Bradbury visited India in October 2012 along with his wife and three year old son. They were on a tourist visa and Bradbury was a member of the jury for the Mumbai International Film Festival. After the Festival, Bradbury with his family visited Idinthakarai, a coastal village in the Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu, which was an epicentre of the protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant.The protests had been spread across the Tirunelveli district with locals being concerned regarding the widespread and long-term impacts of any potential mishap at the plant following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. A month before Bradbury’s visit, police had shot dead a protester in Idinthakarai as villagers protested uranium fuel being filled in the plant which is the final step towards making it functional. As many as 66 people, mostly women were arrested—several of them on charges of sedition.Bradbury stayed in the village for two weeks and documented the protests and the daily lives of the villagers who predominantly depended on fishing for livelihood.”I lived in the village and filmed the villagers’ everyday lives, including their fishing activities, which their livelihood depended upon,” Bradbury said.He was however prevented from visiting the Kudankulam site and was allegedly detained and harrassed on his way to the site. He later wrote an article titled ‘Documenting Dissent: David Bradbury’s Account of Harassment in Koodankulam’ which described his experience filming in the Idinthakarai village.Bradbury said the decision by the Central and State governments to build a Nuclear Power Plant in Kudankulam was not only “irresponsible towards their own people but also to the world – to the people of Sri Lanka and other surrounding countries, home to many billions of people.”The Nuclear Power Corporation of India in a statement released in October 2011 had claimed that Kudankulam site is not located on an earthquake fault line and that it is located about 1500 km far from tsunamigenic fault.However, for the residents of Idinthakarai, which was hit by the deadly tsunami in 2004, the Fukushima disaster was hinting at a looming threat to their lives and livelihoods.Bradbury reflected this fear.”If one of those reactors has a meltdown like Fukushima or Chernobyl or the Three Mile Island in the US, the consequences and triggering of cancer from the radiation leakage would prove catastrophic,” he said.Bradbury’s concerns for the people and quest for truth costed him unexpected, unforgettable ordeals and a much needed vacation in India with his children. However he insisted that his children stay and embark on their planned trip on their own.”My father told us not to change our plans or else we would regret having missed a chance to explore a new country,” Bradbury daughter, Nakeita told The Wire.”It was just very sad and unfair. The Indian authorities had issued my father a visa after all, and he had been very honest in mentioning all details in his visa application. There was no reason to trouble him and us this way,” she added.
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