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Winter capital stands
exposed to unprecedented power curtailment much before
the wintry conditions have manifested its severity. It
has been a pretty bad summer in terms of availability of
power to the hapless users of all hues. By any reckoning
it is going to be the worst ever winter if present trend
of reckless curtailment persists. The impact of bad power
supply has compelled BBIA to issue warning....more It is quite a cheerful news that America has at last lifted part of the sanctions imposed in the wake of Pokhran-II nuclear tests conducted by this country and closely followed by Pakistan. Prime Minister A B Vajpayee has rightly mentioned that it vindicates Indian stand to go nuclear. He has also criticised America for being partial and biased against this country as the lifting of sanctions is sought to favour Pakistan more than what is given to India. One can view it from three distinct angles......more |
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Indians in search |
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EDITORIAL Winter capital stands exposed to unprecedented power curtailment much before the wintry conditions have manifested its severity. It has been a pretty bad summer in terms of availability of power to the hapless users of all hues. By any reckoning it is going to be the worst ever winter if present trend of reckless curtailment persists. The impact of bad power supply has compelled BBIA to issue warning to the State Government that industrial units would be left with no option but to close down if the problem of power shortage is not addressed forthwith. The problem gets compounded with frequent announcements being made by the day about impending hike in power tariff. One announcement talks of four fold hike within a year. Alarm bells are bing sounded by the day to cause mass scare. The question why this type of statements are made that add to the confusion and makes the entire power scenario full of suspense and melodrama. As regards problems focussed by the industry, some figures have been provided by them which indicate that Government wants to create panic and scare psychosis when there is no basis for it. There is definite logic in these figures which amply prove that the cost factor often being reeled out by the State as regards purchase of power is quite off mark. There is no denying the fact that part of such power is free of cost and consumers in the Government sector use as much as 60% of the power while domestic and industrial users log only 40%. Yet it is the latter that pays more than the former. These figures apart, electricity is an essential commodity in his scientific age. Almost every state faces losses similar to the one focussed by J&K. There are States which even give free electricity to farm sector at huge cost. These States are Punjab and Tamil Nadu while Haryana gives some concessions. It is often bemoaned that electricity tariff is the lowest in this State so it should be enhanced. It is conveniently forgotten that this happens to be the only State where no tariff was realised for many years and even now the realisation is tardy. It is this aspect that has to be addressed to improve realisation to offset losses. Unfortunately, there is excessive politicking rather than commercial dealings-consume electricity but pay for it. As regards domestic consumers, they have been exposed to man-made deprivations and indignities to face forced darkness. Mind you it is just the beginning. As winter tightens its grip, a lot more is on the anvil. At this stage it is open to question as to the credentials of Government claiming to be responsible and responsive. Instead of mitigating hardships and solving their problem here comes the heavy dose of curtailments. Why ? Some one in the power apparatus must explain whether any popular Government has a right to aggravate peoples problems. There are enough of indiginities even otherwise in the form of abnormal price spiral, adulteration, water crunch, pollution, unhygienic environs. These areas need to be addressed constructively. Instead, the Government appears to be overzealous to make it as much woeful as possible as regards supply of uninterrupted and stable power to all sectors. Incidentally, power is available readily from the northern grid but State is in mood to purchase. The reason is resource crunch. This much and no more. What a novel way of solving problems. Today it is power. Tomorrow this administration will tell people to eat only once a day because they have no money to buy wheat and rice. This State has also the ignominy of being far from taking any worthwhile step or initiate any measure to check rising prices. And on top of it Damocles sword is constantly held on the necks of industry and citizens for increasing power tariff manifold. It would be better if pragmatic approach is adopted to augment the supply rather than keep on curtailing it and improve realisations before going in for tariff hike which in any case must be linked to the quality and quantity of power supplied. That will do more good to the people and the administration alike. It is quite a cheerful news that America has at last lifted part of the sanctions imposed in the wake of Pokhran-II nuclear tests conducted by this country and closely followed by Pakistan. Prime Minister A B Vajpayee has rightly mentioned that it vindicates Indian stand to go nuclear. He has also criticised America for being partial and biased against this country as the lifting of sanctions is sought to favour Pakistan more than what is given to India. One can view it from three distinct angles. First, lifting of sanctions howsoever partial has cheered the Indian business houses as also the bourses. Psychology of sanctions that haunted everyone did affect the overall economic activity despite the fact that its impact in this country was marginal. Now the American investment would flow liberally besides various loans and guarantees emanating from IMF, World Bank and EXIM banks of America. This means more dollars and lesser stress on rupee. The sanctions become selective in that America retains the leverage of voting against any loan if she so deems fit. Further, USA makes it conditional to progress on various contentious issues relating to CTBT, FCMT, NPT and other non-proliferation regimes in forces or in discussion stage. America has justified lifting of the sanctions on the ground that many aspects have been positively addressed by both India and Pakistan and relaxation of sanctions would provide it better leverage for consolidating the gains of ongoing dialogue on the above regimes. Its immediate benefit of course goes to hard-pressed Pakistan which is sure of getting 5 billion dollar loan from IMF now. This country however shall continue to be denied technology transfers in the sophisticated field to what USA likes to call dual-use technologies. Further, a list of Indian companies is being prepared to be black listed as regards American dealings with them or supply of any American equipment. Second aspect relates to America's own compulsions. She has seen the futility of such sanctions when France has enlarged the scope of cooperation with India. So American loss is French gain. This is something that America cannot digest. Cooperation with Germany, Russia and Japan is also on the anvil. This would have defeated the purpose of sanctions. It is also to be noted that world-wide recession has also affected America, a prospect difficult to digest by American business. With reports of increasing cooperation between Russia and China to ward off American hegemony in South Asia, USA is hard put to review its redefined strategic goals in this region which call for massive investment in India in preference to China. Third fallout would be in the form of legitimisation of minimum nuclear deterrent of India which in other words recognise nuclear India a reality that calls for some sort of equation and cooperation with the five nuclear-haves. If only India had gone ahead with the nuclear tests in 1995-96 when both France and China feverishly went in for tests one after the other, present awkwardness would have been avoided. The then Indian Government thought heavens would fall if India carried out nuclear tests. Nothing has happened and this country is right on course to become stabilising nuclear power in the region. |
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Indians in
search of a leader If any one thing more than any other has convinced me of the moral and intellectual weakness of the Indian intelligentsia as it is today, that is their piteous yearning for a leader. They want him so that they might be assure of a life of ease, security, and mediocre wellbeing as a gift from him and therefore without any effort of their own. The cry for a leader was heard as soon as British rule disappeared from India. Whenever I have spoken about unsatisfactory political, social, or economic conditions in India during last 25 years or so I have got the stereotyped reply: ''we have no leaders'', or its alternative, ''We need a dictator''. Nehru was not accepted as one. Since his death the yearning has taken a more deluded form, which makes the intelligentsia see a leader in anyone who has a little more energy, assertiveness, obstinacy, or even perversity than they possess. These men forget that India did have men who could be regarded as leaders by any standards adopted for them, for instance- to mention only three-Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Subash Chandra Bose. Even they have made no difference to the course of Indian history or the condition of the Indian people after independence. The criterion of leadership is becoming progressively lower, so that at one time even Mr Morarji Desai was looked up to both as a secular Nizam-ul-Mulk and a religious Imam-i-Hind. Disappointment after disappointment does not weaken the desire for a leader and the hope of his emergences as if by a miracle is always there. This is not, of course, the apocalyptic faith many people had in the past in the appearance of an Avatar, or Messiah, or Imam Mahdi. That faith was based on a religious eschatology and inspired by trust in an omnipotent and loving God. Although put inthe supernatural order, the expectation sprang from the idealism and moral strength of the community which held to it. As a result, it made the community which nursed the expectation capable of effort, endurance, and , above all, self-criticism. The current yearning for a leader had not instilled one of these qualities in the Indian intelligentsia. Their wailing for him is like the cry of a child for its mother when it is hungry or frightened. But a child always has a mother. Nations do not get leaders unless they deserve them. If God sends a leader to India today he will have to be capable of working miracles like giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk, and raising one from the dead. The truth is that educated Indians of today have no understanding of the phenomenon of leadership, because, on the one hand, they have ceased to be the raw material out of which leaders may emerge, and, onthe other become incapable of providing the following needed by all leaders. I have always thought of leadership among men in terms of a chemical phenomenon, that of crystallization. Crystals can form only in a highly saturated solution in water of the material of which they are made. In the same way, the qualities which are present in a concentrated form in the leaders, have to be present in a diluted form in the whole population. Without this correlation there can be no leaders. The historical junctures in which leaders appear, and appear at a very young age, are political or social revolutions in a country. Thus every such revolution has seen men of exceptional ability who are also young, ranged in a hierarchy. The leader of this corps of leaders might be very gifted, but he is to a greater or lessor degree only the primus inter pares- the first among equals. I shall illustrate the correlation of revolution, leadership, and youth by giving some examples, beginning with Napoleonic France. When in 1800 Napoleon as First Consul, became the dictator of France, he was 30. He had with him 22 soldiers who became his active Marshals. None of them were above 50: only four were between 40 and 50, the oldest being 47; six were between 36 and 40: 11 between 30 and 35; and one was 26. Only two of them were of noble birth, the others came from the middle-class, and even the working class. All of them rose by virtue of their talent, and never by patronage. They did not have to be groomed for their position. At the time of the Meiji Revolution in Japan, the Emperor (Mutsuhito) was only 16: the leaders of the revolution were young: Okubo was 38, Itagaki 31, Okuma 30, and Ito, the most active and energetic of them, only 27. In China, Sun Yat-sen emerged as a leader before he was 30; Chiang Kai-shek became the dictator of his country when 41; and Mao emerged as a leader when he was 27. Coming now to the Russian Revolution of 1917, one finds that Lenin was then 47, Kalinin 42, Stalin 38, Trotsky 38, Mamenev 34, Zinoview 34, and Bukharin 29. Last of all, in Turkey Mustafa Kemal restored the position of his country after the defeat in the first World War when he was 41. But he had already established his reputation as a military leader at the age of 34 when he commanded in the Gallipoli Peninsula and contributed to the Turkish victory over the British in 1915. Ismet, who became the leader in Turkey after Kemal, was only 38 when he won the decisive battle of Afiyon Karahisar in 1922. It might also be added that all the Indians who attained to the position of leaders in the nationalist movement had emerged as such between the ages of twenty five and thirty, talent being precocious in India. But no upsurge of young men was seen in 1947, when it should have occurred. So Nehru, himself nearly 58, had to form his government with men who were even older than he. The only man who was below 50 was Sardar Baldev Singh, and everybody knows why he was included. About the men with whom he had to run the government of independent India from 1947 Nehru had already written in 1939, when many of them were at the head of the Congress governments formed in the provinces under the Act of 1935: ''They are worn out in mind and body and their troubles from all directions tend to increase. I would hate to have their job.'' In addition, many of his senior colleagues suffered from incurable cardiac trouble. In the 50 years (and more) which have followed not one man of exceptional political ability has appeared in India. This is a human situation of ominous significance. It would be foolish to dogmatise about the absence of talent in contemporary India. Genetic, social , and cultural factors in combination may be responsible for it. In any case, nothing can be done about it by conscious effort. Genius bloweth where it listeth. But men of ordinary stature can do something, they can work hard to make up by joint, average effort a part at least of what can be accomplished by leaders of genius. But even this response to the challenge before India is not coming from the generations below 50, not to speak of 30. (INAV) |
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