The most unfortunate aspect of the censorship controversy over Kamal Haasan’s new movie “Vishwaroopam,” which came out on Thursday, is that it is happening in Tamil Nadu. India’s southernmost state has a history of using cinema as a tool of political dissent and expression, particularly regarding the Dravidian movement, but that spirit seems to have vanished with the decision to release a truncated version of the film after Islamic groups said certain scenes offended them.

First, a recap: “Vishwaroopam” (background on that name here) is a spy thriller about a Muslim man living in New York, masquerading as a Hindu. He must thwart a plot by a group of Afghans to blow up the city. The film came out on Jan. 25 except in Tamil Nadu, where Muslim groups objected to the portrayal of some characters as bearded, wild-eyed “terrorists.” The state banned the film under India’s criminal code, and chief minister and former actress Jayalalithaa said she could not guarantee police protection at cinemas that showed the movie. She also said that the ban was a move to preserve “law and order.” Haasan agreed to remove seven scenes to mollify the groups.

The history of Tamil Nadu’s cinema is intertwined with its politics. The social, political and religious ideology that arose there over the years often was the work of prominent figures in cinema who gravitated toward politics. The influence of their politics was wrapped up in the films that they made. Many of these people dominate politics in the state today, but their stance on creative freedom contradicts their pioneering work in promoting progressive thought.

In 1952, the film “Parasakthi,” which lambasted Hindu religious beliefs and Brahmin caste hegemony, was released in Tamil Nadu. It was an instant hit – and all the more provocative because it debuted during the Diwali holiday.

“Parasakthi’s dialogues became so popular that roadside entertainers used to recite long passages from the film in market area of Madras and collect money from bystanders,” said MSS Pandian, cinema scholar in an article in the Economic and Political Weekly written in 1991.

When Hindu religious groups objected to the film, the government and Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari, allowed the film to be screened. According to a report in The Hindu newspaper, Rajaji was unhappy with “Parasakthi,” but said, “the course of freedom could not be dammed, and things could go on until people learnt themselves about what was worthless.”

Not surprisingly, politics played a role in the release of “Vishwaroopam.”  In the early eighties, a wave of conversion of Dalits, or so-called untouchables, to Islam was reported in the districts of Ramanathapuram, Thirunelveli and Coimbatore. This was followed by communal clashes in the state.

The AIADMK party imposed restrictions on conversions and arrested several leaders of Muslim groups garnering Hindu support in the state. The DMK, which came to power later, released the Muslim leaders to try to win their votes.

Researcher P.G. Rajamohan described how the “Tamil identity” in the state was yielded to competing religious identities in one of his research papers. “The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK) bid to secure more Hindu votes by curbing Islamist fundamentalist organizations and the DMK’s strategy of appeasing the Muslims led to a further polarization in the State’s political spectrum,” he wrote.

With India’s general elections scheduled for 2014, political analysts see Jayalalithaa’s ban on “Vishwaroopam” as a move to garner Muslim votes.

Jayalalithaa’s predecessor and DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi, a self-proclaimed atheist, banned the movie “The Da Vinci Code” in Tamil Nadu, saying that Christian groups protested. And now, Christian groups in Tamil Nadu have filed a complaint against Mani Ratnam’s “Kadal,” saying the movie is anti-Christian.

While India’s creative class and intellectuals express dismay over a growing intolerance of free speech, the political system finds ways to use that intolerance. Tamil Nadu has much to lose — not just the culture of artistic and political expression that its people built, but the pride that came along with it.

The water was running in Bangalore on Saturday, but the buses were not.

“I have been waiting for a bus for over two hours now,” said Prabhat Kishan, 60, at the Majestic Bus Station in Bangalore.

India’s information technology capital shut down on Saturday over a state-wide “bandh,” or strike, that shut down shops, malls and restaurants. The bandh’s organizers paralysed the city to protest a decision by India’s Supreme Court to demand that the state of Karnataka allow the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu to get precious additional reserves of water from the Cauvery River. It is the latest episode in a dispute that has endured for years in a country that is facing alarming shortages of groundwater.

Karnataka has appealed the verdict, saying that the Cauvery River Authority, which conducted the tests that led to the decision, did not perform the tests properly. A new report on the river’s ability to provide drinking water and water for farmers is due on Thursday, Oct. 11.

In a city infamous for its chaotic traffic, the streets were deserted and the normal din of horns from cars, trucks, buses and motorbikes was absent. There was  no commercial activity around the popular hubs of MG Road, Brigade Road and Koramangala, and the only buses that ran were ones non-union drivers. The information highway was partially shut down too as cable television operators blocked entertainment channels on television as they joined the protest.  On a normal day, the Majestic bus station is reported to handle around 800,000 commuters and 4,500 state run buses.

“Bandh hoga to problem to hogi hi (If there is a ‘Bandh’, it is bound to be problematic),” Kishan said in Hindi.

Bangalore’s two main public bus providers, one run by the city and one run by the state of Karnataka, participated in the bandh. In such strikes, businesses often won’t open and people won’t drive, some because they support the protests and others because they fear that groups supporting the shutdown will harm them. The bandhs are a forceful way to make a statement, but they also can become tiresome for thousands of people who are not fired up, especially when they occur repeatedly.

The strike was mostly peaceful in Bangalore. In Mysore, media reports said that pro-Kannada activists tried to break into the campus of IT company Wipro. Throughout Karnataka, meanwhile, the anger at having to share water with Tamil Nadu took other forms. Cinemas, for example, have banned the showing of Tamil-language films, which are usually very popular in the southern state.

As much as the bandh’s ostensible purpose was to protest the Supreme Court decision, there were indications that some of the participants were interested in other agendas. Joining the protesters were supporters  of movements to make Karnataka’s state language of Kannada mandatory in daily life, as well as groups representing the rights of Dalits, or “untouchables,” as they were and still are sometimes known in the caste system.

One suspicion that we heard today was that the Cauvery River authority was obeying the wishes of Prime Minister and Congress Party member Manmohan Singh.

“The Cauvery River Authority’s verdict has been completely unfair to the people of Karnataka,” said Siddharamayya, an activist and member of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, a farmer’s movement that opposes multinational seed companies like Monsanto and tried to fight the spread of U.S. fried chicken restaurant KFC in Bangalore in the 1990s. “We suspect the authority headed by the prime minister ruled in favour of Tamil Nadu as the government is its ally in centre while Karnataka is ruled by its opposition party BJP.” (Editor’s note: Singh’s Congress Party actually is allied with a different party in Tamil Nadu, not the ruling government.)

Former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa, who quit his post after scrutiny of questionable land deals involving him and his family, also has been using the general protest spirit to further antagonize the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has shown plenty of signs lately that it would rather be rid of him.

With such a full plate of agendas, some fear that the original source of the anger – water rights – might get overshadowed.

“We are really sad that some of the members of the family are sharing stage with political parties over the Cauvery water-sharing issue,” said Ranganathan, an academic from Mannargudi in Tamil Nadu, who represents a group of farmers from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu called the Cauvery Family, which is trying to find a solution that will help both states.  “A lot of constructive work done by us under the banner of Cauvery Family is being undone now.”

Of course, the chances are high that the dispute is not going to resolve itself anytime soon, which will give everybody more opportunities to raise their voices.

Close to 2,000 people mobilised by the Islamist group Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath reportedly gathered outside the Thousand Lights Mosque. That is less than a kilometre from the U.S. consulate, where protestors smashed windows on Friday.

“Avoid Mount Road stretch and Radhakrishnan Salai near US consulate,” wrote Hindu Business Line journalist Dinakaran Rengachary on Twitter on Saturday. “Heavy traffic jam due to protest by Muslim organisations. #Chennai”

“Chennai police better prepared today! Stopped a crowd of 2000 a few metres away from the consulate! 2nd day of protest,” wrote Meenakshi Mahadevan, a CNN-IBN journalist in Chennai. “Close to 4k ppl near US consulate today! US flag burning, effigy burning, sloganeering et al happened! But in the end all under control.”

On Friday, about 1,500 protestors organised by Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK), another group, gathered in front of the U.S. consulate and threw stones and footwear at the building. The protestors also burned the American flag and pictures of President Barack Obama.

“The inquiry counter, police booth, CCTV cameras outside the campus and window panes, (and) glass paintings inside the campus were damaged in the attack, and about 25 people suffered minor injuries,” said a duty officer who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak for the Chennai police force.

“The protestors were charged following attempts to scale the consulate walls and break through barricades,” the officer said. About 700 people were detained temporarily to control the protests and later released.

“Security for the U.S. mission has been stepped up across the city,” said Police Commissioner J.K. Tripathy. 

The consulate staff vacated the building premises following alerts issued by intelligence agencies. Similar protests and the burning of American flags were reported in other districts including Ooty, Erode, Tiruchy in Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. A state appointed Muslim cleric in Kashmir warned Americans to leave the area after 15,000 people protested.

The U.S. consulates in Chennai and Hyderabad meanwhile issued a security message early on Friday warning its citizens of possible anti-American demonstrations in the state. Embassy officials declined to speak on the record.

India’s protests have been tame compared to others, which began on Sept. 11, anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Protests in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Nigeria and elsewhere have flared, and several people have been killed, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

“The director and all sympathisers of the movie need to be brought (prosecuted) under the international justice system and death penalty should be awarded for spoiling world peace,” said Mudasir, a TMMK activist from Azad Nagar. When asked, Mudasir said that he had not watched the movie or its scenes circulating on the internet. “I cannot bear to watch it,” he said.

The TMMK wants Muslims around the world to boycott American products, said its president J.S. Ribayee, in a statement. “This will severely affect that country’s economy which is already in bad shape.”

A California man convicted of bank fraud, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, has been taken in for police questioning regarding probation violations that he may have incurred from making the film.

(SLIDESHOW: Anti-Islam film protests in India)

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) pulled up the government last week for not implementing such a policy. Under the current system, the maximum penalty that can be levied on a nuclear plant operator for violating safety guidelines is a paltry 500 rupees.

The Japan Center for Economic Research has estimated that it could cost up to $250 billion for the clean-up at Fukushima, a nuclear crisis triggered by a deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11 last year. Considering this, the penalty in India for safety violations seems like a joke. Twenty-eight years since the Bhopal gas tragedy, the government is still struggling to deliver justice to victims of the disaster. Continuing under the current nuclear safety policy could lead to graver threats than Bhopal.

India’s nuclear ambitions and technology have been inspired by developed nations like France, Australia, Canada and the United States. But again, we have conveniently forgotten to ensure safety policies that these nations already have in place.

All these nations have an independent nuclear regulator unlike India and the CAG has raised concerns over the legal status of India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).

The AERB and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, the sole promoter of commercial nuclear power plants, are subordinate to the Department of Atomic Energy, which raises the possibility of a conflict of interest.

Policy makers have tried to provide a solution to this problem in the nuclear safety bill, which was first introduced in the lower house of parliament in September 2011. The bill proposes to establish a legal authority and an independent regulatory body for nuclear safety. But one year since its introduction, the bill is yet to be signed into law.

The issues raised by the state auditor on AERB bring us back to the role of our “ready at hand” experts. More than 20 scientists and experts have so far visited a small fishing hamlet in Tamil Nadu called Idinthakarai to create “awareness” on the safety aspects of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant that has come up near the village.

The list includes national heroes such as India’s missile man and former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and ‘Green Revolution’ stalwart M.S. Swaminathan.

Their endorsement of Kudankulam’s safety helped to build confidence over the project. But it seems that the larger policy issues mentioned in the CAG report may have been overlooked.

The document, written by India’s Planning Commission, proposes eliminating the government as the primary healthcare provider. Instead, it would focus on specific areas such as immunisation and HIV testing. Getting rid of many of its other responsibilities would amount to a shortcut to its goal of universal healthcare. Patients would get private healthcare at a cost that the government would negotiate with the private sector, and service providers could be reimbursed for each medical prescription.

The proposal, which is similar to the managed care system in the United States, caused such a ruckus that some of the major parties who contributed to the plan have distanced themselves from it. Members of the High Level Expert Group set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, say that the commission has distorted their recommendations.

“Planning Commissions’ document calls for a ‘managed healthcare’ approach where the role of the government is reduced from a provider to that of a manager,” said Rakhal Gaitonde, a public health researcher and state coordinator for the government’s National Rural Health Mission in Tamil Nadu.

“Expert group’s report only calls for strengthening and expansion of public health system, and contracting private players to fill the gap in areas where expansion is not possible,” said Rakhal. “The commission in its proposal has distorted the recommendations of the expert group by portraying managed care approach as the best possible solution.”

The document also proposes competition between public and private healthcare providers. But with the Indian government spending not more than 0.9 percent of its gross domestic product on healthcare — the least among the emerging market BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) – there is not much hope that government facilities will survive the competition.

Public health activists fear that with the collapse of government hospitals, private players might form cartels. But some medical experts say that more private players could improve the quality of healthcare for poor people.

Many of India’s 1.2 billion people depend on government-provided services for all their healthcare needs, particularly hundreds of millions of low-income and poverty-stricken people who primarily live in rural areas. Many of these healthcare centres, however, lack even basic supplies such as syringes and bandages.

“The current public healthcare system which has existed for the last three decades has not been able to achieve much,” said Dr. Ajay Bakshi, CEO of Max Healthcare hospitals. “Many national governments across the world have successfully moved to the managed care approach where the government reduces its role from provider to regulator. I do not see a reason why it won’t work in India.”

Public-private partnerships in healthcare, according to Bakshi, will also enable the poor in getting access to quality healthcare.

Upset over its suggestions not being incorporated, the Health Ministry may submit an alternative contribution to the Planning Commission, and the panel will meet at the end of this month to adopt the final proposal.

According to the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence report of 2010, India’s government hospitals have one bed for every 2,000 people. The Planning Commission’s report also says that Primary Health Centres across the country have a shortage of 6,148 doctors.

Considering these dire needs, the expert committee’s recommendations to strengthen the government’s facilities and contract private players in areas where expansion is not possible seems to be the most pragmatic and balanced approach.

The reactor’s design differs from the plan that Russia and India came up with when they agreed to build the reactor in 1988, according to the documents published by India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

The design of the reactor pressure vessel, which contains the reactor coolant and core, was not supposed to have welds in its core region, the bulletin said. The vessel has two welds there, it said.

People who live near the Kudankulam plant and the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy called this deviation a “serious breach of contract” that exposes the plant to high failure risk and a higher possibility of offsite radiological contamination.

“This is a breach of contract by the supplier in Russia. NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India) officers who knew [about] this breach are guilty of causing future financial loss by choosing lower quality equipment,” said Nityanand Jayaraman, environmental researcher and member of the Chennai Solidarity Group for Kudankulam Struggle.

RS Sundar, the plant’s site director, denied that it was a “breach of contract”. “The original discussion between Indian and Russian governments on procuring reactor vessels without welds was based on futuristic thinking,” he told me. “But that was not possible technologically at the time of procurement.”

Addressing safety, Sundar said, “all the 400-plus light water reactors in operation across the globe [have] welds in the core zone.”

India’s nuclear program in its early years was an epitome of national pride as most of the technology was domestically developed, with India not being a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But with the lifting of a ban by the Nuclear Suppliers Group and after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the feeling of pride has been replaced by safety concerns among the general public, especially those living around the project areas. There are 20 nuclear power plants in India spread across six states producing a total of 4780 megawatts of electricity. Three new projects including Kudankulam are near completion.

The controversy over the reactor welds is one of many problems that have kept the anti-nuclear protests alive in Kudankulam. Another is over the source of fresh water for the plant’s cooling towers.

The Environmental Impact Assessment conducted in 2003 assumes that the Pechiparai Reservoir will be the source of fresh water, with a reserve of 60,000 cubic metres. Farmers have protested the use of reservoir water, however, and now there are four plants for desalinating ocean water. The environmental impact of using this water has not been assessed.

The on-campus water reserve was also reduced to 12,000 cubic metres, 20 percent of what was proposed. Environmentalists say that this is a “serious breach of safety” by the government’s nuclear authorities, especially after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

While the limited information available to the public has mobilised some people against the project, the nuclear power corporation authorities are keeping other reports private.

The Safety Analysis Report is one of the key documents that protesters have demanded that the NPCIL release. Despite efforts to get that information, the nuclear power corporation has been reluctant to share it claiming it was a third party document. Russian atomic supplier, Atomstroyexport, is not bound by the civil nuclear liability law because the law, which holds the operator liable for nuclear damages, was drafted after the 1988 agreement to design the plant.

This reticence has turned people who have a neutral or even positive opinion on nuclear power against the project. What might people think about nuclear power in India if the government chose to be more forthcoming about its facilities? Surely, it would be a more positive view than it seems to be now.

Here is what happened:

The government released its report on the hills of the Western Ghats nearly nine months after the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) submitted it, and then only under a court order. The report, among other things, warned that genetically modified organisms were a threat to biodiversity in India. The government attached a disclaimer to the report, saying that it has not formally accepted the conclusions.

Meanwhile, minutes of meetings of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) — the central government’s regulatory body for GM crops — reveal that the committee is trying to convince state governments to allow field trials of genetically modified crops.

This is happening as India’s National Biodiversity Authority considers whether it will sue Monsanto and some of the agricultural universities involved in promoting Bt brinjal in India, according to information given by the authority in response to a Right To Information filing.

The authority has said that the agricultural universities and Monsanto are guilty of bio-piracy. That means exploiting the knowledge of India’s indigenous peoples for commercial gain without permission, compensation or recognition.

Here is how we got to where we are:

May 2007: After months of legal arguments, the Supreme Court allows field trials of Bt brinjal to proceed under strict conditions, including keeping the crops at least 200 metres from other crops during field trials, and conducting tests to confirm that they did not contaminate other crops.

2009: The GEAC gives its nod for the commercial release of Bt brinjal.

February 2010: The environment ministry, which supervises the GEAC, imposes a moratorium on the eggplant.

June 2011: The GEAC makes it mandatory for agriculture companies to make sure that state governments don’t object to trials of Bt brinjal. Twenty-four states say no.

Why is the GEAC trying to persuade the state governments to allow field trials when they could say no? According to environmental activists, the regulator is under pressure from agriculture companies that want to avoid the restrictions of the central government. This appears to make the GEAC a promoter, not a regulator of genetically modified crops.

And why does the government not accept a report produced by a scientific committee that it set up? New Delhi appears to be portraying itself as sensitive to the concerns of the people while also trying to remain in the graces of agriculture companies that want to invest in India. This comes at a time when the government is facing flak for being weak on policy reforms.

While all this has been happening, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has made it mandatory for genetically modified food products to be labelled as such, starting in January 2013. Based on previous incidents, agriculture companies don’t like that: Monsanto has threatened to sue the state of Vermont in the United States for trying a similar move.

With 71 genetically modified crops in various stages of the approval process, it is time for the government to make a decision on whether they are safe or not. The people of India are depending on it.

(Writing by Robert MacMillan)

The government finally woke up to this growing problem a couple of years ago when studies by its information technology department estimated the e-waste burden on the country to touch 800,000 metric tonnes by December. It responded by framing the e-waste (management and handling) rules – 2011 which came into effect this month. While the rules seem impressive on paper, environmental groups have expressed concerns about its ability to bring about change due to the sheer oversight of the ground situation.

To begin with, the rules put India along with a select club of nations like the United States and many in Europe to have legislation to regulate and manage electronic waste. Not just that, the rules also propose several ambitious measures to regulate waste.

For instance, according to government data, close to 95 percent of all the electronic waste is currently recycled by the unauthorised sector — scrap dealers. They usually resort to recycling methods that cause great damage to environment and human health, according to various studies conducted by environmental agencies including the Central Pollution Control Board. Printed circuit boards and electronic parts are usually immersed in chemical solutions or burnt to extract small amounts of metals.

The newly framed rules aim to change this situation by entrusting the responsibility of collection and safe disposal of waste with the manufacturers of electronic goods. It mandates manufacturers to collect electronic scrap directly from consumers and route them to authorised recycling centres across the country. The rules also try to address other issues such as restricting the usage of hazardous substances such as lead, cadmium, mercury, PCB, PVR and BFR in electronics.

But all these promising measures in the paper seem far from changing the ground scenario. Here is why.

The environment ministry proposed the electronic waste rules about a year ago, providing companies and other groups affected by the rules enough time to put systems in place for effective compliance before they come into effect this month.

If observations made by environmental NGOs are anything to go by, efforts over the past year to improve disposal mechanisms have been negligible. For instance, information on electronic scrap collection centres for consumers has not been made available in many major cities.

The rules also do not mention the number of collection points, number of authorised recyclers required in cities or the amount of waste to be collected and disposed. Environmentalists believe that this might result in manufacturers setting up a few symbolic collection centres across the country which might not be able to deal with the quantity of waste produced.

For instance, the second largest electronic waste-producing state in the country — Tamil Nadu (responsible for 13 percent of the total waste produced in India) — has only one recycler for the entire state. Other states face similar problems.

Even if the manufacturers and policymakers decide to open more collection centres, bigger problems remain, including persuading people to deliver their old computers and other products to collection centres instead of going to scrap dealers.

But when the local dealer pays handsomely for the scrap, it is doubtful that many would choose to return the waste to the manufacturer for free. Ever since the rules were being made, environmentalists have been negotiating with the government to provide some incentive to people who use electronics so they volunteer to turn in their devices to the companies to get them recycled. But this has not featured in the rules.

Furthermore, according to the study by the Department of Information Technology, there are more than 3,000 scrap dealers across the country. Unless these scrap dealers are given a chance to participate in an authorised recycling system, they will only fight harder to stay in business.

The rules are also completely oblivious to the electronic waste that is imported into the country. A study by the Centre for Science and Environment estimates that close to 50,000 metric tonnes of electronic scrap is imported into the country every year. But the rules have no provisions to control imports.

Though the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste is banned under an international treaty called the Basel Convention, dealers sneak in consignments of electronic scrap as they are not properly classified. According to environmental activists, most electronic scrap that comes into the country is classified as plastic scrap or mixed waste.

The biggest impediment of all for safely disposing electronics products is India’s record of municipal waste management. Twelve years after the municipal solid waste rules were framed, major metro cities like Chennai have not even got the basics right in terms of segregating waste at source and preventing the environmentally harmful burning of waste. With a track record like that, and the number of Indians using computers and mobile devices only rising, there seems to be little hope that rules will succeed in the marketplace.