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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 6
Publication Date: June 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/assrj.96.12320. Pant, G. (2022). Indian Quest for Sustainable Energy Regime: The Changing Narrative. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal,
9(6). 44-57.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Indian Quest for Sustainable Energy Regime: The Changing
Narrative
Girijesh Pant
Of late ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ has become much talked about development paradigm in Indian
mainstream discourse. There is inverse relationship between security attributed by local
capacities and vulnerabilities by import dependence. Recognizing the matrix, the Indian state
opted for self-reliance as early as in fifties. It was then known as import substitution strategy.
The strategy however lead to encouragement of rentier tendencies- the license-permit raj,
leading to abnormal profit making and concentration of political power. In the nineties when
statist model lost its charm, seen more as failure and market as success, the Indian state
embarked upon economic liberalization. Indeed, with the support from external players the
country did register double digit growth. The ‘neoliberal growth’ as it was called has its own
contradictions, manifesting in high reform driven growth with top of the pyramid controlling
the wealth generating processes, the rise of new middle class but along with surging volume of
unsustainable people at the bottom. India thus witnessed market driven welfare regime with
a very peculiar class configuration of super rich, service sector driven middle class and sizeble
class aspirant class and marginalizing poor. This being demographically unsustainable
arrangement disrupted socio-political equilibrium leading to discontent protest including
farmers protest making the state to apologize and withdraw the reforms. The political backlash
made the state to go for popular schemes but the challenge was aggravated by the outbreak of
the pandemic and its poor management. However, despite the volatile political ethos in
northern India, the return of ruling dispensation to power questioned the wisdom that the
market driven growth can trickle down. What was more challenging that the state has limited
resources to upgrade its systems on external support. The crisis thus posed the structural
issues including the return of self reliance in its new avatar MLP (manufacturing link
production} In this synoptic backdrop the paper attempt is to look at the pulls and pressures of
transition from external dependence to domestic production taking energy as case study with
its potential and limitation.
In recent times, the Indian energy security concerns have expanded the agenda by including
‘aatma nirbharata’ as policy template. In the context when global engagement is creating
vulnerabilities, the countries are looking for a more secured growth path by developing local
capacities. Faced with high import dependency, India needs to conceptualise an energy regime
that ensures security of energy and energy services to its diverse stake holders located in fossil
fuel and clean energy space simultaneously. The conceptualisation become complex because
the Indian energy mix is dominated by hydrocarbons and it will continue to be so in near future.
India needs them to meet its energy needs. However, India also need to harness its renewable
resources which she has in abundance to make it energy independent. The need has been
further reinforced by the growing incidence of climate change triggered by the fossil fuel
leading to Paris Agreement 2015. India the third largest consumer of hydrocarbon is indeed a
leading polluter. No wonder India has to reconfigurate its energy mix incrementally, enhancing
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Pant, G. (2022). Indian Quest for Sustainable Energy Regime: The Changing Narrative. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(6). 44-57.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.96.12320
the share of clean energy. India thus has to construct a tansition pathway that restrains the
consumption of dirty fuel along with increasing share of clean fuel. It is complex and challenging
task because it calls for convergence of diverse competing and conflicting pressures. India
needs transition to expand its supply of energy by adding renewables in its energy mix. India
needs transition to harness energy from its rich renewable resources. India needs transition to
make energy available and accessible to those who have been either on margin or left out. India
needs transition to correct the uneven distribution and consumption of energy and to narrow
down the energy disparities which is reflection of its uneven growth processes. Apparently, the
trajectory of last seventy-five year do not hold any promise for radical change in near future
despite the fact that power is highly politicised subject in electoral polity. However, it will be
unfair to argue that over these years, there has been very little political attention to it. What has
happened that electoral politics looked at energy as commodity to be transacted by the political
market rules. Consequently, energy flow has been determined by economic flows. It became the
subject of political choice, being made accessible on the strength of subsidies. The possibility of
renewable emerging as energy source changed the matrix with the sharpening of the debate on
its adverse consequences on global ecology threating the survival of the ecosystem. Today with
the escalation of threat at existential level, it has become the central part of global energy
security discourse. The question that needs to be examined whether renewable will be
addressing the challenges that did not not find place in the hydrocarbon based global energy
order. If Paris Agreement is a pointer, than it can be argued that there is ample global
understanding to push the energy divergence into a framework of convergence. India as leading
energy consumer of hydrocarbon and investment destination on renewable has privilege
position to play active role in shaping sentiments. Indian transition strategy thus is of global
significance. In this chapter drawing from preceding observations, attempt is made to examine
and evaluate the Indian transition in the larger context of sustainable energy for all.
Indian transition choice, the pathway is critically influenced and determined by the global
pressure reinforced by the local energy necessities. Unlike the past when there was no choice
but to play within the orbit of hydrocarbon, today India has option to go for renewables but its
growing energy demand compels it to be the stake holder in both the market. What however
puts the country on difficult position when the choice becomes a zero sum proposition. Thus,
not only, the strategy of transition has to work towards harnessing the rich endowment of
renewables to change the energy mix in conjunction with a distribution regime that ensures
energy justice but has to protect the supply of hydrocarbon to them as well to meet their
immediate energy needs. At one level these are conflicting goals but need to be necessarily
synergise to minimise the risk of disruption. It was clearly evident in the Glasgow COP26 where
India along with many others had to defend its interest to retain coal as source of energy. What
is challenging is that while defending its hydrocarbon interest, India promotes renewables that
too within the framework of energy regime of sustainable energy security for all. In other words
while providing space for reconciliation, India needs an alternative strategy, incrementally
directing the transition process to its goal.Apparently, it has yet to define that alternative
regime. It is clear from the preceding chapters that despite a number of initiatives to harness
the renewables and setting of ambitious targets well appreciated globally, the Indian energy
mix will remain dominated by hydrocarbon and the distribution continued to be skewed even
with the incremental growth of renewables. Is it due to the limitation of renewable as source of
energy or positioning of renewable in development matrix?
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 6, June-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Seemingly, the transition is driven more by quantitative than qualitative concerns of energy
security. It seeks change in the quantitative share of renewable in energy mix, not harnessing
of its potential to play transformative role as did the coal in making of industrial revolution in
Britain or oil in empowering America as global power.1 The flaw liesin not recognising the
transformative nature and potential of renewables by subsuming its profile as residual supplies
of electricity to rural and remote setting. The contention here is that to play the transformative
role, it has to be relocated in the larger frame of self-sustainability. Self-Sustainability becomes
relevant because market driven high consumption regime could challenge the sustainability of
renewables itself. Renewables too consume critical materials thereby setting limits to their
potentials itself and they do leave carbon footprint as well. This means if the transition goes to
its logical end and renewable becomes predominant source of energy, then it could face the
supply constraints of critical materials which are not so widely distributed. Thus, the transition
at global level cannot be assumed on the infinity of critical materials. Moreover, the geopolitics
of critical material might impinge upon the pace and nature of transition.2 This brings the issue
of responsible and sustainable consumption into the transition debate. It needs no elaboration
that responsible consumption is critically linked to income distribution. Societies with high
income inequality face challenge of addressing the issue of redistribution in strategizing energy
transition. Apparently, this requires a distinct and different strategy which ensure inclusive
energy security where distribution is equally factored possibly built-in in transition process.
Transition in developing countries has its own complexities and context. Faced with energy
poverty, these countries are simultaneously pushing consumption of hydrocarbon and the
renewables, this inevitably makes transition protracted and contesting in nature. What is
critical that in their drive to catch-up, the acceleration in the pace and scale could defeat the
larger objective i.e. sustainable energy security and pave way to the tragedy of common at
national level. Further a highly skewedly divide between urban and rural setting, may make
their transition trajectory to pursue multiple strains as it progresses. The very organisational
profile, the economy, and the social needs of the urban and rural setting has huge divergence.
Hence the energy transition which is more than technological issue is bound to witness multi- layered trajectories with different set of drivers. What poses most serious challenge is the fact
that the imperatives of convergence of the multiplicities may make the transition incremental
in nature, underwriting status quo than transformation thereby subverting the possibilities of
fundamental changes, ensuring energy security particularly in rural setting. Thus in recognition
with the divergence of sustainability issues between urban and rural , their “commons”, it make
sense to conceptualise the role and path of energy transition in rural setting distinctly, as source
of empowerment than be the symbol of rural electrification counted by the number of electrical
pols and electric points in private and public space. Given the fact that present energy system
1 India intends to be global solar power.
2 Rare earth materials are a crucial input for certain clean-tech applications such as wind turbines, solar panels, batteries
for electric vehicles, and other storage media. Lately, focus has been on China as being home to a significant share of the
world’s rare earth resources and its activities in acquiring control over overseas rare materials. However, critical scholars
show that also rare earth materials respond to market forces. In recent years mines for different rare earth resources have
been closed in the US and South-Africa, because China was able to provide these materials cheaper. These scholars expect
that when China will use rare earths to exert geopolitical pressure, mines around the world can be expected to reopen and
markets will diversify again (Buijs and Sievers 2011) or shift to new technologies. See, Daniel Scholten, & Rick Bosman,
“The geopolitics of renewables; exploring the political implications of renewable energy systems”, Technological
Forecasting and Social Change, 103 (2016): 273-283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2015.10.014
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Pant, G. (2022). Indian Quest for Sustainable Energy Regime: The Changing Narrative. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(6). 44-57.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.96.12320
is yielding to alternative energy due to its own unsustainability, makes the need to strategies
transition in developing economies in a meta frame that recognizes the relevance of urban rural
dichotomy in short term, advocates for DRES as driver to rural transition and underlines the
possibilities of DRES mainstreaming sustainable energy security for all. It is contended here
that ‘Energy Swaraj’ provides that meta framework.
The concept of ‘Energy Swaraj’ draws its meaning and content from Gandhian understanding
of Hind Swaraj and Gram- Swarajwhich is premised on the idea of creating an ecosystem based
on primacy of local community, local initiatives and local resources organised in decentralised
frame. Swaraj by definition meant the engagement of the self with its habitat to create solution
to its challenges. Thus, it places high premium to self action as generator of knowledge. And it
is this centrality of the self that defines the organisational principle in the form of village swaraj
as the decentralized form of governance where each village is responsible for its own affairs as
self-efficient autonomous entity. Thus, it places ownership of the local affairs with the local
community. So,it recognises the centrality of community in relation to State and Market. It
assumes that community empowerment is dependent upon participation. It is the dialectical
relationship between community empowerment and localism that sums up the tenant of
Gandhian understanding of Gram Swaraj. As a corollary thus Energy Swaraj assumes utilisation
of local resources for generating and fulfilling energy needs. Energy Swaraj can be defined as
‘Localised Energy Self Sufficiency’.3 It calls for revisiting energy society relationship. It looks at
the demand for energy from the perspective of growing and evolving need which unlike popular
understanding is a dynamic concept. It acknowledges that the need grows and evolves with ‘the
interdependence of action’ among the multiple units in the ecosystem. It is argued that “The
multiple units that can become embroiled in demanding energy—people, practices,
technologies, meanings and institutions—are thus shown to transform in relation to each other
in expected and unexpected ways. This is important for understanding existing and potential
flexibility in practices and energy demand.”4
In Gandhian connotation energy is means, “demand for energy is not for energy itself, but for
undertaking services, for example heating and illuminating . Importantly, contextual
circumstances – those such social, cultural, political, and historical – sway people’s need for
services and consequently shape their energy demand. This concept recognises energy as a
resource that enables people to perform services, and these services interact with individuals
and communities. Therefore, unravelling the social constructs of energy poverty requires a
framework that connects the energy demand of both individual and communities and the
associated energy sources (e.g. electricity and gas) and services (e.g. heating and cooking),
along with their underlying social dimensions.”5 It is argued that service oriented approach
being multidimensional provides a comprehensive and nuanced understanding than the access
3 Chetan Singh Solanki, Energy Swaraj: My Experiment with SOLAR Truth, (New Delhi: Notion Press, 2019).
https://books.google.co.in/books/about/ENERGY_SWARAJ.html?id=zfexDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
4 Elizabeth Shove, “Energy and Social Practice: From Abstractions to Dynamic Processes,” in Complex Systems and
Social Practices in Energy Transitions: Framing Energy Sustainability in the Time of Renewables, ed. Nicola Labanca,
(New York: Springer, 2017) 207-220.https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/316638299_Energy_and_Social_Practice_From_Abstractions_to_Dynamic_Processes
5 Yuwan Malakar, “Social Constructs of Energy Poverty and the Resulting Capability Deprivations in Rural India,” (PhD
Thesis, The University of Queensland, 2018). https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/ view/UQ:a184dfd