Issue 65 Vol III, June 15, 2008

F O C U S

How to forsake energy plans
Gobind Thukral

THESE days anyone who counts in Indian establishment is talking about energy deficit. From Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission to anyone else. We are told demand for electricity would increase ten-fold by 2050.

After taking into account all available generation options, the country would still be left with a power shortage of 400 giga watts (one giga watt is equal to one billion watts). The shortage would be four times the current production levels. Thousands of homes, farms and factories would have to live with serious shortage of electricity. How could then India be a world economic power? China with much more demand than India would face no such shortage, though it is not going to be power surplus country.

We are also told that terrorism, individual or state sponsored and wars would focus on energy. Right now countries are vying with each other to control crude oil, nuclear energy and hydle or coal resources. What are these wars in West Asia including the current war in Iraq and the threatened war in Iran?  All this devastation; killing of lakhs of innocent people is to control the sources of energy.

Given this scenario India should be working hard to tap new resources and  draw a comprehensive map of our own resources and  what we can get from outside. We have vast resources of hydle power that is electricity from rivers; we have immense wind and solar energy assets. And what is astonishing is the vast reserve of uranium. These are enough to run all of India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years. But India’s atomic energy establishment has virtually done nothing to tap deposits identified up to 15 years ago. Mining is yet to begin at several sites explored, identified and handed through the 1990s by the Atomic Minerals Directorate, the government’s uranium exploration arm, to the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd.

And, India has been moving around the world with a begging bowl even ready to trade its hard won independence. No one in government of India answers a simple question. Why are we scouting for nuclear fuel from the US and elsewhere, when we have been sitting on massive, untapped reserves of uranium? India  has  hundreds of tonnes of which have been discovered over the past couple of years, adding to the over one lakh tonnes already identified in Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Some untapped reserves in Meghalaya contain the best-available quality of uranium. Many of the new reserves too contain a much better quality of ore than is currently available. India currently uses about 1,300 tonnes of uranium a year.

Together, these uranium resources would be enough to run India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years. In the context of the bitter political debate in India over taking N-fuel from the US, this is indeed intriguing. Yet despite having no uranium, the government has been spending thousands of crores on new N-power plants. Some experts assert that the country has been burdened with overcapacity of nuclear power plants with little uranium to run them. Out of the 4,000 MW-plus installed capacity of nuclear power plants, almost 2,000 MW capacities are lying idle. It is a waste of at least Rs 16,000 crore of public money. It takes up to Rs 8 crore to generate one MW of nuclear power.

It is true that the energy crisis faced by India is likely to worsen in proportion to the economic growth. Dr. Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission wants to import uranium to bridge the gap through civilian nuclear cooperation with America. He argues that the situation would largely ease if uranium required for generation of 30,000-40,000 MW of power was imported. He is silent about the uranium mining in India itself to overcome shortage. India’s atomic energy programme with a Rs 8,000 crore budget, direct supervision of, and access to, the PM, and has the legal power to acquire any area for exploration. If fund shortage is an issue the government with better finances can easily afford that. Why this sloth then? Is not true the current uranium shortage has been created through  allocation of insufficient funds to the uranium mining sector by the Planning  Commission and the Finance Ministry since about 1990. Government should explain why the plan expenditure of the Department of Atomic Energy was reduced by Rs. 188 crores between Budget Estimate 2007-08 and 2008-09?

India's plan was to raise the nuclear energy to 20,000 MW by 2020 and to 25% share of the country's needs by 2050 and all this was planned with indigenous fuel resources. Suddenly, we have a plan for changing the route of nuclear energy away from the one developed earlier, which calls for large-scale import of Light Water Reactors and import of uranium.  Some political leaders argue that that such a plan that depends on imported fuel was neither discussed nor placed before the people. Even the Integrated Energy Plan produced by the Planning Commission envisages -- as a most optimistic scenario -- nuclear energy to reach 29,000 MW by adding a limited number of Light Water Reactors to the 20,000 MW envisaged earlier by DAE. For none of this, a serious shortage of nuclear fuel has been projected either by DAE or the Planning Commission.

The current shortage of uranium is certainly not because the India-US deal  has not come through, since the 10,000 MW plan was finalised purely on the  basis of proven Indian uranium reserves, long before any deal with the US was in  the horizon!

Nuclear power comprises a minuscule three per cent of India's electricity production, which is dominated by coal-based thermal power (72%) and hydro power (25%). The government hypes nuclear power as the medium for the next stage of Indian economic growth. But the present efforts show even the modest target of extracting 8% of power from nuclear sources by 2020 seems out of reach. 17% of power worldwide comes from nuclear sources, including 80% in France, 40% or more in eight other countries, and 20% in the US. Has the government been only talking big?

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed with President George W Bush, the civil nuclear deal with the US, he could have looked towards India’s own uranium resources and provided more funds. He could have saved the Congress party from the embarrassment and political mess it created.  He could have better worked out the deal without allowing America any strategic advantages over India.

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Rule of the mob
Ishtiaq Ahmed

IN the wake of viciously gruesome attacks recently by angry mobs on criminals -- robbers and thieves -- caught recently red-handed on the scene in Karachi and other parts of the country, Gallup Pakistan conducted an opinion survey on May 18 and 19, 2008, of a representative sample of 1,595 men and women chosen from the rural and urban areas of all the four provinces of Pakistan to elicit their views on such treatment of alleged culprits.

Fifty-two percent of the total respondents were of the opinion that beating to death and then burning the bodies of those robbers apprehended on the spot was the "right thing to do" while 42 percent disapproved of such brutal methods. I am pleasantly surprised by the large minority which expressed disapproval of such violent methods, but we all should worry that a majority were in favour of such methods.

If we now recall that in the past few weeks a Hindu worker has been killed in a similar fashion by a mob which suspected him of blasphemy, incensed lawyers beat up pro-Musharraf ministers of the previous government in Lahore, and rival groups of lawyers fell upon each other in Karachi, causing a number of deaths, then the situation becomes very worrisome. It is symptomatic of not only a state and its institutions failing to establish and uphold law and order but civil society failing as well to inculcate norms and ethics that discourage violent conduct.

When such a situation becomes endemic the name for the phenomenon is ochlocracy, devised by the ancient Greeks to describe mob rule or mob justice. Sometimes another word, "mobocracy," is applied instead to describe the power of the masses, in contrast to the power of an established ruling elite. Oftentimes it is used in a pejorative manner. However, in a more neutral sense, ochlocracy means that anarchy prevails, and disputes and conflicts are resolved by recourse to brute force.

The Greeks remain the most original and innovative people in history to theorise politics and to propound stringent concepts and terminology, free from religious and metaphysical jargon. It is not surprising that even in the 21st century we continue to benefit from their intellectual enterprises, which generated classification schemes and typologies that are relevant today to describe and define political regimes.

Two questions come to mind, however: One, when and why do societies become ochlocracies? Two, is there a difference between Greek ochlocracies and the modern one in Pakistan? With regard to the first question, one can say that the failure of the government to establish the rule of law, and a structure of power which is seen as effective, neutral and fair, sets into motion processes at the top which generate cynicism and apathy. Once that happens, such processes percolate downwards and permeate other sections of society, creating a near loss of faith in the political system.

With regard to the second question, it is important to remember that Greek ochlocracies were products of simpler societies organised in the form of city states. When the ruling classes lost their ability to rule and control society mob rule and mob justice took over.

The situation in Pakistan is different. The outbursts of mob fury and the concomitant "rough" justice meted out to the culprits reflect not only loss of faith in the political leaders and state institutions' ability to maintain law and order and practise justice. Rather, in a more serious manner such extreme behaviour is a manifestation of helplessness and despondency in relation to the ruling class.

In the perception of the ordinary people they can do nothing to dislodge the crooks that frequent the corridors of power: they are beyond their reach. They know that the national treasury has been plundered in the billions by them, but are not likely to be held accountable for their misdeeds. In such circumstances brutal and vicious treatment of robbers and thieves is the only way the masses can assert their power and exercise it successfully.

With regard to civil society, we have to look at the permeation of barbaric values and norms in the larger society through the "Islamisation" enterprise that Gen Zia-ul-Haq launched with the help of outmoded punishments and a morbid social and political culture that was rabidly anti-women and anti-minorities. Consequently, the so-called honour killings, attacks on individuals suspected of blasphemy and on the places of worship of non-Muslims, and other such outrages, brutalised Pakistani society as a whole.

Thus mob justice or ochlocracy that prevails in Pakistan reflects not only the malaise prevalent at the level of state and government, but also in the so-called civil society. In such situations miscarriage of justice or even travesty of justice can occur when an infuriated mob punishes completely innocent people. I don't need to stress that mob justice and mob fury are almost always directed against individuals who belong to the same lower orders as those who carry it out. However, I have no reason to find silly excuses to absolve armed robbers of the serious crimes they commit. They should be punished after due process of law.

Whichever way we look at it, ochlocracy is hardly a type of political regime that one would like to recommend to any society in turmoil. On the other hand, if the state and its laws and institutions fail the citizens, they are bound to take the law in their own hands. A regime that allows constant lynching and killing breed a criminality which make mafia dons the leaders of the people, instead of democratically elected representatives who are answerable for the their actions to state and society.

Coming back to the 42 percent of the Pakistani population that disapproves of mob justice being expressed in inhuman ways, there is reason to believe that the situation is not entirely beyond redemption. Somewhere in the wisdom of the people there must be the realisation that Pakistani state and society need to be radically reorganised to create a just and fair order. It seems that the people of Pakistan are ready intuitively for a social-democratic political movement and party that seek to produce responsible and peace-loving citizens who abhor violence and cruel treatment of human beings.

[The writer is a professor of political science and a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore. Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg Courtesy News International Pakistan]

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In Balochistan, democracy is still a far cry

FOR long many years, Pakistani establishment of all colours and hues like its predecessor the British colonial rulers has treated Balochistan as a colony. No more and no less. Its rich mineral wealth and sea ports were exploited and the people not only denied any share, but merciless beaten and killed when they asked for it. There was not even a semblance of democracy and the poverty level in this largest and most beautiful tribal province was a shame on the face of Pakistan.

Its leaders were killed in cold blood and the most recent was the Akbar Ahmed Bugti and his scores of followers. Even during may, ten blocjhs were killed and in the name fighting terrorism. During the Musharraf rule any democratic movement was treated as revolt against Pakistan and crushed with an iron hand. Those who ruled from Pakistan from Islamabad unabashedly described Bloch people as uncouth and uncivilized, lost in tribal warfare and not worthy of providing any rights. Their leaders were either shot in cold blood or jailed and kept behind iron cages.

Bloch nationalist political parties were all along asking for autonomy as the military junta poured in men and money in 2005 to battle a low-level insurgency for independence. More money has been spent in battling the Bloch people than on schools or health.

Sardar Akhtar Mengal, a former Chief Minister of the province and leader of its largest political party, the Balochistan National Party (BNP), has now returned to his province after the new PPP-led government ended his18-month incarnation. He put in jail in November 2006 on terrorism charges just before the BNP was to set off on a “Lashkar-e-Balochistan” rally through the province against a visit by Gen. Musharraf.  Three months earlier another stalwart of Bloch politics and social life, Akbar Khan Bugti was killed in a military operation. Hundreds of people were arrested and the “long march” was called off. Mr. Mengal was treated like a beast in jail and produced in a cage-like structure with iron bars in a court.

A positive sing is that the BNP leader’s release on May 10 is part of the reconciliation process initiated in Balochistan by the new Pakistan People’s Party-led government. Asif Ali Zardari, the uncrowned king of PPP after the February elections has offered an “unconditional apology” to the Baloch people “for the atrocities and injustices committed against them” and pledged to “embark on a new highway of healing and mutual respect.”

There is as yet a huge trust deficit in Balochistan as hundreds have been killed, jailed or gone missing.  Over two hundred thousand had been displaced. They are refugees in their own land.

People here want a total deal and to resolve the Baloch question and not a “piecemeal” announcements. Though military has been withdrawn from the province, not all the prisoners released as yet. Therefore, Baloch nationalist parties that boycotted the elections have refused the offer for an all-party conference.

There has to be an immediate halt to military operations. all missing people must be recovered and  all  political workers released from jail. They government in Islamabad must accept the right of the Baloch people to exercise control over their resources including the Gwadar.

Baloch nationalists are seeking political autonomy. They want the right to shape their own policy and implement it, to have control on the rich natural resources of the state that includes natural gas and oil reserves, and control over administrative and financial affairs of the province. No one wants to break Pakistan. But work within the overall federal arrangement. They want real autonomy. It should not be difficult for the present rulers, if they are serious and since about peace in the country and also in the neighbourhood.

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Food security and sovereignty
Gobind Thukral

THE world is in grip of a serious food crisis. Many experts tell us that it is unprecedented.  Every daily we watch the television screen show us pictures of starvation in Africa and many other countries. Food prices have been rising and rising, making people and governments worry and rush for securing more food and storing for bad times. In our own country, the price rise has become a big political weapon with which political parties can beat each other. On June 5 the UPA government raised the price of petroleum products; it immediately brought cheers on the face of BJP and other opposition parties, hoping to win the next elections in May 2009. It is worrisome for the Congress and it forced the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to address the nation via television.

In fact, as in the past, the governments love bungling. BJP messed up a lot during its rule. The Congress Party could have avoided this rise which is bound to push the prices further and cost the party dearly during elections.  It could have restructured its policy and redesigned taxes and duties on petrol, diesel and gas. Despite price rise at the international level, the petroleum companies have made a profit of 40,000 crore last year. Those companies that have got cheap oil wells from the government could have been asked to pay ‘sunshine tax’ as is the practice in many countries including America. Also 28 per cent of petrol and diesel is allowed to be exported when the country is importing it at a huge cost of 135 dollars per barrel. There is an import duty of 5 per cent and other central taxes including 20 to 33 per cent  VAT in the provinces.

Food front

How real is the food shortage world wide?  Food and Agriculture organization, of the United Nations estimates that millions of people in Africa and Asia are starving despite record production. India is lucky this year with over 227 million tonnes of expected food production.  If the government pays farmers well and seems to be doing and takes full control of public distribution system, we could save ourselves. The government has to take care of small and marginal farmers and farm workers and design policies that do not talk big but do something at the ground level. Adverse terms of trade must end for the farmers.

Food shortage, some experts assert has revived the myth that the world doesn’t produce enough food for its six billion people. It is a "manufactured crisis" that is the outcome of a market-driven, global food system dominated by big corporations. Take for example two cases. Uganda was self sufficient in food production. It was forced to import food grains and other agricultural proudest by America and Europe. This messed up its farm sector. Liberal policies are the main reason for the difficulties in Africa. This has affected particularly the small family farmers, who are no more in a condition to sell what they produce. Many of them have abandoned their lands and moved to cities in search of a job, that they not find. Now starvation.

Another case from India. Our country has repeatedly resorted to import of cotton under pressure from the powerful rich textile lobby. This always resulted in the fall of prices in the local markets. These crises lead to a large number of farmers to commit suicides. Since 1991 when India started the new reforms system, rich have become richer and the poor poorer. We have four richest families of the world, but also 35 crore people earning not even Rs 50 per day. There was a clear shift from agriculture, the mainstay of over 65 crore people and public funding decreased. This caused the growth rate to slow down sometimes even to 1.7 per cent.

Recently the record high food prices and their impact on poor countries dominated the three-day UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) summit of world leaders in Rome. Over one hundred countries participated to find a way out of the crisis. Intriguingly those who created the crisis are now busy finding the solution. Unprecedented food scarcity is beginning to dictate the rules of a new political order where individual countries are scrambling to secure their own food supplies with little concern for the rest of the world.

Parallel to these more than 100 delegates from international social movements, farmers’ organisations, indigenous groups from the South and NGOs also held a five-day forum on food sovereignty. The civil society forum Terra Preta (black soil, in Portuguese) has been organised by the International Planning Committee, a global network of NGOs and civil society groups concerned with agricultural issues. This includes social organisations representing small farmers, fisher folk, indigenous peoples and agricultural workers' trade unions.   They were there to remind governments that they cannot take any effective decision to solve the food crisis without consulting those who feed the planet. While 80 percent of the world food comes from their work, farmers are not represented enough at the official meetings. Normally such conferences are dominated by the interests of the big agro transnational companies and financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that seek  further liberalisation of the agricultural market, which would foster uncontrolled food price rise.

Some experts tell us that it is a persistent myth that there is not enough food to feed everyone. There is still enough food grown to feed everyone. Food distribution and income inequity are the real issues.  They say that no one is looking at access to food and land. It is much easier to talk about technology fixes rather than the big picture. Thirty years of neo-liberal policies have devastated local food systems by dumping heavily subsidised foods from the rich nations on the poor.  The global industrialised agriculture system is utterly dependent on cheap energy. Ten to 15 units of energy are used in that system to produce one energy unit of food. Local food production systems are far more energy efficient and rising energy costs may push governments and others to recognise this.

Clearly we need   a system that evolves towards localised food production that allows people to improve nutrition, income and economies, starting at the household level and through the regional level and then at the national level.

For example India is simply rejecting the World Trade Organisation's mantra of open markets to take control of its own food security. Other nations shall have to follow. Pakistan is willing and so are other countries from Latin America.  Even World Bank is rethinking these polices. But it is like a leopard to change its colures. People, particularly the farmers have to rethink about farming and learn from the experiences and build pressure on governments to change the neo liberal mindset.

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Nepal-India-China: new equations
Randeep Wadehra and Amar Nath Wadehra
#396, Sector – 12, Panchkula – 134112, Haryana
Tel: 0172-2570511, Mobile: 09915405606

THE recent developments in Nepal have evoked mixed feelings in India. The replacement of 239 years old monarchy with a republic may not have attracted such attention in India and around the world if the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) had not emerged as the largest in the elections with 220 out of 601 Constituent Assembly seats. The smooth transition of former insurgents to the avatar of a democratic political party is remarkable indeed. This might come as a relief to India as it strikes at the very roots of the raison d'être of insurgency, especially of the Maoist variety that infests such states as Bihar, MP and AP among several others. ‘If governments can be changed through ballot-box where is the need for blood-letting?’ the extremists’ supporters among common folks could well be asking themselves.

But there are other issues between the two countries – political and economic – between the two countries that would need revisiting. In the run-up to the elections the CPN (M)’s strongman Prachanda and others generated quite a bit of anti-India sentiment, raising such demands as stopping the recruitment of Nepalese citizens in the Indian Army, banning of Indian movies, and questioning the open borders policy. There was also a talk of abrogation of the 1950 Treaty. However, these demands have a history. In July 1950, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was ratified. It provided for, among other things, respect of each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, granting by each country of rights equal to those of its own citizens to the nationals of the other residing in its territory. In another pact signed in October 1950, called  the Treaty of Trade and Commerce,  India recognized Nepal's right to import and export commodities through Indian territory and ports. Customs duty could not be levied on commodities in transit through India. But soon discordant voices began to rise. Time and again, Nepalese leaders called for the review of the treaty, demanding more concessions from the larger neighbour. Periodic disputes pertaining to work permits, citizens’ rights, taxes on goods-in-transit etc kept cropping up. Although, in the past about six decades, India has successfully dealt with the treaty without any major shift in foreign policy vis-à-vis Nepal, in the present transformed scenario it is obvious that the whole gamut of relationships, treaties and other aspects will have to be reviewed. For example, while Nepal would like to have unrestricted access to India’s ports to conduct foreign trade with other countries it would like to curtail India’s ‘trade privileges’ granted under earlier agreements. Similarly, it would like to buy military hardware from countries other than India. On the other hand, while India wouldn’t really have a problem with the re-negotiating of trade related pacts it is not happy with China’s growing influence in what India considers its backyard. Here it is pertinent to recall the two-year-long stand-off when Kathmandu signed a contract with Beijing for purchase of weapons.

This brings in the PRC factor. Tibet, which shares borders with Nepal, is the soft underbelly of People’s Republic of China. The recent developments there have brought the Dalai Lama under the Chinese scanner. Since the Dalai is headquartered in India there is a growing anxiety in Beijing vis-à-vis the possibility of Nepal becoming a conduit for infiltration into Tibet. China has always been wary of the growing ‘strategic relationship’ between India and the USA. This equation might direct resources in encouraging insurgency in Tibet via Nepal. Since the instant unraveling of the Soviet Union is still fresh in their memory, the Chinese wouldn’t like Tibet to be used as a catalyst-via-Nepal to destabilize it. This is one of the reasons why China is working overtime to strengthen its influence in the landlocked republic. Another is Beijing’s growing penchant to indulge in river-water intrigues. But that is another story. But, Nepal’s entry into the Chinese sphere of influence can not only exacerbate the problems in India’s northeastern states – where China has resumed meddling – but also open up states like Bihar and West Bengal to mischief by ultra-leftists. Therefore, Nepal’s strategic value to India cannot be gainsaid.

Since, for quite some time now, the PRC has been trying to broaden its bilateral ties with Nepal – along with periodic bids (some of these successful) at supplying weapons and other military hardware to Nepal, the northern neighbor has been busy building roads in western Nepal – it is time for India to wake up to emerging realities. To counter Beijing’s growing influence in the nascent republic India will have to accommodate Nepal’s economic and military aspirations (we do not want a repeat of Myanmar and Bangladesh in Nepal too, do we?). Apart from accommodating Nepal’s aspirations, the sharing of river-waters, power generation, trade, free trans-border movement of men and material and other such issues of mutual interest should be our top priority.

Let us not forget that apart from geographical proximity the indo-Nepalese ties are founded on the bedrock of linguistic and cultural affinity.

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