Power of populism

Politics of populism has its own pitfalls. Haryana has just witnessed this phenomenon. Farmers there claim Om Prakash Chautala had promised ...

Politics of populism has its own pitfalls. Haryana has just witnessed this phenomenon. Farmers there claim Om Prakash Chautala had promised that their electricity dues would be written off as part of his party’s election campaign.

The amount involved is over Rs 120 crore, a big sum for a state like Haryana. Since writing off such a huge amount would have been against all economic common sense, the chief minister drew up, instead, an easy-to-pay instalment scheme under which farmers were allowed to pay a part of their dues. But used as the farmers are to free electricity — though erratic in supply and limited to a few hours a day — they resisted the idea. This is the background to the Bharatiya Kisan Union’s unusual agitation in the state, as part of which seven persons including two police officers and three constables, were held hostage for eight days. The union claims to have in its possession a written promise about waiving of dues from responsible political leaders of the state and accuse these gentlemen of having gone back on their word. On his part, Chautala has denied any such undertaking. His officials have also denied that the release of the hostages followed a secret deal struck with the BKU.

The ugly drama should serve as a lesson for all politicians promising the very heaven to their constituents when they are in search of power. They should weigh their promises before they make them. As regards power dues, farmers in most states either do not pay for the electricity they consume or pay a pittance. But because of their clout, governments are afraid of cutting supplies to them. In any case, only a fraction of the power they use is metered as it is drawn directly from the poles. Because they do not pay, they do not mind running their water pumps for far longer than required. Consequently, in states like Haryana and Punjab, the groundwater level has been falling drastically causing environmental problems, like salination of the soil. The wastage and theft of electricity are so manifest that there is not a single state electricity board which is not in the red. In fact, the boards have become a drain on the national exchequer. Yet, state governments seldom summon up the courage to take punitive action against the culprits. Even the Union power ministry, which threatened to introduce a new system of metering to control power theft, found itself postponing the plan. The Central and state governments need to show greater courage in tackling the problem than the Chautala government has done.