I think I was reading Ramachandra Guha or someone when it struck me that of the many possible ways of doing things, two were the Gandhian way or the Nehruvian way. Gandhian way was bottom-up approach. The focus is on villages and communities. Small changes, small projects but several of them. Nehru on the other hand had a very top-down approach. Big vision... dams, hydroelectric power plants, public sector industry that built huge things. He genuinely believed that massive investment in grand infrastructure projects were the way to govern India and bring her into modernity. The problem of course was that while cities and urban centres enjoyed the fruits of these mega-projects, it didn't reach a substantial proportion of the population. One Bhakra Nangal
project could have funded a million smaller projects which collectively could have been more effective. Or so was the argument. It is a complex system and I don't know enough to tilt one way or the other. I suppose both had their pros and cons.
But what I do see, in the modern context is the repetition of similar dilemma. Take power for instance, India has a massive supply-demand gap. An increasing number of her citizens are able to afford electrical gadgets like airconditioners and refrigerators. Even in a state like Tamilnadu which used to be energy surplus, the demand has grown exponentially that there are now compulsory power cuts. The semi-urban and rural areas have scheduled load shedding between 6 and 8 hours and unscheduled power cuts of another 2 or 3 hours a day. Even in Chennai, there are 2 hours of compulsory power cuts everyday.
This is the problem.
Now, we could either go all Nehru and invest in a multimillion dollar coal plant or billion dollar nuclear plant. (I am confused if Nuclear power is good... so we won't go into it). There are several problems. One, it'd take a long time for these projects to start producing power. And two, demand may grow even further that the gap will still exist when the new plant comes into use. There is a separate problem of pollution and availability of fuels (for coal and diesel plants) and waste disposal (for nuclear plants). There is also an investment issue... we just can't afford it. Or if we did spend most of our money in power plants, there is less to go around for other equally important issues (like water, food and education).
So, what would Gandhi do?
I suppose that he would recommend that small communities become self-sufficient. which means not relying on the national grid for power. We know that while centralised electrical generation has its advantages of scale, electrical distribution causes major losses. What if communities can generate their own power or at least a major part of their power requirements locally? They'd become independent. Technology exists in renewable energy like solar and wind which can provide substantial power for small communities. Instead of thinking of massive power plants that will supply an entire state, we look to hundreds of smaller scale projects that will work for each town and village. Imagine, solar plants in each village supplying electricity to its residents. I understand that solar power cannot fully replace existing power plants, but they can narrow the gap between
supply and demand and use clean renewable technology doing it.
For me it is not about the technology. I think research is ongoing and remarkable advances are imminent. it is about reducing the time gap between invention of technology and adoption of it. We have seen with mobile phones that adoption of technology can be rapid. In less than 10 years, mobile phones have become ubiquitous. It has penetrated markets unimaginable a decade ago. So technology can, when it reaches a tipping point, be adopted rapidly over large populations. And this accelerated adoption also accelerates innovation and growth in the field. A future in which instead of each town and village, each house generates most of its own electricity needs may not be too far away.
There you have it... incomplete thought.
