Andhra's power play

THERE IS SOMETHING dreadfully amiss about a society in which political protests periodically result in police firing and death. The killing of two persons who were shot down in a melee during a demonstration against the power tariff hike in Hyderabad deserves forthright condemnation. It is true that a section of the demonstrators, who defied prohibitory orders, turned unforgivably violent, setting police vehicles on fire and raining stones on policemen. But this does not justify opening fire on the crowd in the manner in which the Andhra Pradesh police did. The bloody climax to the Opposition-led `Chalo Assembly' rally is another painful reminder about how ill-equipped and ill-prepared the country's police are in managing angry crowds and irate demonstrators. In this age of rubber bullets, water cannon and new techniques of crowd control, it is something of a disgrace that the response of the Indian police is often marked by inexcusable excess and unthinking haste. To labour the obvious, in any democracy, death is no solution for the dispersal of disorderly demonstrations.

Mr. Chandrababu Naidu's Government would do well to give in to the Opposition's demand that a judicial inquiry be conducted into the whole incident. To refuse to do so would be patently unjust; at a more pragmatic level, failing to inquire into what transpired would harden the position of the Congress(I)-led Opposition, which has conducted a sustained and vociferous campaign against the power tariff hike for three months now. On the other side, in these surcharged times, the Opposition would do well to exercise a certain measure of self-restraint. The Opposition may believe that raising a hue and cry over an unpopular power tariff hike may yield political capital, but it would be unwise to stretch the already-protracted agitation beyond a point. The hike, after all, has taken place against a background of power sector reform, a process that may be painful but is necessary and, arguably, inevitable. The evidence that a good part of the violence during the demonstration was orchestrated by Left-extremist elements is extremely disturbing. Predictably, Mr. Naidu's Government has tried to highlight this point when trying to explain the violence which broke out during the demonstration. Although the full truth about the involvement of those belonging to fringe Leftist groups can be known only after a proper inquiry, the Opposition parties must be careful in ensuring that the protests are not exploited by other elements for their own ends.

Mr. Naidu has consistently refused to cave in to the Opposition's demand that the hike in electricity charges be rolled back arguing, among other things, that he has won a mandate from the people to reform the power sector. Although the rise in the tariff is steep, it has been structured in a manner to tax the middle class or the rich consumer and spare those who consume only small amounts of electricity. (Mr. Naidu's power sector reform is painted with his own touches of populism). In post- reform Andhra Pradesh, a farmer pays less than 20 paise per unit - a fraction of the cost of production. In a scenario where the power sector continues to be heavily subsidised, it is difficult to see the merit in a protracted agitation against tariff hikes. The Congress(I) and the Left parties should take their grievances to the State Electricity Regulation Commission (SERC), the body which determined the parameters of the recent tariff hike, rather than to the streets. If it is populism that has driven the present agitation, then the Congress(I) at least - which lost the Andhra Pradesh Assembly election despite promising to restore free power to farmers - ought to have learnt that it doesn't always pay.

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