138
6 India’s Bioeconomy and the Ambition over “Wastelands”
6.3.2 Strategic Uses of Power
If India’s biofuel agenda has fallen short of its expected results, the pursuit of that
agenda in terms of policy advocacy and agency has been a remarkable success. The
dominant coalition has far outcompeted its opponents in using all three forms of
power, facing very little meaningful opposition. It has displayed both instrumental
and structural power at the national level, while discursive power has played a crucial
role at the local level during implementation.
Three assets have favored the dominant coalition in biofuel governance in India:
access to positions of legal authority, financial resources, and skillful leadership.
For example, in India, private sugarcane business people have long held influential
positions in government—the flagship example being Sharad Pawar, a sugarcane
tycoon from Maharashtra who himself was Minister of Agriculture for a decade
(2004–2014). Representatives from the sugarcane industry or research institutes
supporting this mainstream agenda and consulted in this research agreed that they
receive adequate support from the state. In contrast, NGOs and social businesses
holding alternative views reported the opposite (Personal interviews).
Besides, the agribusiness coalition has counted on substantial financial resources.
These are not only from private agroindustry but also in the form of public funds
channeled as credit through the State Bank of India, subsidized labor (through the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), and public funding for jatropha
R&D in private institutes. Alternative biofuel production strategies, such as local
use in rural areas, count only on minor public (or private) funding. As a senior
government official puts it, “It is unglamorous; industry does not participate in a big
way” (Personal interview).
Then, skillful leadership (or lack of it) has made a difference, too. Biofuel promotion in India—and, in particular, the seminal National Biodiesel Mission—received
a significant kick-start thanks to the institutional entrepreneurship of D.N. Tewari,
a jatropha enthusiast and then member of the Planning Commission (see Planning
Commission 2003).
3 In turn, the opposition has lacked such skillful leaders who
could articulate their commonalities, elaborate on a coherent alternative vision, and
promote coalition behavior to strengthen their advocacy.
4
Four discursive tactics have underpinned the approach of the agribusiness coalition
in India. First, it has exaggerated the relevance of climate change as a policy rationale.
As an Indian professor assesses it,
The interest [on biofuels] is domestically generated, but the international debate on climate
change has given us the space to scale up these initiatives. With that I mean not so much
funds — the funds too, though they are very little — but particularly the discourse and the
political space. We don’t do things for the climate, but it then has “climate co-benefits.”
3 D.N. Tewari later went on to write a book called “Jatropha and Bio-Diesel” (see Tewari 2007).
4 Vandana Shiva is internationally regarded as a leader in the defense of smallholders and traditional
agriculture in India, and she has been a vocal critic of the biofuel policy (see Shiva 2010), but
without proposing any alternative that includes biofuels and thus distancing herself from those
(more moderate) critics who seek that.
6 India’s Bioeconomy and the Ambition over “Wastelands”
6.3.2 Strategic Uses of Power
If India’s biofuel agenda has fallen short of its expected results, the pursuit of that
agenda in terms of policy advocacy and agency has been a remarkable success. The
dominant coalition has far outcompeted its opponents in using all three forms of
power, facing very little meaningful opposition. It has displayed both instrumental
and structural power at the national level, while discursive power has played a crucial
role at the local level during implementation.
Three assets have favored the dominant coalition in biofuel governance in India:
access to positions of legal authority, financial resources, and skillful leadership.
For example, in India, private sugarcane business people have long held influential
positions in government—the flagship example being Sharad Pawar, a sugarcane
tycoon from Maharashtra who himself was Minister of Agriculture for a decade
(2004–2014). Representatives from the sugarcane industry or research institutes
supporting this mainstream agenda and consulted in this research agreed that they
receive adequate support from the state. In contrast, NGOs and social businesses
holding alternative views reported the opposite (Personal interviews).
Besides, the agribusiness coalition has counted on substantial financial resources.
These are not only from private agroindustry but also in the form of public funds
channeled as credit through the State Bank of India, subsidized labor (through the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), and public funding for jatropha
R&D in private institutes. Alternative biofuel production strategies, such as local
use in rural areas, count only on minor public (or private) funding. As a senior
government official puts it, “It is unglamorous; industry does not participate in a big
way” (Personal interview).
Then, skillful leadership (or lack of it) has made a difference, too. Biofuel promotion in India—and, in particular, the seminal National Biodiesel Mission—received
a significant kick-start thanks to the institutional entrepreneurship of D.N. Tewari,
a jatropha enthusiast and then member of the Planning Commission (see Planning
Commission 2003).
3 In turn, the opposition has lacked such skillful leaders who
could articulate their commonalities, elaborate on a coherent alternative vision, and
promote coalition behavior to strengthen their advocacy.
4
Four discursive tactics have underpinned the approach of the agribusiness coalition
in India. First, it has exaggerated the relevance of climate change as a policy rationale.
As an Indian professor assesses it,
The interest [on biofuels] is domestically generated, but the international debate on climate
change has given us the space to scale up these initiatives. With that I mean not so much
funds — the funds too, though they are very little — but particularly the discourse and the
political space. We don’t do things for the climate, but it then has “climate co-benefits.”
3 D.N. Tewari later went on to write a book called “Jatropha and Bio-Diesel” (see Tewari 2007).
4 Vandana Shiva is internationally regarded as a leader in the defense of smallholders and traditional
agriculture in India, and she has been a vocal critic of the biofuel policy (see Shiva 2010), but
without proposing any alternative that includes biofuels and thus distancing herself from those
(more moderate) critics who seek that.