Energy Justice for Rural Karnataka
The darkness that at night envelops unelectrified hamlets in Uttara Kannada District, Karnataka, hides many things. It hides the black soot deposits on the walls, built up from years of smoky kerosene use. It hides the black soot deposits in the people’s noses and lungs; their weakened eyesight from straining to see in the dim light of the oil lamps. It hides their seclusion and their lack of education, as it’s difficult to impossible to make visits or read after nightfall, so they just go to bed. But the most heartbreaking secret this darkness holds is the ageing faces of its captives, for the children of the hamlets are missing. Unable to study after dark in the dim light of the kerosene lamps, most have been sent away to stay with relatives in bigger, electrified towns and villages: a dark seam of separation running through families.
“We see our two children only once every six months, when they come and stay with us for a night,” says Sarojini Rama Naik, a resident of Vatehalla Hamlet in Mahime Village, Homavar Taluk. “Even then they find it difficult to be without electricity.” She leans against the doorway, the flickering lamplight throwing shadows across her face. “Of course I miss them, but they have to have an education.”
Sarojini and her husband, Rama Timma Naik, sign the yearly letters to the village panchayat requesting electricity; they even boycotted the last assembly election in protest, but still no connection has been made. Some thirty pylons were erected in the area a few years ago but their arms are still empty of the power-carrying cables. Rama doesn’t know why this is; he thinks it is because the thick forest that surrounds their hamlet means the cables are considered at too high risk from falling trees. The disparate nature of these rural villages could also be a factor: each hamlet would require a different set of expensive cables, but would connect only a handful of houses.
So Rama continues to travel to the nearby Gerusoppa town to collect kerosene, though their rural location means the 10km journey takes him the entire day, on which he must set other business aside. The Government subsidises three litres per month for each household: this is not enough for their needs, so Rama purchases more on the black market at a higher price. If they had an electricity supply he could increase his income not only by saving the time it takes him to travel, but he and his wife could also use the evenings to process the Areca nut they grow on their quarter acre of orchard. Sarojini would buy an electric grinder too, to save her the one-two hours a day she spends grinding spices in the giant granite mortar on the floor of the dim kitchen. All her housework is currently done by oil lamp: she’s had a cough for years. The UN estimated that people who rely on kerosene lamps and biomass stoves inhale the equivalent of two packets of cigarettes a day. Women and children – those who spend most of their time indoors – are the most affected. Two thirds of the women in India, China and Mexico with lung cancer are non-smokers.
To add to the incongruity of their situation, Rama and Sarojini live in the vicinity of two large hydel dams – the 55MW Linganamaki, and the 240MW Gerusoppa – but the electricity they generate is not distributed to the area’s residents. People in the village believe that all the electricity generated by the nearby dam goes to power the city of Bengaluru, and not their district.
“I remember when the dams were built when I was young, and my father saying we might get electricity,” says Rama. “Many of the surrounding villages have it. Why don’t we? It must be our bad fate. You learn to accept it.”
More incongruous still is the sight of a mobile phone dangling from a roof beam in the house, the pink plastic cover swinging dully in the shadowy porch. Missing their children, the couple bought the phone in an attempt to keep in some contact with their young son and daughter. Of course, they have no means to charge it, and so Sarojini spends a day each week travelling to Gerusoppa to connect it to a plug socket. As she texts her children by the dim amber light of the kerosene lamp, the small house in the middle of the woods suddenly seems very quiet, and very lonely.
