FALSE PRIDE IN GDP GROWTH:The price of greed

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The world is facing the dangerous combination of two crises: shortage of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases causing adverse climate change. Though the price of crude oil has dropped from $ 147 per barrel to the 30-50 dollar range, cheaper oil brings no joy because it is twinned with the continuing recession. It is now incontrovertible that fossil fuels contribute to global warming. But economic activity will eventually revive, pushing up oil and gas prices.
As a gesture towards environmental sanity, some countries  have promoted bio-fuels like ethanol from corn, sugarcane and other plants. But the diversion of farmland to this purpose will gravely deplete both foodgrain production and water levels. The International Energy Agency in its World Energy Outlook, 2008 calls for an energy revolution which would address these problems. How can India contribute to such a transformation?
Can India, as a developing country with a population of 1.3 billion in an expanding economy, leverage a Gandhian ideal and the Indian civilisational message of ‘simple living and high thinking’ to propagate moderate consumption patterns that do not exploit the earth’s limited resources? 

GDP as the mantra

It is time we question the very concept of the need for an ever-increasing gross domestic product to achieve the nirvana of development. This concept requiring mindless consumption of unsustainable natural resources is the root cause for the current energy crisis. It is immaterial whether we believe in the veracity of such dire predictions of population explosion of Malthus or Limits to Growth of Club of Rome or the end of cheap oil era. We cannot rely on technological innovation to favour us with an ‘akshaya patra’ or ‘kalpa vriksha’ to meet our unending demands.
This particular model, pursued with more ardour than wisdom since Independence by both the public and the private sectors, has created islands of impressive growth amid stagnant mires of poverty and deprivation. It has also, as in advanced countries, accelerated the national consumption of energy, resulting in shortages of electric power that have cramped development as well as public welfare. Yet, India has managed to keep the increase in energy demand at a lower rate than its economic growth.
This is partly due to the promise of the IT sector which has dovetailed its services to the needs of the advanced economies, mainly the US, through ‘outsourcing.’ But this channel is badly choked up in the current global recession. India has not even begun to solve the yawning mismatch between demand and supply in energy resources. The rural poor continue to scramble for twigs and branches and combustible waste even as urbanites get more addicted to diesel, petrol and natural gas.
India’s energy consumption has no doubt increased, but the rate of increase is lower than the rate of economic growth, if statistics can be trusted. But the disturbing trend is the continued dependence on agricultural waste and cow dung for fuel in rural India, contrasting with ever-higher energy use in urban India.
Our Planning Commission brought out The Integrated Energy Policy Report in 2006. It forecasts India’s energy demand up to 2030, taking due account of GDP growth, energy conservation, oil prices, and diversified sources of increased energy including nuclear power. But it blindly follows the advanced countries in privileging GDP over meeting the energy deficits of the poor.
India is one of the few large countries to reduce petroleum-related prices even as the oil price shot up between 2003 and 2008. Oil sector subsidies generate abundant black money. This running sore has not shocked a blasé and cynical Indian public. The main reason for inaction on energy reform is that most political parties benefit from the status quo. The energy sector is a new milch cow for the corrupt.

Promote public transport

Take transport. It stands to reason that the state should promote public transport and tax privately owned vehicles. Railways could be modernised to save energy per passenger and freight over every kilometre. Gandhi’s preference for Third Class railway travel had a cost, but it was a powerful politico-economic message we have ignored.
We are justly proud of Tata’s Nano for the rising middle class, but its effects on urban living and the costs, both environmental and financial, must not be disregarded. This affordable Indian car has come at the wrong time. In our reckoning, public transport should have far greater priority than the proliferation of private cars, across all fancy and novel models.
The economy cries out for drastic remodelling. Rapid urbanisation is one such tendency we need to reverse. It directly impacts on our energy deficit and the growing divide between the rich and the poor. The UN started the Human Development Index some years ago. It could be redesigned to rank countries not only on indicators like per capita income, longevity and educational achievement, but also the parameters of energy economy and percentage of poor people.
The GDP is a false lure. Gandhi’s wisdom is perhaps beyond mere egoists like ourselves, but what if the collective calamities and follies of the world should compel us to live much more simply?