As the nation reeled under its worst ever power crisis, the UNP yesterday lashed out at the Power and Energy Ministry, accusing it of "incompetent bungling".
The UNP's Power and Energy spokesman, Sarath Amunugama, in a strongly worded statement, said:
"Nearly two years after he assumed office, General Anuruddha Ratwatte, Minister of Irrigation, Power and Energy has attempted to put the blame for the present power shortage and the escalating power cuts on the UNP.
This is obviously an attempt to deflect the anger and frustration of the public which is fed up of the incompetence, bungling and delays of the Power Ministry.
The Minister is no doubt aware that when the UNP came to power in 1977 the actual generation and electricity for the island was 1133 GWh. By 1993 the UNP Government was able to raise the power generation to 3979 GWh which is nearly four times the capacity that it inherited.
A large part of this increase came from the accelerated Mahaweli project which included Hydro Power Stations (Ukuwela, Bowatenna, Kotmale, Victoria, Randenigala and Rantambe) adding a total installed capacity of 660 MW to the National grid. It is true that with the rapid economic development of the country in the 1977-1994 period there was a corresponding increase in demand. In a 20 year period there was an actual growth of 7.3% in power generation as against a 6.9% annual growth of demand.
The Engineers and Planners of the CEB have consistently drawn the attention of their Ministry to the urgent need to increase power generation in the country. For instance the CEB report on Long Term Generation expansion of October 1994 addresses the issue and states very clearly that "severe supply shortages that may occur in 1995 and 1996" and "proposes the urgent implementation of supply side and demand side management measures".
It is very clear that the present administration has not heeded this excellent advice. Instead it has blundered along and the public has now to suffer for the Ministry's blatant incompetence.
Except for the 40 MW Sapugaskanda extension the Ministry has not taken up any other major project. Two years after coming to power the Sapugaskanda project is only now getting underway, signified in the press by a photo of the Minister presumably looking at the distant site through field glasses.
The Ministry has been advised several times that over-dependence on Hydro power will lead to a crisis when climatic conditions turn adverse. Gen. Ratwatte's Ministry has not developed a thermal base load capacity but overtaxed the existing Hydro-electricity schemes and given priority to mini- Hydro schemes which also will suffer from the same climatic problems. Many projects which had come to a conclusive stage such as the coal powered plant in Trincomalee were shelved in spite of the protests of several donor countries.
Some time ago the Minister assured Parliament that he would ensure uninterrupted electricity supplies through BOT schemes such as the Barge based power generation which could be linked to the national grid. None of these have materialised including the project presented by British Midlands, a group reputedly close to the powers that be.
Instead of making a determined effort to set right the power situation - a basic factor in economic growth - the country has been made witness to a continuous struggle between the CEB Engineers and the Chairman of CEB Mr. Leslie Herath. When all his assurances regarding uninterrupted power supplies have turned to ash, the Chairman has taken to disparaging his engineers and senior staff. The Minister seems powerless to intervene.
As a result of this mess the general public is put to great inconvenience and economic growth has been severely retarded. While President Chandrika Kumaratunga is busy inviting investments to the country, the Ministry of Power and Energy is taking every step to ensure that no serious investor will set foot in Sri Lanka.
"India could go the way of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia if the BJP comes to power at the Centre" warned Prime Minister Narsimha Rao as the pre-polls debate between the Congress and its main rival reached fever pitch.
Whether Mr. Rao was correctly reported or not, Mr. L. K. Advani, a formidable foe, lashed out at the Congress leader. This shocking statement, Mr. Advani claimed, was "unbecoming", considering the high office Mr. Rao held.
To demonstrate that the analogy was ridiculous, Mr. Advani argued that "unlike the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, India has not been pieced together by any coercive or hegemonistic force, so that the disappearance of the force inevitably results in disintegration of a nation. India has been civilisationally and culturally one nation since time immemorial. Its oneness owes, neither to any rule nor to any specific governing system but rather to the accommodative and integrative culture of this land which celebrates diversity in its imperishable unity. As a scholar of both ancient and modern Indian History, Mr. Rao certainly cannot be unaware of what the great Congress leaders themselves have said about the cultural and spiritual sources that sustain this oldest nation in the world" replied the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which won the largest number of seats and has claimed the right to form a new government.
While the BJP chief has broadened the discussion, and did make a case for his party's particular approach to a basic problem, he missed the true significance of Mr. Rao's two examples Russia and Yugoslavia. Quite clearly, Mr. Rao was drawing attention to a striking coincidence the Soviet implosion and the Yugoslav break-up, two major events of the post cold war world.
And it is the cold war that made Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union two crucially important partners of independent India. The Indian masses, led by Mahatma Gandhi, and the congress leadership Jawaharlal Nehru in particular, as the advance guard, had convinced London that the days of the Raj were numbered. But with the realisation of the great dreams of Swaraj came the nightmare, the partition of India, a (Hindu) India and Muslim though India too was home to a multitude of the fervently committed to Islam as the millions in Pakistan; a Pakistan with an "east" and a "west", an eccentricity which was removed when east Bengal became Bangladesh. Religion and language had become the shaping forces of the post-war world, later, identified more sharply as the Third World. It is the re-entry and re-assertion of these self-same forces, the forces of collective identity, half a century later, that provoked Prime Minister Rao's remark about Russia and Yugoslavia.
But there was an equally compelling reason. Non-alignment was not Tito's idea; it was Nehru's invention. And it had everything to do with foreign policy, a foreign policy that would protect the newly acquired independence in an unfriendly, or dangerously hostile global environment. Two ideologies, two economic systems led by two power -blocs, each with a superpower leader (U. S. and USSR), conducted a fierce, protracted war to win over the "uncommitted", which Jawaharlal Nehru preferred to introduce as non-alignment.
If Belgrade came after Bandung, it was more an Indian, Nehruist manoeuvre than a Titoist initiative. Yugoslavia in Europe was the front-line. It stood between the Soviet Union and its allies (satellites in the propagandist idiom of the day) and western Europe or more accurately, the NATO partners with the US superpower as its unchallenged leader, just as the USSR led the Warsaw Pact countries.
But NAM's strength in numbers could not be converted into the currency of power politics, global or regional. It was Nehru's successor, his daughter Indira Gandhi that re-moulded Indian foreign and security policy. Speaking of her father Pandit Nehru, she said " He was a saint who strayed into politics. I am a tough politician". The most notable security and strategic policy of Ms. Gandhi during her first term was increased reliance on the Soviet Union as the main source of military power." Observes Noor Hussain in Stephen P. Cohen's The "Security of South Asia" and so, the Indo-Soviet Treaty, with Moscow soon becoming India's main arms supplier. The Soviet Union is no more. Russia however remains a military power the only nation that can rival the United States at the strategic level. India never forgets that Pakistan can stand up to Indian might in South Asia only because of sustained American support. Thus, the Indo-Soviet "Friendship Treaty".
Yugoslavia has demonstrated more dramatically than most other countries torn by domestic ethnic conflicts the demonic forces released by competitive identities and group interest. Since Yugoslavia had been a close friend of India, Mr. Rao chose the correct example. Certainly his implied thesis would have been taken as a message and warning by the Indian political elite. Bosnia is in the news almost everyday.
"The mood of the minorities is one of great apprehension "warned Prof. Zoya Hasan, a Muslim academic at India's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Univ. (JNU) "The BJP government is a threat to the very social fabric of our society. It is committed to a unicultural nation ..... one nation, one culture. It goes against the notion of pluralism at the very heart of this nation".
But Mr. Narshimha Rao identified another challenge as the more threatening, and in the regional context, the stronger more tenacious.... Islam or Islamic revivalism. Confronted by a secessionist Tamil insurgency Sri Lanka sought the help of Israel, Israeli intelligence and counter-insurgency expertise. The initiative was taken on American advice, and an American promise to help. Prime Minister, Rao established an Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv precisely because his threat-perception was shared by Washington which believes that a neo-Khomeinism has replaced Communism, the Red Menace, as the principal danger to peace and stability, and to Western (Christian) interests. HAMAS is now Enemy No. I.
And yet the election results have forced President Shankar Dayal Sharma to invite Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee to form a government. How long will it last? Mr. Narasimha Rao expects the BJP regime to collapse sooner than most commentators believe. He probably shares the opinion of K. Subramanyam, Delhi's foremost expert on strategic studies.
"The end of bipolarity has unleashed new forces of rivalry and tension among the Big five....US, Europe, Japan, China and Russia. Ancient Indian wisdom talked of Sama, Dhana, Bedha, Danda .... (cultivating friendship, buying friendship, dividing enemies, punishment) as the four-fold strategy of statecraft".
Evidently Mr. Rao believes that the Delhi Moscow axis is as important now as it was in the past. The trouble about such a thesis is that this "alliance" was tested in Afghanistan, and the US Pakistani combination proved more effective......effective enough to make Mikhail Gorbachev a back number. True, Dr. Kissinger has discussed the claims of India for membership in a new decision-making group US, E. U. , Japan, China and Russia and Mr. Subramanyam is not satisfied with a Security Council seat for India.
Russia has a serious economic crisis, and cannot make a convincing claim to political stability. But it has a nuclear arsenal, and evidently the presidential polls will qualify it as a "working democracy". Strategist Subramanyam believes that India has the right to claim a place among the "balancers of power."
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