Kudankulam : the story of an Indo-Russian nuclear power plant

"The book tells the many stories that circulate around a nuclear power plant in Kudankulam in the southern peninsular region of Tamil Nadu in India from the late 1980s. The tales are by way of fishermen and women, farmers, environmentalists, activists, writers, scholars, teachers, journalists, priests, children, as much as they are of lawyers, scientists, state officials and the author drawing upon an interdisciplinary field as the subject compels. They show how peninsular residents contended with the prospect of one of Asia's largest nuclear enterprise being built on their doorstep. They reveal what role the nuclear plant plays in contested discourses of development, democracy, and nationalism in multiple spaces of criticality. Based on over a decade of historical and ethnographic research, we learn about the anti-nuclear campaign's part in 'right-to-lives' movements, the (re)production of knowledge and ignorance in the understanding of radiation, and tactics to create an evidence base in response to the otherwise unavailable or inaccessible data on radiation and public health in India. In the process, the author casts a lens on how national and transnational solidarity was both received and curtailed, where processes of neo-liberalization and national security led to the hardening of the 'nuclear state'. This phenomenon came with the direct and indirect repression of the anti-nuclear movement with the engineering of 'death conditions' for its protagonists. Altogether, this is one of the few books that has at its heart the many facets of a grassroots movement for energy justice in the global south from the 1980s that, three decades on, went on to become an international cause célèbre." -- Oxford Scholarship Online Since the 1980s, the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu has faced multiple forms of resistance. Women and men from different walks of life ― fishers, farmers, environmentalists, activists, writers, scholars, teachers, journalists, doctors, and lawyers among many others ― have come together to combat the deadly radioactive repercussions and repression that come with the development of a high-security nuclear installation. Drawing upon their experiences, this historical and ethnographic study accounts for the anti-nuclear campaign's part in 'right-to-lives' movements while engaging with the (re)production of knowledge and ignorance in the understanding of radiation, and efforts to create an evidence base in response to the otherwise unavailable or insufficient data on the environment and public health in India. Tracing the grassroots struggle for 'energy justice' off- and on-line, the author looks into the larger questions of development, democracy, and nationalism. These have marked not just parts of India identified for large-scale constructions, but also other regions of the world where state functionaries have much to gain from corporate collaborations at the cost of local residents who lose their livelihoods, and are forcibly displaced, persecuted, or even killed in order to execute governmental designs in the name of the nation. Based on over a decade of historical and ethnographic research, the book discusses the anti-nuclear campaign's part in 'right to lives' movements, the (re)production of knowledge and ignorance in the understanding of radiation, and tactics to create an evidence-base in response to the otherwise unavailable or inaccessible data on radiation and public health in India. In the process, we cast a lens on how national and transnational solidarity was both received and curtailed, where processes of neoliberalisation and national security led to the hardening of the 'nuclear state'. This phenomenon came with the direct and indirect repression of the anti-nuclear movement with the engineering of 'death conditions' for its protagonists. They reveal what part the nuclear plant plays in contested discourses of development, democracy and nationalism in multiple spaces of criticality.0Altogether, this is one of few books that have at its heart the many facets of a grassroots movement for energy justice in the global south from the 1980s that, three decades on, went on to become an international cause celebre This text tells the many stories that circulate around a nuclear power plant in Kudankulam in the southern peninsular of Tamil Nadu in India from the late 1980s. The tales are by way of fishermen and women, farmers, environmentalists, activists, writers, scholars, teachers, journalists, priests, children, as much as they are of lawyers, scientists, state officials and the author drawing upon an interdisciplinary field as the subject compels. They show how peninsular residents contended with the prospect of one of Asia's largest nuclear enterprise being built on their doorstep