NEW DELHI: On the day anti-nuclear activists announced a ‘Koodankulam Chalo’ rally, a group of eminent citizens shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, taking strong exception to his raising the “foreign hand’’ bogey to harass NGOs opposing nuclear power plants and the GM Crops. In the letter to the PM signed by 17 prominent citizens, including former Supreme Court judge VR Krishna Iyer, ex-AERB chief A Gopalakrishnan, ex-CEC JM Lyngdoh, ex-power secretary EAS Sarma, two former Naval Chiefs Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat and Admiral L Ramdas, stated that the line taken by the Prime Minister on external funding of NGOs was a gross misrepresentation of facts. “You (Prime Minister) choose to resurrect the old bogeyman of a ‘foreign-hand’, this time pointing to external funding of NGOs to oppose Indian development, as if they are some of a fifth columnist operating to undermine the nation’s interest. This we feel, is a highly inappropriate misrepresentation of facts,’’ the letter said. In the two-page note, which carries a five-page annexure, the citizens’ group also urged the government to stop persecuting anti-Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant. The letter states: “The misdemeanors of these NGOs, if any, may well be only minor infringement of the letter of a restrictive law that enables government to harass them as is now being undertaken. In reality, what we are all fighting against is indeed a foreign-hand operating at the behest of and from within your government, supported by Indian and foreign commercial entities, to corporatise Indian agriculture and farming and the energy sector, without in-depth and impartial analyses which prioritise the country’s security and safety.’’
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