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Review Author(s): Ashok Rao Review by: Ashok Rao Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 41, No. 5/6 (May-June 2013), pp. 87-93Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23611121Accessed: 11-05-2015 15:20 UTC

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Book Reviews

have become problematised as platforms for effective civic action, but that

should not negate potential for change. Even as the practice of medicine is

valorised as a latent resource of knowledge, the practice of policy is equally a locus of negotiations between formal rules and social relevance, and also

represents fonts of untapped knowledge. While touching on the limitations

of attempts at 'centralised decentralisation' by the government, the para meters of an alternative, community-led form of medical governance are

also left to our imagination. But I digress - these discussions are almost certainly not within the

scope of the volume, and represent no more than strands of further conver

sations that it may spark. While these conversations emerge, perhaps the

greatest achievement of the book will lie in advancing the germ of a new

language for the articulation of the uniquely complex concerns of medi cal practice in contemporary India. Hopefully this will give rise to a new

movement of academic medicine in India, one that focuses on the whole

individuality of the suffering patient - as a physical, social, economic and cultural being.

Kabir Sheikh is Senior Scientist, Public Health Foundation of India, New

Delhi.

Charles K. Ebinger, Energy and Security in South Asia, South Asia edition,

Cambridge University Press, Delhi, 2013, 224 pages, Rs 795

This well researched book with up-to-date data is a must-read for anyone concerned with energy in South Asia. Charles K. Ebinger has spent over three-and-a-half decades working in various countries of the region and his

deep understanding is reflected in the book. The book catalogues in some detail the energy potential; the present

policy formulation and planning; distortions due to internal and external

political pressures; institutional inadequacies; prospects for regional co

operation and lost opportunities. It makes policy prescriptions not only for

energy security and for the development of energy resources within India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, but also for cooperation with

Southeast Asia and its neighbourhood - Iran and Central Asia. In this con

text, the book deals with the role of outside players, particularly China and the United States. As the author states, 'The underlying argument of this book is that while domestic policy and institutional changes are necessary for energy security in South Asia, the dynamic of energy sector will require far greater regional and international cooperation for long-term security.'

Ebinger does not spare the governments of South Asia that are 'noto


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rious for their grinding bureaucracy, which often is a result of conflicting interests and mandates within various government branches. However, a

sustained effort to overcome bureaucratic silos will be invaluable in work

ing towards an energy-secure future.' Neither does he spare the United

States and the international community:

To date, the United States and the International Community have failed to

adequately acknowledge the importance of energy security for regional stabil

ity. The United States in particular deserves some blame for the energy pre

dicament facing the region. Although it has a sizable interest in maintaining

regional stability, its policies on regional energy issues lack the nuance and

delicacy facing the region. For instance, its blanket opposition to Iran-Paki

stan-India pipeline, a project that would transport natural gas from Iran's

prolific South Pars gas field to Pakistan and India, reflects the US policy of

isolating Iran for its illicit nuclear weapon program. However, in preventing natural gas trade, it also is further stoking unrest in Pakistan, which desperately

needs natural gas to stem its electricity shortage.

Ebinger outlines the potential benefits to countries as a result of region al cooperation. He details the potential for hydro power trade between

India and Nepal, or India and Bhutan; coal and natural gas trade between

India and Pakistan, or India and Bangladesh; and the potential benefits of

going beyond the South Asian region by tapping the natural gas in Iran, Turkmenistan and Myanmar. But he is realistic enough to recognise that

it is naive to think or expect regional cooperation to develop overnight. Mis

trust and mutual suspicion are deeply engrained in the region's history and

mind-set and can be overcome only through an earnest, sustained dialogue.

That will require years of politically courageous diplomacy and compromise, which can be in limited supply on the Subcontinent.

The book states that 'at the most basic level, energy security means

having access to the requisite volume of energy ait affordable prices'. By that

definition, all the countries of South Asia are energy-insecure. If political

instability brought about by lack of energy security is added, then the elec

toral victory of Nawaz Sharif witnessed recently in Pakistan or the earlier

electoral defeat of Chandra Babu Naidu, then Chief Minister of Andhra

Pradesh, can be seen to be inevitable. But the concern is much deeper: 'To

day, the subcontinent can ill afford the instability brought on by energy in

security. Nowhere in the world is the intersection of booming population,

rampant poverty and domestic and inter-regional, religious, ethnic and

political conflict as chaotic or as combustible as in the subcontinent.' Also

endemic are inequities in the distribution of income and assets. The same

is valid for energy. The author points out that, 'Subsidies should be elimi

nated for higher income groups - wealthy farmers in particular, who often

waste the free electricity and cheap fuel provided to them - but they should


Book Reviews

be maintained, at higher levels, for the poorer segments of the population.' g3 The World Bank solution is 'reforms': price reforms that do away 0_

with administered prices and allow energy products, particularly petro- -o leum products, to float at international prices; institutional reforms in J creating 'independent' regulators, independent of government agencies, S

who would ensure transparent regulation in the energy sector so critical ">

to attract foreign companies to make investments. Another critical issue that is glossed over by the neoliberals is that energy, its demand and sup ply, depends on the economic development of the various sectors, as well as the capital intensity and gestation period for setting up energy-related units.Therefore, it is long-term planning rather than the market that should determine investments. In reality, powerful multinationals evaluate their ..3T-.2T risk and demand that governments of impoverished -nations cover all the risks, both through fiscal measures, sovereign guarantees and institutional

arrangements like 'independent' regulators (who can be regulated). While the nuclear lobby canvassed and obtained an Indo-US nuclear deal, they are unable to move forward since the legislation enacted in India to give effect to the deal requires that part of the liability be placed on the supplier of the nuclear equipment.

Reality is far more intriguing than market determination. An example, given in the book, of TAP with or without an T - Turkmenistan-Afghani stan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) - reads like a James Bond-Hollywood thriller rather than a market-determined multinational investor energy project. Bridas Corporation is an Argentinian petroleum company engaged in

developing gas field in Turkmenistan. Carlos Bulgheroni, Bridas's swash

buckling chairman, negotiated with Asif Zardari, then husband of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who assured him that the Government of Pakistan would negotiate with the Taliban. With the support of a number of Afghan warlords, in February 1996, Bridas gained a right of way agreement for a

pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bridas then invited a United States multinational, Unocal (later absorbed by Chevron), to become a

partner. But the partner became a rival. Unocal recruited luminaries, US war-lords like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and got the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Tom Simons, to request Prime Minister Bhutto to get the Governments of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan to

grant Unocal exclusive rights for TAP. While Bridas was busy with Taliban officials to ensure pipeline security, Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov, who was interested in strengthening relations with the United States as a counterweight to Moscow's influence, was secretly meeting Unocal and Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil. Unable to successfully woo the Taliban officials, in 1999, Unocal officially pulled out of the ^ project, while Bridas continued to hang on although without making much headway. By 2003, the Asian Development Bank concluded that for the project to be commercially viable it should be extended to India, so TAP became 89


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TAPI. By 2009, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's Secretary General, stated:

'Protecting pipelines is first and foremost a national responsibility. And it

should stay like that. NATO is not in the business of protecting pipelines.' TAPI has been put on the back-burner since, notwithstanding an agree ment signed in December 2010 between the Presidents of Turkmenistan,

Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Indian Minister for Petroleum and

Natural Gas, and security as well as financial concerns continue to flounder.

There is a lesson in all this for companies of the Third World who, like

Bridas of Argentina, make forays into foreign lands. How much diplomatic and military muscle does India have to protect investments being made by Indian public sector oil companies for acquiring overseas energy assets in

various countries like Australia, Brazil, East Timor, Mozambique, Oman,

Iran, Libya, Yemen and West Asia - and in partnership with Mittal Energy Limited in Nigeria and Syria? India has a critical role in the subcontinent

and, as the author rightly points out,

As the fulcrum of the South Asia region, India is central to regional coopera

tion. It therefore must address its energy introversion or it will put its own

energy security, as well as that of the entire region, at serious risk. ... More

ominous for India is China's foray into the region. Growing Chinese relation

ship with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Myanmar threatens to

surround India with a 'string of pearls' of geopolitical threat.

That India is losing out to China in acquiring energy assets in its

immediate neighbourhood is brought out in the case of the Myanmar

Bangladesh-India and Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline deals. India's ONGC

and GAIL acquired 30 per cent investment stake in the Shwe gas field in

Myanmar (off the coast of Arakan State). A pipeline through Mizoram and

Tripura in India and then on to Bangladesh to reach West Bengal was not

only the shortest route, but would also enable link-up with the gas reserves

in Assam and Tripura. In 2005, the energy ministers of the three countries

agreed to a 900-km pipeline and signed an agreement in Yangon. Bangla desh wanted permission to import hydro power from Nepal and Bhutan, and for Nepalese and Bhutanese merchandise to pass through India. India's

Ministry of External Affairs stated that 'under no circumstances should

India accept any of the (Bangladesh) conditions' because doing so would

'encourage Dhaka to tie up other issues as it is always prone to do'. India

proposed two routes bypassing Bangladesh - a sub-sea link between Myan mar and India, and another traversing Assam. While India was busy work

ing out strategies to circumvent Bangladesh, in 2006 Myanmar notified

India that China had agreed to pay Myanmar $150 million a year over the

next thirty years. In February 2007, the Myanmar Government informed

India that it had sold the entire gas production to the China National Petro

leum Corporation (CNPC). A similar fate holds out for India in the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipe


Book Reviews

line project. Ebinger points out that India voted against Tehran's nuclear g policy in the IAEA to coincide with India's negotiations with the United 0_ States for civil nuclear cooperation. In this context I would like to draw -p attention to the testimony given by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice 5 on 5 April 2006 to the House International Relations Committee taking ^ testimonies on the India-specific Hyde Act. She gave the following reasons for the Indo-US nuclear initiative:

Civil nuclear cooperation with India will help it meet its rising energy needs without increasing its reliance on unstable foreign sources of oil and gas, such

as nearby Iran.

Diversifying India's energy sector will help to alleviate the competition be tween India, the United States, and other rapidly expanding economies for scarce carbon-based energy resources, thereby lessening pressure on global

energy prices.

While India is busy fulfilling the objectives of the United States and

dithering on the project, in 2008 Iran and Pakistan invited China to replace India in the consortium. Two alternatives are being examined: the pipeline

running through Afghanistan, or bypassing Afghanistan and traversing through the treacherous Karakoram Mountains from Gilgit. The pipe line could supply electricity to China's gargantuan copper investments in

Afghanistan, or run parallel to a rail link from Pakistan's port at Gwadar to China and Central Asia that China plans to build. Having lost out on energy assets in the neighbourhood, India wants to import nuclear power plants that most countries are giving up, and whose techno-economic and safety are questionable.

India had developed hydro power in Bhutan, and one of the reasons for Bhutan's prosperity is that hydro power constitutes, as of 2009, 20 per cent of its GDP and 51 per cent of its exports. By 2020, Bhutan aims to have a combined installed capacity of 11,576 gigawatts. Nepal's hydro power po tential is estimated at 83,000 MW, of which Nepal today has only 698 MW under public sector and another 167 MW of private generation. As a stu dent some forty-five years back, I had an occasion to accompany my father

during his inspection of the Pancheshwar site, a 6,000-MW hydro power project. I also used to hear from him about the 10,800-MW Karnali multi

purpose project and the 3,000-MW Sapta Kosi high dam. In almost five decades since then, India has done nothing to develop these sites in order to feed the power-starved states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The Indian Prime Minister is willing to stake his government for an Indo US nuclear deal in the name of energy security, but ensuring energy security in cooperation with the immediate neighbourhood is not good enough.

India is the world's third largest producer of coal with a modest pro duction of about 650 million short tons. The Planning Commission has

projected that the coal quotient in the country's energy mix will have to 91


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expand to over 2 billion tons per year by 2031-32, and that 'coal shall re

main India's most important energy source (until) 2031-32 and perhaps

beyond'. The International Energy Agency predicts that coal consumption will double by 2035 over its 2008 level. Unfortunately, right now the coal

industry is mired in scams. Pakistan had, in 1992, discovered Thar coal

with reserves of 175 billion tons that constitute 95 per cent of the country's known reserves. Nothing much has been done to exploit this resource; on

the other hand, between 2005-06 and 2007-08 coal imports grew by more

than 40 per cent a year. Bangladesh has an estimated reserve of about 3.3

billion tons, but coal-based power generation accounts for only 2 per cent

of the country's total power generation. A number of coal-fired stations

are under construction, to be run on coal imported from India, Indonesia

and Australia. Bangladesh's gas reserves at the present rate of consumption are expected to last for another ten to fifteen years - depending on whose

assessment you trust. Bangladesh's installed capacity in March 2011 was

around 6,760 MW (some of which is not considered dependable genera tion). To put it in perspective, India's capital Delhi's peak demand on 6

June 2013 was 5653 MW. What is to happen to this country a few decades

from now? It is unfortunate that Ebinger has not discussed issues relating to tech

nology in his book. I have therefore taken the liberty of dealing with this

vital question. Coal in the Indian subcontinent has very high ash content, in some case almost 50 per cent. Coal can and must be used without com

promising on climate change, using technologies like fluidised bed boiler, coal gasification and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), in situ

coal bed methane recovery, etc. The Indian equipment manufacturer BHEL

has mastered the ability to utilise such coal. Unfortunately, in the subcon

tinent, instead of encouraging the development of coal technologies, the

emphasis is on importing coal and developing coal assets in countries like

Australia. Was it not under the compulsion of the world war that technolo

gies of coal gasification and coal to oil were developed? For India, in 2009-10, crude oil imports accounted for more than 25

per cent of total imports in terms of monetary trade. In 2008, Pakistan

imported roughly 82 per cent of the total oil supply. Bangladesh is heavily

dependent on domestic natural gas, which in 2008 accounted for 89 per cent of its power generation and 75 per cent of its commercial energy sup

ply. However, at this rate of consumption the current proven reserves are

not likely to last beyond 2025. In addition, these countries are importing coal and plan to import nuclear reactors. If the countries of the subconti

nent were to cooperate and exploit their coal and hydro power resources,

they would not have to resort to such large imports. How these countries,

perpetually in a foreign exchange crisis due to current and capital account

deficits, and running to the IMF for a bail-out, are designing their energy


7> A <

Book Reviews

security on imported coal and petroleum and imported nuclear power

plants, defies common sense and logic. Instead of cooperation there is con

flict, indeed it is cutting your nose to spite your face.

Ebinger rightly points out that 'Global energy demand is projected to

increase nearly 50 per cent between 2008 and 2035, making the prospects of

meeting the challenge even more formidable.' He goes on to add: v>

While economic liberalisation and reform have the ability to pull millions

out of poverty, the experience detailed in this volume illustrate that hurried

measures taken without concern for regulation and domestic, social, religious,

economic and political dynamics have long lasting negative ramifications. It is

imperative that governments across the subcontinent identify and stick to an

appropriate pace of liberalization that weighs the needs of the entire popula tion.

Finally, let us ensure or at least hope that our leaders hear these words

of sane advice from Charles K. Ebinger:

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan have a lot of work to do.

Overcoming the obstacles to achieve complete energy is a long term goal that

will be achieved only through consistent efforts over the next several decades.

However, combining many targeted, pragmatic, and forward looking policies with diligent efforts to build energy relations between neighbours will build

a foundation for energy security. The time for action in South Asia is now.

The political fuse is lit. South Asia's masses will no longer accept living in the

darkness.

Ashok Rao is President, National Confederation of Officers' Associations of Central Public Sector Undertakings, and Adviser, All India Power Engi neers Federation.

Aparna Vaidik, Imperial Andamans: Colonial Encounter and Island History,

Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 282 pages, price not mentioned.

In the book under review, Aparna Vaidik proposes to engage with historical

representations, which she describes as 'myths', through a corrective dose

of 'objective' history. The myths, according to her, are many. One such

myth appears in the sense of an identity; the Andamans as Cellular Jail. Such an identification is said to be a product of both retrospective memory and of historical writings in which the methodology is corrupted by nation alist sentiment. Commemorated as a monument in post-independence India and rendered historical in many prison-writings, the Cellular Jail, in


Article Contentsp. 87p. 88p. 89p. 90p. 91p. 92p. 93

Issue Table of ContentsSocial Scientist, Vol. 41, No. 5/6 (May-June 2013) pp. 1-96Front MatterEditorial Note [pp. 1-2]Questionings within Religious Thought: The Experience of Islam [pp. 3-13]The Wahabis in the 1857 Revolt: A Brief Reappraisal of Their Role [pp. 15-23]The Business of News in the Age of the Internet [pp. 25-39]The Emerging Khmer Extractive Industry: Engine of Unsustainable Development? [pp. 41-51]Performing History: Historical Consciousness and Building National Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Bengal [pp. 53-63]Feminising Empire: The Association of Medical Women in India and the Campaign to Found a Women's Medical Service [pp. 65-81]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 83-87]Review: untitled [pp. 87-93]Review: untitled [pp. 93-96]

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