The massive scale of this week's blackout in India, which left 684 million without electricity, has galvanized the country's already critical English-language media.
Vague misgivings about the weakness of India's political leadership and infrastructure problems have been steeled by the two-day power outage. The oft-repeated, disapproving yet hardly aggressive phrase “policy paralysis†has been replaced with an all-out battle cry.
“Powerless and Clueless: 684 Million Indians Without power,†The Times of India trumpeted Wednesday, followed by an article that dubbed the blackout “Terrible Tuesday.†In a column titled “India, interrupted,†the same paper wrote of the need to stop states from overdrawing from the electrical grid to prevent persistent power outages. The editorial warned, “Unless we can summon up the political will to make systemic changes, this is going to happe n again.â€
“Superpower India: R.I.P.,†The Economic Times said, referring to the government's repeated aspirations to be a global economic and political player. NDTV, a prominent English-language news channel, ran an hourlong episode called “Powerless Superpower: Are India's superpower dreams a joke?â€
India's power problems, which stem in part from poor maintenance, are nothing less than a “national failing; a corollary to the affinity to leave things unfinished,†said Samar Halarnkar in the Hindustan Times.
The Business Standard ran an article titled “Powerless at Noon,†which argued that the episode underlined the power sector's mismanagement by its regulators. In a separate piece, S. L. Rao, the first chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, said, “Electricity is too serious a business to be left to politicians or procedure-oriented bureaucrats, who are not held individually accountable for anything.â€
The Hind u's editorial “Delhi is Powerless†contended that while power grid collapses in other countries are usually caused by “freakish acts of nature,†India's blackout was the result of poor long-term planning. Open Magazine, in a piece creatively titled “Dark Nights (and Days),†pointed to the central government's inability to stop state governments from overdrawing electricity. “For a country with superpower delusions, the super power cuts of 30-31 July should serve as a wake-up call,†read the piece's opening lines.
Several newspapers decried the timing of the cabinet reshuffle that effectively promoted the erstwhile power minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, to the Home Ministry. The move was seen as a reflection of the government's lack of tact in dealing with the crisis: Rather than tackle the pressing demands at the time, the government chose to “reshuffle†yet again.
“The government is running on empty privilege, bereft of purpose,†Pratap Bha nu Mehta, president of the Center for Policy Research, wrote in a scathing indictment in The Indian Express.
R. Srinivasan in The Hindu Businessline wrote that the government's “inexplicable reaction†has exacerbated the problem and sent the message that “the political class simply does not care.â€
“A power trip, of another kind,†said the Mint newspaper, asking, “So, what has gone so terribly wrong that the power management system is now a subject of ridicule?†The piece pointed out that while power management should be a technical problem, the political relationship of the state government to the alliance at the center plays a huge part.
Meanwhile the Chinese media's view on India's blackout seemed more forgiving, with most state media coverage focusing on what China could learn from this disaster.
The American satirical newspaper The Onion, however, ran perhaps the most damning indictment of India's predicament, by just printing the truth: Since India's infrastructure has been restored to 100 percent capacity following Monday and Tuesday's blackouts, “vast swaths of India are now completely without access to electricity,†read the piece.
