Political Protest
Koodankulam Protest: A Performativity of Survival
Submitted to Trina Nileena Banerjee Political Theatre By Akhila Vimal C MA Arts & Aesthetics Winter semester 2012
Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi
Koodankulam Protest: A Performativity of Survival
An Inter-Governmental Agreement on the project was signed on November 20, 1988 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, for the construction of two reactors. The project remained in limbo for a decade due to the political and economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991 Soviet breakup. As of October 2011, thousands of protesters and villagers existing around the Koodankulam nuclear plant in the southern Tamil Nadu state, blocked highways and staging hunger strikes, preventing further construction work, and demanding its closure as they fear of the disasters like the Environmental impact of nuclear power, Radioactive waste, nuclear accident similar to the radiation leak in March at Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. Koodankulam is question; the question which doesn’t have an answer question is what is important energy or life of people who are staying there. industrialisation without land alienation and displacement is not possible in a country like India but we can have least of it, in Koodankulam its happened there is no high amount of displacement then the question is, is everything maybe all right what if something goes wrong? Can they save us from that, they ask. The protesters have stated specific reasons for opposing the Kudankulam NPP project like "More than 1 million people live within the 30 km radius of the KKNPP which far exceeds the AERB (Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) stipulations. It is quite impossible to evacuate this many people quickly and efficiently in case of a nuclear disaster at Koodankulam", etc. According to S P Udayakumar, of the voluntary People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, "the nuclear plant is unsafe" and "the safety analysis report and
Submitted to Trina Nileena Banerjee Political Theatre By Akhila Vimal C MA Arts & Aesthetics Winter semester 2012
Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi
Koodankulam Protest: A Performativity of Survival
An Inter-Governmental Agreement on the project was signed on November 20, 1988 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, for the construction of two reactors. The project remained in limbo for a decade due to the political and economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991 Soviet breakup. As of October 2011, thousands of protesters and villagers existing around the Koodankulam nuclear plant in the southern Tamil Nadu state, blocked highways and staging hunger strikes, preventing further construction work, and demanding its closure as they fear of the disasters like the Environmental impact of nuclear power, Radioactive waste, nuclear accident similar to the radiation leak in March at Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. Koodankulam is question; the question which doesn’t have an answer question is what is important energy or life of people who are staying there. industrialisation without land alienation and displacement is not possible in a country like India but we can have least of it, in Koodankulam its happened there is no high amount of displacement then the question is, is everything maybe all right what if something goes wrong? Can they save us from that, they ask. The protesters have stated specific reasons for opposing the Kudankulam NPP project like "More than 1 million people live within the 30 km radius of the KKNPP which far exceeds the AERB (Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) stipulations. It is quite impossible to evacuate this many people quickly and efficiently in case of a nuclear disaster at Koodankulam", etc. According to S P Udayakumar, of the voluntary People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, "the nuclear plant is unsafe" and "the safety analysis report and