London: Anti-nuke groups South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG) and Japan Against Nuclear(JAN) along with Kick Nuclear held a powerful protest against the Narendra Modi- Shinzo Abe Nuclear Agreement outside the Japanese Embassy here on Friday demanding the creation of a nuclear free zone in South Asia.
Demonstrators raised slogans including ‘No more Fukushimas! No more Chernobyls! Scrap the Nuclear Deal!’ and ‘Shinzo Abe, Narendra Modi, Scrap the Nuclear Deal!’ rang out across the posh West End neighbourhood (which includes the Ritz hotel!).
They demanded the scrapping of the impending Japan-India Nuclear Agreement as they recalled the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters to buttress their point.
Part of the protest was a short theatrical skit, in which protesters in masks played out the imperialist politics behind the deal with a smiling Obama and Hollande pushing Modi and Abe into a deal which they gleefully accepted.
Speaker after speaker drew attention to the massive people’s movements in India as well as Japan against nuclear power. It was these movements, in Jaitapur, Koodankulam and Mithi Virdi, in India for example, which had inspired this international protest against the Nuclear Deal.
Speakers from South Asia Solidarity Group pointed out that the deal was another face of the US and French imperialism which is currently involved in air strikes in Syria and that it would ramp up regional tensions and strengthen US and NATO military power in the region, with Abe and Modi acting as its agents as well as in their own right. They emphasised that the claim that Nuclear Energy was ‘clean energy’ is a horrific lie and highlighted the reality that while on the face of it, nuclear power plants are for civilian use, the export of nuclear technology has enormous military implications. The BJP’s aggressive militaristic Hindutva ideology, its record on testing nuclear weapons and the fact that India has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty must not be forgotten.