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POWER CUT
BLUES posted
October 19, 2005 Can we entertain ourselves with the Power Cut
Blues?
As some say, there's always poetic justice. You pay for your sins. No one goes
scot-free. In India we've been achieving things and getting ahead, or just
managing to survive 'in spite of all the difficulties' for so long that we're
oblivious to the pregnant irony that we might go to the root
of our misery and try to prevent or remove the difficulties in the
first place. Why do we persist in ignoring the suffering all around, as though
it had nothing to do with us? Are we the ultimate masochists? Is our tolerance
always a little too much? Evidently. Civic responsibility is no picnic—it
requires blood, sweat and tears. Tolerance is
admirable when it deals with variety and
pluralism, but cowardly when it absorbs downright bad governance
brought about by immoral, irresponsible conduct by those we elect to rule us.
Both sides must accept the blame here; one whose actions are unjust, and
the other, the general public, which shies away from protest. It's the oldest
law of man: if you don't fight for what is your right, then those who rule will
walk over you and rob you of that right. Power by discretion—not
discreteness—is corrupting in the extreme. Those who have it will exercise it
at every opportunity—without fail. And the meek, humble, fearful and cowardly
let them—every time. One glaring factoid stands out: the poor have
always been deprived of basic amenities like power and water, so they're
laughing at us, the middle and upper classes, who have the money to afford these
things but who took them so for granted that they're in a state of mild shock.
Who will sympathize with them? Certainly not the poor or destitute—they have
enough on their plate; power cuts are just minor irritants for those few among
them who had a connection. They will suffer the blues of Power Cuts by those
in power. But we're used to being screwed left and right. The Maharashtra CM has
himself finally spilled the beans in public: the State Govt is to
blame for the power mess—not 1 MegaWatt of new generating capacity was added in 10
years since they were too busy screwing around with Enron. When its baby, the Dabhol Power Company was about to commission its first phase,
power was going to be sold at a rate that MSEB (hence also the state govt) reneged on, so DPC put
everything on hold and sought compensation through international arbitration. My question is this:
what were the energy pundits doing when this drama unfolded before their eyes?
Couldn't they have steered the ship to safer waters, knowing full well that the
Enron project could possibly run into trouble, as it eventually did? Are they
not also to blame? Or were they content to point fingers like small children?
While we suffer the power cut Blues—or
Blacks?—the promises keep coming: the Dabhol plant is
being re-commissioned and we will have continuous power a year from now. The
other promise: free power to farmers in Maharashtra, who've predictably squandered it and hurt
all of us, will be stopped; everyone will have to pay. Not quite. The
reverie is broken by the air and noise pollution of diesel generators, which
provide stop-gap relief at the expense of those singing the blues. And the blues
only induce a kind of laziness and complacence about work even after the power
returns. So the work suffers, before and after the cuts. A culture of
indifference and neglect can soon take over. The roads in
Pune are already beginning to wear a 'medieval' look. The power situation will
soon follow suit, taking us back to the 19th century. In a sense, the Jetsons
and Flintstones coexist in a precarious balance.
Jayant Deshpande
Or should we call it The Great Power Fiasco?
Or Power Blunder? Caper perhaps? Crime
even?
We're currently
reeling under an unprecedented power shortage in Maharashtra;
one that has tempers running high, often out of control, as irate citizens and
assorted rebels and fanatics
unleash their fury on the infamous power provider, MSEB. Everything comes into play
in this tragicomedy: incompetence, lack of foresight, venal politics, apathy,
laziness, lack of civic pride, and so on. Some may point out cynically that
these small-scale protests don't amount to
satyagraha
in the ideal sense,
and hence lack revolutionary fervor—they're
not really
effective in bringing
about reform or a long-term solution for the mess we're in.
What long-term scenario can we forecast, in terms of the economy, migration,
outsourcing, offshoring, etc?
Hundreds of 'building projects' have been cleared though God only knows how they
will be sustained. Pretty soon the cityscape will become a wasteland; it will
look like a graveyard of desiccated, power-deprived and abandoned
skeletons of steel, glass and concrete that nobody wants. An ugly
scenario.
Will we learn from this privation? They say that you value something and use
it wisely only when you lose it—maybe we will.
Conservation, whether it be in
nature or technology, is treated with contempt, or at least looked upon with
disdain in this age of unbridled consumption, where more of everything is
considered a right. Rationing power is virtually a sin, a crime perpetrated on an
unsuspecting public. Well, look at it this way: you'll have smaller bills to
pay, as though to make up for the suffering!
Power Cut Blues:
this could also be called the
Perpetual Poverty Trap in
which most Indians find themselves.
By now the daily power cut has begun to act like a soporific, settling into
its own pre-industrial atavistic rhythm. At first one reacts adversely, with anger and frustration,
especially when the heat becomes pricklingly overbearing, drawing sweat, sapping
our vitality. We obviously don't willingly accept it, but we have unwittingly
adjusted to its whims. The atmosphere changes, we look outside wistfully,
thinking of the changed mood as though it were a pure idyllic setting,
unfettered by electronic conveniences. Our thoughts turn to things we've
neglected all along: reading, talking, singing, painting, playing games—active
rather than passive pursuits. We almost express a perverse wish that the power would stay away, just
long enough, so we can get in touch with ourselves, our so-called primordial
past, or even the not-so-distant era of widespread privation. Does "privation
for a purpose bring its own content", as the essayist, Theodore Dalrymple suggests?
Is this a just romantic cop-out? Or our pliant, helpless nature?
The blues get transformed into a wistful ballad—a blessing in disguise,
perhaps?
Conserve, conserve—that's the new mantra among leaders and suppliers of power,
hypocrites all: they know they're guilty and responsible. But who's listening? Since half of us get a free ride, the other
half is in no mood to conserve and pay for the sins of others. Why should they
sacrifice for the crimes of the unscrupulous? This is a new twist on Nietzsche's
'morality of POWER'—there is no morality when it comes to electric power; you
grab what you can get, legal or illegal.
But it's wise to remember that to be unplugged for a while is to be given an
antidote for our relentless 'plugged' life, that keeps us high-strung, pepped-up,
nervous and anxious. The power-cut blues are in the short run a balm for the
soul, if not the body.
Without a
satyagraha—a
form of intolerance, but non-violent—on a massive scale, there may be no relief for years to come. So enjoy the
laid-back spiritual dimension your life will take on.
