughly equal to the Nuclear Liability in many European countries. And that’s fine with me. After all, why should Indian balls and cities be worth less than European ones? The PM may be past the age where his balls matter to him. But half of India is below 30, and virile.
