Beautifully explained, Baruah! cm
On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:14 AM, Sanjib Baruah wrote: > From Assam Tribune, January 22, 2012 > > http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/showpage.asp?id=jan2212,6,417,108,999,855 > > > Lower Subansiri and the Politics of Expertise > > Dr. Sanjib Baruah > > The mobilization of a variety of highly credentialed experts to settle the > controversy over the Lower Subansiri hydropower project reminds me of an > American Doonesbury comic strip. It features Stewie, a young researcher, who > is frustrated with his calculator because it wouldn’t produce the ‘right’ > answer. Stewie grumbles that he can’t get the ‘pesky scientific facts’ to > ‘line up behind [his] beliefs.’ Some of our decision-makers seem to be > behaving like Stewie. They are looking for experts whose opinions can be > interpreted as being in line with what officials consider to be the ‘right > answer’ to the questions raised about the Lower Subansiri hydropower project. > > It is perhaps not a coincidence that a North American comic strip speaks to > our present predicament in Assam. The Doonesbury strip was a comment on > former US president George W. Bush’s attitudes toward scientific truths > vis-à-vis a number of issues including climate change and evolution. (Many of > Bush’s Christian fundamentalist supporters are ‘creationists’ who believe in > the Bible’s story of creation and reject Darwin’s theory of evolution). Thus > an authority figure dressed in a white lab coat, based on the real-life > character of the science adviser at the Bush White House, appears in the > scene. He advises the confused Stewie on “situational science” which he > explains is “about respecting both sides of a scientific argument, not just > the ones supported by facts.” The “situational science adviser” then lists a > number of “controversies” where “situational science” could be useful, among > them the “evolution controversy,”“the global-warming controversy” and the > “pesticides controversy.” > > In the comic strip cartoonist Garry Trudeau uses the term ‘controversy’ > ironically with reference to subjects on which there are well-established > scientific truths. However, we live in a world where knowledge controversies > have become a familiar part of public debates in many parts of the world. > Such knowledge controversies are examples of what Dutch social theorist > Annemarie Mol calls ontological politics. > > Controversies about the dangers of the “mad cow disease” or what scientists > call Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in the UK, and other recent > panics about food safety in Europe, are examples of ontological politics. > What is common about these controversies is that significant sections of the > public challenge the knowledge claims of scientists and technologists that > inform government decisions and practices. While a few years ago the > authority of science and the reassurances provided by technocrats may have > been enough to reassure the public about “acceptable risks,” they now fail > to convince those that are affected by policy decisions informed by expert > knowledge. The debate on the Lower Subansiri project is best seen as a > knowledge controversy – an example of ontological politics. > > In these cases, the first-hand experience of citizens and the vernacular > knowledge generated by that experience are in tension with what is regarded > as authoritative science by decision-makers. They fail to allay public > concerns. German sociologist Ulrich Beck explains this as a characteristic > feature of “risk society.” Experts in the context of such knowledge > controversies fail to convince the public that the risks involved in a new > product or in an infrastructural project are “acceptable.” > > At the root of the controversy over the Lower Subansiri project are two sets > of tensions (a) between first-hand experience and vernacular knowledge on > the one hand, and expert knowledge that informs government decisions on the > other; and (b) between expert knowledge produced by one group of > well-credentialed experts familiar with the local context, and by a second > group of equally well-credentialed experts based at institutions in the > Indian heartland, but viewed locally as experts who have few stakes in the > region. > > A number of factors account for these tensions. > > First, the people of the Brahmaputra valley have known floods in a way that > very few other people in the world have. Second, the experience of the > earthquake of 1950 and the catastrophic floods that followed are deeply > etched in the collective memory of the people of the Brahmaputra Valley. A > research team studying flood adaptation in the Brahmaputra Valley found that > even after six decades villagers affected by those catastrophic floods > remember them as ‘Pahar Bhanga Pani’ [hill-destroying floodwaters] and ‘Bolia > Pani’ [floodwaters driven by madness]. It is hardly surprising that > hydropower plants in the mountains that surround the valley would evoke a raw > sense of danger and foreboding in Assam. > > In the words of an Assamese engineer who has had a long career building and > managing hydropower plants in the region, experts from India’s premier water > research institute IIT-Rourkee, “have not seen the earthquake-induced > landslides of 1950 . . . when hundreds and thousands of trees floating > downstream covered nearly the entire Brahmaputra river. They were not witness > to that extraordinary spectacle. How can they say with certitude what a > future disaster on the Subansiri might bring?” > > Third, the experience of devastating man-made floods, most likely caused by > water released from recently built upstream hydropower plants like that on > the Kurichhu river in Bhutan, a tributary of Assam’s Manas river, and on the > Ranganadi river in Arunachal Pradesh have only added to this anxiety. In the > absence of transparent public inquires about these floods and reassurances > that they won’t occur again, the people of Assam have few option but to take > them as harbingers of a calamitous future. > > It is extremely unlikely that the authority of experts would at this point be > able to bridge the trust gap that has developed regarding the Lower Subansiri > project. But we should be glad that we do not have an “unconstrained > technocracy” like that in China where as the Economist magazine pointed out > last year, “all but one of the nine members of the Politburo Standing > Committee are engineers.” Unconstrained technocracy, says the Economist has > not been a guarantee of “good ideas or decisions” in cases such as the Three > Gorges dam, the SARS epidemic or the high-speed rail network. > > But democracies can find ways of engaging with ontological politics that > autocracies cannot. However, to find a way out of the impasse on Lower > Subansiri the authorities will have to go beyond dogmatically asserting the > authority of the elected government or of the law. > > Fortunately, in a democracy people who fear the potential adverse impact of a > government decision has the ability to organize itself into a public. The > memories of devastating earthquakes, the lived experience of frequent floods, > and the knowledge of scientists, technologists and intellectuals deeply > engaged with the region, have constituted an extremely well-informed regional > public around the issue of Lower Subansiri. Indian democracy has to find a > way of meaningfully engaging that public. > > The writer is Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, New York. > > _______________________________________________ > assam mailing list > assam@assamnet.org > http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
