| February 9, 2002 | Saturday | Ziqa’ad 25, 1422 |
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A step forward
One dose too many
UNLESS saner counsel prevails in New Delhi, India will obviously reject Kofi Annan’s latest offer for the UN to play a role in bringing India and Pakistan together for talks on Kashmir. Briefing the Security Council, the UN secretary-general emphasized the need both for a solution of the Kashmir issue and for a military de-escalation on the border, stressing that if the two countries did not pursue “a sustained dialogue” there would be another crisis in a few weeks’ or months’ time. The UN chief’s offer came within days of President Musharraf’s call to the world community to help break the stalemate with India because bilateralism had failed. What chance of success Mr Annan’s offer has is evident from the wholly negative stance that India has adopted on the question of talks with Pakistan.
Mr Annan’s is not the only voice of sanity on the situation in South Asia. A number of other dignitaries, including Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov and CIA chief George Tenet, have expressed concerns over the Indo-Pakistan crisis and emphasized the need for a dialogue to defuse the situation. In New Delhi, Mr Klebanov agreed with Mr Tenet that the danger of a nuclear war in South Asia was very real. As expected of a Russian diplomat, he took a pro-Indian line by praising New Delhi’s “restraint”, but at the same time he did say that recourse to military action was no solution. Earlier, a similar plea was made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who appealed to Pakistan and India to desist from making inflammatory statements. However, hoping to cash in on the communal vote bank in the forthcoming state elections in UP and Punjab, the BJP government is deliberately maintaining a hawkish stance against Pakistan.
As the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation along the border continues, it is becoming clearer by the day that India is not interested in defusing the crisis. Instead, it is interested in flaunting its big-power status and flexing its military muscles. It also feels — not without some justification — that it can get away with a display of intransigence bordering on chauvinism. Led by a government dominated by a Hindu extremist party, India has turned its back on every proposal to start a dialogue to resolve the Kashmir and other disputes.
On Thursday, Pakistan repeated its suggestion for the induction of UN observers on both sides of the Line of Control as a check against “cross-border terrorism” as India alleges. New Delhi has rejected this suggestion in the past, and will, in all probability, reject this one, too. The reason is obvious: an independent and neutral monitoring body will expose the hollowness of the Indian charge. In fact, India’s Kashmir policy is characterized by a fear of exposure, for any third party would be able to clearly see where the guilt lies, who the aggrieved party is and on whose side morality and the people of Kashmir are. Let India heed the voice of sanity coming from all world capitals. There is no solution to the Kashmir dispute except through negotiations. The continued reliance on brute force in the occupied territory will only prolong the agony of the Kashmiri people, besides keeping peace and stability in the subcontinent perpetually threatened.
FOLLOWING the accords signed during President Musharraf’s recent visit to China, the prospects of Pakistan developing an alternative source of energy of its own have brightened. The Sindh government has issued a letter of intent to a Chinese corporation, Gaingsu, to carry out a feasibility study for building a coal-fired power plant at Jherruck near Thatta. A separate memorandum of understanding has also been signed with the Chinese Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMIEC) to set up another coal-based power plant. Costing $500 million each, the two plants will generate 250 MW each. The two Chinese companies and the Sindh government are currently negotiating the terms of reference for conducting the feasibility studies. Wapda will purchase the entire power to be generated by the two plants.
At present the country generates a total of 17,772 MW of power of which 50 per cent is hydro-electric, 49.8 per cent is thermal and 0.2 per cent nuclear. Thermal power generation is entirely based on imported fuel which costs Wapda, the KESC and independent power producers approximately 1.5 billion dollars annually although Pakistan does have sizable coal deposits lying buried in its soil to serve as an alternative source of energy. Widely located in lower Sindh, Thar and other places, these have remained virtually untapped during all these decades on the ground, relentlessly hammered on by the oil lobby, that the large-scale use of coal would damage the environment and spread pollution. Incidentally, all these years coal continues to be used for power generation in many developed countries, specially in oil-starved Germany. The Jherruck coal reserves are said to be enough to generate 500 MW of power annually for more than 20 years and the Thar area is estimated to hold reserves of 175 billion tons of coal that could last for many years.
The government has now taken a strategic decision to maximize the use of coal in substitution for imported oil. Primarily this substitution will take place in power generation and cement production. Cement plants are currently in the process of a switch-over to coal. In both cases of power generation and cement production, not only will a sizable saving in foreign exchange take place and the pressure on the balance of payments ease, both power and cement will also cost substantially less than in the case of oil as fuel. If the ratio of the low-cost power to the total generation increases, the power utilities will be in a position to lower the tariff. This reduced cost of power will have a ripple effect throughout the economy, significantly reducing the cost of goods and services thus produced.
SOMETIMES even Bollywood can get its act quite wrong. In fact, the recent ‘bombing’ at the box office of a movie meant to cash in on the current wave of nationalist sentiments in India proves that ordinary Indians might just be getting a bit tired of the BJP government’s calculated policy of political and military stand-off with Pakistan. Maa Tujhe Salam, which by all accounts should have done quite well at the box office, flopped completely despite having some leading stars in its cast. Keeping in mind the Indian government’s constant refrain of ‘cross-border terrorism’ — which has been used even as a pretext not to play cricket with Pakistan — Maa Tujhe Salam centres round the exploits of a military officer who is apparently quite successful in preventing the infiltration of the so-called terrorists from across the Line of Control.
Bollywood has played on nationalist sentiments in the past too, but then it paid off. The failure of the latest venture is so telling that the actors involved have decided in future to work on films with different themes. Perhaps, people are fed up with Delhi’s needless posturing and might have realized that it could have something to do with state elections in Uttar Pradesh later this month. Will the hawks in New Delhi’s inner sanctums look out and take notice?