Social Scientist

Review
Author(s): Ashok Rao
Review by: Ashok Rao
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 41, No. 5/6 (May-June 2013), pp. 87-93
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23611121
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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
- as a
individuality of the suffering patient
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
and
lost
It
makes
operation
opportunities.
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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Social Scientist

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

the United

date,

and

States

the International

Community

have

failed

to

adequately acknowledge the importance of energy security for regional stabil

ity. The

States

United

in particular

deserves

blame

some

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, reflectsthe US policy of
isolating Iran for its illicit nuclear weapon program. However, in preventing
natural
needs

gas trade,
natural

it also

is further stoking

gas to stem

its electricity

in Pakistan,

unrest

which

desperately

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

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Book Reviews

be maintained, at higher levels, for the poorer segments of the population.'

The World Bank solution is 'reforms': price reforms that do away
with administered prices and allow energy products, particularly petroleum products,

to float at international

prices; institutional reforms in

creating 'independent' regulators, independent of government agencies,
who would ensure transparent regulation in the energy sector so critical

g3
0_
-o
J
S
">

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
thriller
(TAPI) - reads like a James Bond-Hollywood
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

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89

Social Scientist

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

It therefore

tion.
energy

security,

must
as well

Asia

address
as that

region,
its energy

India

is central

introversion

of the entire

region,

to regional
or it will

at serious

coopera

put
risk.

its own
... More

ominous for India is China's forayinto 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
is brought out in the case of the Myanmar
immediate neighbourhood
Iran-Pakistan-India
and
pipeline deals. India's ONGC
Bangladesh-India
stake in the Shwe gas field in
investment
and GAIL acquired 30 per cent
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
- a sub-sea link between Myan
proposed two routes bypassing Bangladesh
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

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(IPI) pipe

Book

line project. Ebinger points out that India voted against Tehran's nuclear
policy in the IAEA to coincide with India's negotiations with the United
States for civil nuclear cooperation. In this context I would like to draw
attention to the testimony given by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
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:

Reviews

g
0_
-p
5
^

Civil nuclear cooperation with India will

help it meet its rising energy needs
without

increasing

as nearby

its reliance

on unstable

foreign

sources

of oil and gas, such

Iran.

DiversifyingIndia'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

energyprices.
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
are questionable.

and safety

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-fiveyears 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

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91

Social Scientist

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

has an estimated reserve of about 3.3

than 40 per cent a year. Bangladesh

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.
in some

case

Coal in the Indian subcontinent has very high ash content,

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

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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:
While economic liberalisation and reform have the ability to pull millions
out of poverty, the experience detailed in this volume illustrate that hurried
taken

measures

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 effortsover the next several decades.
However, combining many targeted,pragmatic, and forward looking policies
with diligent effortsto 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
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
of 'objective'

and of historical writings in which the methodology is corrupted by nation

as a monument in post-independence
alist sentiment. Commemorated
India and rendered historical in many prison-writings, the Cellular Jail, in

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