Indian antinuke film director fighting unjust,
radiation
HIROSHIMA, Aug. 5 Kyodo - The sight of an
orange liquid draining out of a pipe from
a uranium mine in eastern India into nearby
fields convinced film director Shriprakash
that he should bear witness to the effect
on human health of radiation pollution, even
if it meant putting his own health in danger.
Shriprakash, 33, spent three and a half years
in the village of Jadugoda to document how
waste from the mine, which even seeps into
the pond where villagers wash, has resulted
in serious health problems such as deformities,
including babies born with unusually small
or large heads.
His 56-minute film, ''Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda,''
was screened Saturday in Hiroshima during
an annual antinuclear gathering.
The mine, located about 220 kilometers west
of Calcutta, is run by Uranium Corp. of India
to produce uranium for India's nuclear weapons
development program, according to the film.
It is the only such facility in the country.
Shriprakash told Kyodo News on Friday that
about 25,000 people living within a 5-km
radius of the waste could be affected by
radiation.
He said he could not put a figure on what
level of radiation villagers are exposed
to, but concedes that the long period he
spent in Jadugoda must have put his own health
at risk.
''I eat there, drink there, and sleep there.
I don't know what will be the effect on my
life,'' he said.
But the risk is one that he wants to downplay.
He calls his own life ''just a small dot''
in the record of human civilization.
Shriprakash was alerted to the story of Jadugoda
one day in early 1996, when he says he learned
that about 30 houses in the village had been
demolished by authorities without advance
notice.
He says that when he went to the area to
investigate, he found that the houses had
gone to make way for a so-called tailing
dam for the mine, which began operating about
30 years ago.
In the film, villagers are seen walking on
the dried-out bottom of a contaminated pond,
which is coated with a white material. A
couple of boys play barefoot around containers
of uranium.
''The spirit of Buddha is weeping,'' Ghanshyam
Beruli, a 36-year-old villager, says in the
film in an ironic reference to the nickname
''Smile of Buddha'' that some in India have
given to the country's nuclear tests.
Beruli, a former worker at the mine who now
leads a civic group seeking redress for the
radiation pollution, visited Hiroshima with
Shriprakash.
''(Babies with deformation) dream of playing
like other boys, and they want to laugh.
People in Japan and Hiroshima who have suffered
similar types of problem can understand the
practical issues,'' Beruli, who has difficulty
with English, said through Shriprakash.
Shriprakash said he wants to work for people
with ''no voice,'' noting that the villagers,
many of whom are illiterate, are not really
aware of the dangers of radiation pollution,
as he himself was not before he became involved
with Jadugoda.
He called on Indian government officials
to institute proper health and safety measures
for the mine, saying that if they plan to
continue with ''such a deadly and dirty type
of work, they must follow international norms.''
==Kyodo
