Nuclear history lost on local village

Sun, May 11 12:05 AM

POKHRAN'S HISTORIC moment is lost on the people of Khetolai. Living barely a few kilometres from the nuclear blast site of 11 May, 1998, the young and the old have a faint memory of the blasts that catapulted India into a nuclear power.

However, the elderly take it with a pinch of salt. "What did the blasts give us? The blasts took place on our land but Pokhran made history," Ramlal, a schoolteacher in the senior secondary school of Khetolai said.

While Pokhran is 26 km from Khetolai, the 1998 blasts took place just three km from the village. A vast stretch of forbidden desert expanse separates the village from the heavily guarded blast site.

The villagers have lived on with failed promises made by the Centre and the state government after the blasts. And yet, the 250-odd families - who have a high literacy rate of 80 per cent and have a third of their adult population serving as government teachers - rarely discuss the atomic blasts with their children.

"Our livestock suffered from radiation in the initial day. Every house in the village developed cracks due to the tremors that followed the blasts but the government made a tourist spot out of Pokhran where nothing really happened," Ramesh Chand, a villager, said.

However, unaware of the villagers' plight, Lt. Col.

N.N.

Joshi said the DRDO is celebrating the occasion as a National Technology Day. "We have received a recent communication which holds the day as a symbol of technological empowerment," he said.

"People take pride in the event but are disconnected from it. How would the younger generation relate to the incident? If only the government would have given us a hospital and named it after the event in 1998, the children would have known.

They could have also mentioned Khetolai in history textbooks alongside Pokhran," schoolteacher Ramlal said. The people here have learnt to live with the army watching over them - the sandy stretch separates the village from the watchtowers guarding the 1998 blast sites.

People are forbidden from wandering into the area but tourists are guided to Pokhran where a signboard with the words "Shakti Sthal" has been erected - 26 km from Khetolai.

RECOMMEND THIS STORY