EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

From Ram to Ramdev

For much of the past year, the Bharatiya Janata Party gave the appearance of being in deep slumber — this even as the world all but crashed around the scam and scandal-hit United Progressive Alliance. With the principal Opposition party seemingly unable or unwilling to take on its chief adversary, the vacuum was being filled by a host of non-political actors. However, last week saw the BJP hit the political tarmac in a burst of iridescent energy. With Baba Ramdev's Ramlila maidan protest blowing up in the face of the Manmohan Singh government, Sushma Swaraj jived to celebratory music on the lawns of the Rajghat. Simultaneously, BJP spokespersons hauled the Congress over the coals and yesteryear's poster woman Uma Bharti returned with the mandate to re-ignite Uttar Pradesh. It is anybody's guess, however, if all of this adds up to a refurbished, battle-ready BJP. Indeed, there is a desperation evident in the way it has latched on to the yoga guru, hoping no doubt that when the time comes, Baba Ramdev will walk into the sunset, bequeathing his vast constituency of supporters to the BJP.

This is a serious miscalculation because what Baba Ramdev has done is to seize the oppositional space that, as matters stand in Parliament, rightfully belongs to the BJP. It was Lal Krishna Advani who first made a case for the repatriation of overseas black money. Yet in an unbeatable irony, the BJP allowed the issue to be hijacked by Ramdev. The party's national executive meeting in Lucknow did not throw up a single fresh or innovative idea; instead the party showcased Atal Bihari Vajpayee and recycled many of the old shibboleths. Surely, the BJP does not expect Ms Bharti to wrest U.P. by rabble-rousing on Ayodhya, an issue that no longer resonates with voters, young or old. Consider the BJP's electoral performance. It won only a total of five seats in the recent Assembly elections. It has had only one good showing in the two years since the UPA returned to power — in Bihar. But then, the party owed its phenomenal success there more to the political stock and charisma of Nitish Kumar than to any achievement of its own. The BJP has currently only three dependable allies — the Shiv Sena, the Shiromani Akali Dal, and the Janata Dal (United). The immediate challenge before the party is to expand its own base while striving to bring on board estranged alliance partners. None of this will be possible if it hitches its wagons to Baba Ramdev, who admittedly touched a chord when he spoke on black money. Yet he also thought nothing of inviting the infamous Sadhvi Rithambara to share the stage with him. The BJP has one of two options: either it reinvents itself to meet the aspirations of the new generation or it speaks in a bygone idiom and plods a lonely path.

The ethanol imperative

India's ethanol blending programme (EBP) for petrol has remained in limbo for too long. The government mandated 5 per cent blending in September 2006; raised the level to 10 per cent in October 2007; and made such blending compulsory in October 2008. Further, in 2008, the Cabinet approved the National Policy on Biofuel, which envisaged blending of biofuels with petrol and diesel to a level of 20 per cent by 2017. Yet, owing to conflicting views among the Ministries of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Agriculture, and Petroleum and Natural Gas, and the reluctance of some State governments to require sugar units to make available adequate quantities of ethanol for the fuel industry — given the more lucrative options offered by the liquor industry — the oil marketing companies have failed to achieve even 5 per cent blending countrywide. Now, adding to the haze, the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council has reportedly questioned the rationale behind mandatory blending. Reopening the debate on ethanol blending will amount to undermining a progressive policy decision that conforms to the way much of the world is going as fossil fuel options shrink. That the EBP can improve the country's energy security and reduce its carbon footprint needs no restating. That there is enough ethanol to go round is also clear. The challenge is to manage and change the sectoral allocations of ethanol. The sugar industry should be encouraged to balance the needs of the fuel industry with those of the potable alcohol and chemical sectors.

The Economic Advisory Council seems to have concluded that the main advantage derived from the EBP would be to the sugar industry, and this could not be a credible objective for the government to push through the blending programme. In India, a large proportion of available ethanol comes as a byproduct from cane molasses during sugar production. But over the longer term, if ethanol derived from a cash crop such as sugarcane does not seem a viable option in terms of price and availability, other sources should be tapped. India's agri-diversity and wasteland availability offer several options. There have been worthwhile initiatives, including processes using jatropha, seaweed, and cellulose waste from agri-forestry; these should be supported by investment in R&D. If feedstock rationalisation is made possible, the blending programme will be a success. Rejecting retrogressive counsel from no-changers, the government must push ahead with a programme that has been found to be virtuous wherever it has been tried earnestly.