Courtesy: BBC.com
Superstar Amitabh Bachchan couldn’t believe his ears. On the hot seat in front him on the Kaun Banega Crorepati show sat a small farmer from Maharashtra, farming in 4-acres of land. When asked how much would he be earning in a year, Anant Kumar replied something like this: “Not more than Rs 50 to 60,000 a year, and he spends half of it on buying seed, and can only feed his family one meal ..”
The question was repeated again. After listening to the plight of the annadata, Amitabh Bachchan appealed to the nation to come and help farmers. While I appreciate the concern shown by the legendary film star I wonder what would have been his reaction had he known that Anant Kumar is no exception. What he said is largely true of Indian agriculture. Several studies have shown that more than 58 per cent farmers go to bed hungry every night. Ironically, the people who produce food for the country are sleeping hungry.
According to the Economic Survey 2016, the average income of a farming family in 17 States of India, which means roughly half the country, stands at a paltry Rs 20,000 a year. Niti Aayog tells that for past five years in a row – between 2010 and 2015 – the annual increase in the real income of farmers across the country had remained below half a percent, 0.44 per cent per year to be exact. And for the past 40 years, the income of farmers has remained more or less frozen when adjusted against inflation. Agrarian distress is at its worst.
Primarily for this reason, farmers’ anger has spilled onto the streets. There is hardly a week when we don’t see a farmers protest in one part of the country or another. According to the National Crime Record Bureau, from 687 protests in 2014, these demonstrations increased to 2,683 in 2015, and then doubled to 4,837 a year later, in 2016. In other words, protests have multiplied 7 times in a period of three years, a clear reflection of the growing farmers’ anger. After the long march from Nashik to Mumbai and the recent Kisan yatra from Haridwar to New Delhi, some more big protests are planned, including a big march of adivasis and landless, the angry farm protests are only multiplying. The large scale farmer protests are an outcome of farmers’ anger over the crash in farm prices for three years in a row.
In the run up to 2019 parliament elections, there are still 5 more assembly elections to go. Among these are States like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where the rural vote share is very large. These are also the States where farmers’ protests have been quite regular and predominant, with farmers even resorting to stopping vegetable and milk supplies to the urban centres in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh leading to gunning down of five farmers in police firing. But while the farmers’ anger is quite clearly visible the bigger question is whether it will force political parties to redefine their electoral agenda, bringing agriculture to be the mainstay of economic growth. Why is it that come elections, and all political parties irrespective of their colour and ideology, swear in the name of farmers promising them all they want? But once the elections are over, farmers disappear from the economic radar screen and are easily left abandoned.
I have seen this happening for at least 30 years now. At every election time, political parties seduce farmers with financial baits luring the farming community to vote for the ruling dispensation. For four years, they wield the stick and in the final year before elections a few carrots are dangled. Even these promises remain unfulfilled. Yogi Adityanath had promised to waive all outstanding loans in Uttar Pradesh but in reality waived a maximum of Rs 1 lakh per small farmer. In Punjab, Capt Amarinder Singh had promised to take on farmers debt and also write-off all loans – including from private banks and the nationalised bank – but when in power he has been able to waive only Rs 900-crore bad loans so far. The total outstanding loans exceed Rs 86,000-crore. In Maharashtra, the total farm loan waiver has remained around Rs 16,000-crore, less than half of the promised Rs 34,000-crores.
It is true that farmer movements have failed to bring about a change, a change in perceptions and a change in economic policies. They have struggled a lot, but the movements are still struck around two major demands – waiving all farm loans and increasing MSP as per the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission – which is certainly needed but unless the farm unions are able to study, analyse and articulate as to what all investments and financial support the governments provides to other section of the society and make a comparison, I don’t think it will be easy to drive home the point as to how the agrarian crisis is an outcome of public policy.
Economic policies are designed deliberately to make farming economically unviable. That’s the stick the governments have always applied. Except for a little sop here and there like the introduction of bhavantar bhugtan scheme in Madhya Pradesh or to announce a higher MSP for crops without making any provisions to procure it, no structural changes have come up. The malaise runs much deeper and would require a complete overhaul of policies to bring cheers to the farming sector. . In fact, the way the marking set up is being designed the push is clearly towards bringing in corporate agriculture. On top of it land laws are being conveniently amended to make it easy for the industry to usurp farm land at will. Agriculture in reality is being sacrificed to keep economic reforms alive.
Will the ensuing 2019 elections see a change? I am not sure. Unless of course the farmers realise that enough is enough. They have been driven to the wall and to quite an extent they have no one to blame but themselves. For 70 years, they have been taken for an easy ride by politicians of all colours, from all parties. The day the farmers rise above caste, religion and political ideology and vote as farmers, the political landscape will change. The economic policies will also change the day farmers vote as farmers. #
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