Mr.

As activist for Gandhian values for peace and welfare of the humanity, an activist for secular minority rights in India I endorse Dr.Polya's appeal on global nuclear and climate challenges. 
 
As one who has followed the Indian nuclear programme right from its inception and also the builtin hypocrisy of the US nuclear policy inextricably tied to their hegemonic aspirations I would like to take the liberty of submitting my recent communications to Mrs.Sonia Gandhi, President Indian National Congress expressing strong misgivings about this Nuclear Deal as definitely injurious to the Indian sovereignty . 
 
With Bush preparing for world war III as per the article Bush's World War III 'Solution'By Scott Ritter, Truthdig October 23, 2007 http://www.alternet.org/story/65846/ I think the world is being pushed into an armageddon. 
 
Hence I took the liberty of sending the following communications to the Indian National Congress President, Mrs.Sonia Gandhi. 18th and 22nd August, 2007: 
 
" Madam, America has alway entertained a patronising and hegemonic attititude towards India. And now it has the cheek to warn India that we cannot conduct tests. This is outrageous. I cannot understand how the External Affairs Ministry has so blunderingly failed to read the fine print of the Indo-US nuclear Pact. 
 
The Indo-US nuclear deal besides being an isufferable affront to India’s national sovereignty is an ipso facto extension of the US hegemonistic global sweep.  
 
I would like to recall that I had written to the then prime minister Indira Gandhi dt. March 1, 1983 referring to her “meaningful observations when addressing the Foreign Correspondents’ Association on 25.2.83. when she said that she was “a bit divided within myself” about using nuclear energy even for peaceful purposes, and that while she was personally opposed to using nuclear energy even for developmental purposes because of its adverse ecological effects, as head of a government and in the face of an energy crisis it had become imperative to use nuclear energy in industry and agriculture for speedy development.” 
 
Further I said: “I find your above observation complementary to what you proposed in your keynote address at the UN Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy held at Nairobi in august,1981, when she called for a “world energy programme” and an international consortium to plan and monitor it to provide aid, knowhow and expertise to the Third World countries with an emphasis on new and renewable sources of energy 
 
Voicing my serious misgivings about India’s nuclear programme and the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. Sethna’s claim that “India is the only country to have full control over the fuel cycle(uranium mixing and ,milling, fabrication of fuel elements and storage of waste) apart from major nuclear countries such as the U.S. Russia, France and Britain.” 
 
“I am afraid Dr. Sethna’s claim cannot be sustained in the context of the operational facts of the nuclear plants the world over and the Tarapur plant which has been beset by grave difficulties from its very inception and that environmental hazards of nuclear power to the power plant operator or to those in its immediate vicinity were far less than that caused y cigarette smoking. 
 
Further I wrote: 
 
“When I wrote to Lord Flowers, FRS, former Rector of the Imperial College of Science and Technology , London and Chairman of the British Royal Commission on Environmental Protection appreciating his recommendations in the Commission’s Sixth Report on Nuclear Power and the Environment he was good enough to send me a copy of his speech Problems of Nuclear Power delivered at the Geneva Colloquium on Nuclear Energy in 1977. 
 
“Lord Flowers has expressed his belief that political decisions arising from major technological developments should be taken in the light of popular but rational debate, and has urged extreme caution in the future development of nuclear power beyond the present generation of thermal reactors.  
 
“Conceding the radioactive waste management to be a profoundly serious issue, central to the environmental evaluation of a nuclear power programme the Commission concluded that the “development of fission power on the scale we have described earlier carries implications and potential risks for society which are too serious to be disregarded on the grounds that they are necessarily speculative and of a kind that we have not hitherto expected to address in decisions on technological development. Decisions should not be taken simply on the basis of technological or economic advantage and the assumed necessity of securing increasing energy supplies. The social and ethical issue involved are real and important, and should be widely appreciated and discussed” Hence, Lord Flowers concludes definitely that there should be no commitment to a large programme in Britain until it has been demonstrated “beyond reasonable doubt” that a method exists to contain high level waste indefinitely.” 
 
Indira Gandhi was good enough to note my view and refer my letter to the then Minister of State Science & Technology Atomic Energy,Space Electronics & Ocean Development, Shri Shivraj Patil who responded in his letter dated May 19, 1983 as follows: 
 
“Dear Shri Bal Patil, 
 
Please refer to your letter of 1st March 1983 to the Prime minister regarding your apprehensions about our nuclear power programme. The Prime Minister, as you no doubt are aware, has on several occasions voiced her concern about conservation, environmental protection and the need to safeguard against the hazard of pollution and the Government is fully alive to its special responsibility in this regard. Government has embarked on its programme for utilization of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes including the generation of power keeping in mind its ecological and other implications. I would like to assure you that these aspects are taken due note of and accorded due importance. 
 
As regards some of the opinions cited by you, you may also be aware of the existence of equally committed pro and anti groups when it comes to issues related to nuclear energy. I would venture to suggest that some of the reports in certain sections of the press do tend, for reasons not clear, to mis-inform and create needless alarm by distorting facts. It is necessary to see the matter objectively and in its entirety.  
 
Yours sincerely, 
Sd/- 
Shivaraj V.Patil 
____________________________________________________________  
 
“The US is the original culprit in the atomic proliferation right from first atomic test which culminated in Truman’s dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki even when Japan was on the verge of surrender. It was done only to show to the world now America was invincible. America was so secretive then that it would not even share the atomic technology with their closest ally the UK. 
 
“Madam, I seriously urge you that the only honorable course open to the Government now is to terminate the Pact summarily and tell the US: thus far and no further.” 
____________________________________________________________ _ 
 
I followed it up with a further letter dt. August 21, 2007 as follows: 
 
FOR IMMEDIATE AND URGENT ATTENTION PLEASE 
 
DEAR MADAM,, 
 
I REFER TO MY EARLIER LETTER DT.AUG.18, 2007, ABOUT THE INADVISABILITY OF PROCEEDING WITH THE NUCLEAR DEAL. SINCE IT IS MY HUMBLE CONVICTION THAT THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISORS TO THE PRIME MINISTER ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY INFORMED ABOUT THE HISTORIC GENESIS OF THE US NUCLEAR POLICY, AND SINCE AS AN INDIAN CITIZEN I DO NOT THINK THAT THE NATION SHOULD BE PLUNGED IN THE ELECTORAL TURMOIL I TAKE THIS LIBERTY. 
 
I BESEECH YOU MADAM NOT TO PLUNGE THE INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT INTO THE US-ENGINEERED NUCLEAR INFERNO. IN CASE YOU ARE STILL IN TWO MINDS PLEASE CONSIDER FOR GOD’S SAKE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT OF STIMSON, THE THEN SECRETARY OF STATE TO THE THEN PRESIDENT TRUMAN PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS FEB.3, 1947: 
 
“THE FUTURE MAY SEE A TIME WHEN SUCH WEAPON MAY BE CONSTRUCTED IN SECRET AND USED SUDDENLY AND EFFECTIVELY WITH DEVASTATING POWER BY A WILFUL NATION OR GROUP AGAINST AN UNSUSPECTING NATION OR GROUP OF MUCH GREAT SIZE AND MATERIAL POWER. WITH ITS AID EVEN A VERY POWERFUL AND UNSUSPECTING NATION MIGHT BE CONQUERED WITHIN A VERY FEW DAYS BY A VERY SMALLER ONE...” 
 
QUOTING THIS THE MOST DISTINGUISHED EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICIST AND NOBEL PRIZE WINNER IN 1948 P.M.S. BLACKETT SAYS IN HIS BOOK ‘THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF ATOMIC ENERGY’ (1948): “THE OBVIOUS RESULT HAS BEEN TO STIMULATE A HYSTERICAL SEARCH FOR 100 PER CENT SECURITY FROM SUCH ATTACK. SINCE THERE CAN BE NO SUCH COMPLETE SECURITY FOR AMERICA EXCEPT THROUGH WORLD HEGEMONY BY AMERICA IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER...”P.128 
 
MADAM, OFFICIALS AND ANALYSTS IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE BEEN WARNING THAT AL-QUAIDA OR ASSOCIATED GROUPS ARE PLANNING SUCH NUCLEAR ATTACKS ON AMERICAN SOIL.  
 
DUBBED AMERICAN HIROSHIMA THE PLAN APPARENTLY TARGETS NEW YORK , MIAMI LOS ANGELES, PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO, SAN FRANSISCO, LAS VEGAS , BOSTON AND WASHINGTON D.C. 
 
FORMER US DEFENCE SECRETARY WILLIAM PERRY SAYS THERE IS AN EVEN CHANCE OF A NUCLEAR ATTACK ON THE US THIS DECADE. 
 
RENOWNED INVESTOR WARREN BUFFET HAS PREDICTED “A NUCLEAR TERRORIST ATTACK...IS INEVITABLE....” 
 
IN THE ABOVE CONTEXT I BESEECH YOU , MADAM, PLEASE CONSIDER WHETHER IT WOULD NOT BE SUICIDAL FOR INDIA TO ALLY WITH SUCH A HORRIBLE NUCLEAR SHADOW.  
 
-BAL PATIL 
 
_____________________________________________  
 
I would make bold to say that the last word has not been said on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. There is a sea change in the US reeling with the recessionary spiral and Bush’s exit. And I am afraid there will be many a slip between the cup of the rosy dreams of nuclear energy and the and the power-hungry Indian lips of the billions in India. 
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At the heart of the matter

Dr polya/'s concern here, as it has been in some other discussions, is about media and the dissemination of information. His fundamental concern, which also motivates his interest in the application of a principle of \'zero tolerance for lying\" to public discussion and of the principles of scientific risk assessment in collective decision making, is the same as that which motivates Bal Patil\'s concern over the Indo-US nuclear Pact and that is that: 
SOME COLLECTIVE DECISIONS WE CAN\'T AFFORD TO GET WRONG. 
Karl Marx stressed the importance of educating the masses as key to winning the class struggle, not so much in relation to quality decision making but rather in terms of strengthening collective awareness of collective interests in power structures. 
 
Good collective decision-making in an ideal world requires a combination of things: proper and balanced representation of ALL interests; orderly, objective contribution of information and analysis from the best qualified minds, a well-defined and applied system of law that prevents subversion of the decision-making process and a widespread understanfing and esteem for ethics. 
Currently, we have the worst of all possible arrangements, a world in which the only power is economic power, a consequence of which is that the richest minds - circumspect, rigorous, analytical, methodical etc. - are almost entirelt excluded from both discussion and decision making. Discussion (the real discussion)is conducted out of public sight and decisions are made exclusively by people whose minds are myopic, focussed only on the attainment and application of economic power and, what is far worse, precluded almost by definition from ethical considerations because they must always compete with others who have economic power and in whose mind-set the vulnerabilities created by ethical consideration have long since caused them to be purged. 
 
Part of the human problem is that human beings will follow individual interests at the expense of the interests of others and the collective in general, a consequence of which (as is probably the root of the KARMA way of thinking) the individual\'s own broader interests (as part of the collective) are degraded in the longer term. 
 
We (in the sense of \"we\" who feel that the world is going in directions that are certifiably insane and feel a desperation to \"do something\" - but what?) should not be thinking about problems of competing with corporate media and the owners of economic power but rather in designing and defining the GOAL for change, i.e. a better system for collective discussion and decision making. 
What is needed is to DEFINE such a system. Once that is in place the task is one of propagating that single message, the right message, the message that will provide the conduit for all the other messages. With the right goal defined and firmly implanted in the hearts and minds of a generation or two it could become a tide that will sweep into place of its own accord. 
 
If GWB is the pinnacle of collective human decision making then I hope that he really DOES talk to GOD, otherwise, well, GOD HELP US!!! :-)

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