Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy is in a quandary. Ever since he took over as the chiefminister more than a month, on May 14, more than 300 farmers have committed suicides. This was the officialdeath toll in the suicides register till June 25. Unofficially, the death toll is estimated to be much higher.
The spurt in farmers suicides, which unfortunately has failed to move the state as well as the Congress-ledCoalition at the Centre, is the outcome of the utter neglect and apathy of the erstwhile Chandrababu Naidu'sgovernment in Andhra, voted out after nine years in power. The situation in several other states, includingthe frontline agriculture states of Punjab and Haryana, and even in the left-ruled West Bengal and Kerala isno better. Thousands of farmers have ended their lives in the past few years. What has meanwhile baffled thenew government is that the spate of suicides shows no signs of ending even after it announced a series ofroutine packages - free electricity and more credit -- aimed at relieving farmer's misery.
The package also includes an ex-gratia payment of Rs 1 lakh each to the next of the kin of the deceased,and Rs 50,000 for a one-time settlement of the loans of indebted farmers. The erstwhile government too hadstarted paying an ex-gratia grant of Rs 1 lakh to the affected families after suicides were initially reportedin 1997-98. After giving the assistance to some 250 farmer families, the payments were stopped on the pleathat such an ex-gratia would prompt more farmers to take their lives. The Congress, then in the opposition,had stepped in by collecting donations for providing assistance to the grieving families.
Although the newly-elected government of Andhra Pradesh (and followed closely by Tamilnadu) have moved inquickly by announcing free power to farmers, what is more depressing is that the governments are clueless ofthe reasons that forces farmers to commit suicides. Nor is there any effort from the so-called distinguishedagricultural scientists, economists, and social scientists to come out with proposals to put an end to thisshameful blot on the country's image. The reason is obvious. No one has the political courage to point afinger at the real villain -- industrial farming model that shifts the focus on cash crops and thereby playshavoc with sustainable livelihoods.
Mr N Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh was swept away by a tidal wave of the angry farmers. The small andmarginal farmers, in tandem with the landless labourers, who constitute nearly 80 per cent of Andhra's 80million people, gave their verdict: the industry-sponsored economic reforms are anti-poor. In Karnataka too,where the farmers suicide rate is equally high, the over-emphasis on technology had only alienated a largepercentage of farming populations from economic growth and development. Both the States had relied heavily onthe British consultancy firm, McKinsey India Ltd., to draw the blueprint for economic reforms. In adition,McKinsey's services are also being utilised by West Bengal for re-designing the economic model of growth.
Blindly aping the World Bank model of agriculture (as suggested by McKinsey India Ltd.), Karnataka andAndhra had pumped in huge finances to push in an industry-driven agriculture that has not only exacerbated thecrisis leading to an environmental catastrophe but also destroyed millions of rural livelihoods. The biggesttragedy being that both the States had turned into a national capital of shame for farmers' distress, visiblemore through the increasing rate of suicides in the rural areas. Making available cheap credit to thesemarginal farming communities, as has been announced by the Finance Minister, will not be helpful. What thesepoor and marginalised need immediately is income support.
In reality, Andhra as well as Karnataka were only making it smoother for the industry to move into therural areas. APs Vision 2020 document talked of reducing the number of farmers in the state to 40 per cent ofthe population, and did not have any significant programme to adequately rehabilite the remaining 30 per centof the farming population. The objective was to promote the commercial interests of the agribusiness companies(read foreign financial institutes and international bankers) and the IT hardware units. All benefit wouldhave accrued to these companies in the name of farmers. In fact, these two sectors, along with biotechnology,were being heavily subsidised in the name of efficiency and infrastructure whereas the poor farmers were beingdivested of the their only source of income - their meagre land holdings.
Andhra in reality was fast turning into a BIMARU state (an euphemism for backward states). Thousands offarmers were migrating every season looking for menial jobs in the urban centres. Mofussil newspapers in theheartland of the cyberstate - that's how Mr Naidu wanted the state to be called - were full of advertisementsinviting people to mortgage their gold and silver belongings. Livestock deaths and the plight of dalits andother landless and marginalised no longer adorned the headlines. Farmers were asked not to produce more rice(the staple food) as the State had no place to stock it. Farmers suicides had become so common that Mr Naiduhad actually sent team of psychetrists to convince them against taking their own lives.
Believe it or not, daily wage workers in AP can still be hired at a price that their counterparts in Biharwould scoff at. And yet, the ignorent media despised the maverick political leader Laloo Prashad Yadav fortaking his state - Bihar - to economic backwardness whereas Mr Naidu was showered by all kinds of accolodes.Such was the extent and level of poverty that AP also topped the country in the percentage of women enteringprostitution and trafficking. Mr Naidu on the other hand ignored the writing on the wall and went aboutholding web conferences with his bureaucracy much to the chagrin of the national media, which painted him asthe poster boy for economic reforms.
The Naidu model has failed. It also means failure of the McKinsey's model of economic development. To talkof 'Naidu Plus', as some economists have said, indicates the level of arrogance among a school of economicthought that refuses to see anything except the industry.
No wonder, newspapers have already quoted the secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers ofCommerce and Industry (FICCI), Mr Amit Mitra as saying "economic initiatives in the IT and servicessector should be extended to the rural areas and to such industries as food processing and ruralindustry". Unfortunately, the industry refuses to accept that it was because of its own over-indulgencethat Mr Naidu paid a heavy price. In addition, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the newlyemerging biotechnology industry, were the beneficiaries of the state's largesse in the name of improvingagricultural productivity and enhancing rural incomes. The new government has focused on agriculture butrefuses to look for the real causes behind farmers distress. All its efforts are directed towards convincingthe markets that sensex will not be allowed to slip any further.
The tragedy is that while the farmers have delivered their verdict, the economists and policy makers arenot willing to accept it. The nation is not only clueless but doesnot even want to know how to resurrectagriculture and farming. This is where the politico-economy equations have gone wrong, this is where theIndian democracy has reached superficial heights. The CII and FICCI have already ensured that their breed ofeconomic thinkers and supporters are in each political party. The tragedy therefore is that the policydirections between the ruling party and the opposition has blurred. Both follow the same economicprescriptions that have no connection with the ground realities. The Congress-led coalition too will easilyfall into the trap of pushing for more economic reforms, and provide the same direction for the agriculturesector that Mr Naidu falsy banked upon.
The ground realities are far removed from the rhetoric and the statistics that have bred immunity againstcompassion. We are all part of a global food system, which perpetuates poverty and deprivation. The foodindustry makes tall claims of nutritious diet that it churs out, and millions are dying of obesity and relatedproblems. We make tall claims of improved technology for agriculture by pushing stark realities of increasingindebtedness, growing poverty, resulting human suffering and hunger from the public glare. We are, therefore,in reality, the cause behind hunger and the resulting farmers suicides. Behaving like an Ostrich is surely notgoing to eclipse hunger and death from the politico-economic radar screens.
It requires policy makers, agricultural scientists, academicians and even the civil society groups to firstaccept the fundamental flaws that force farmers to the gallows. And then it needs determination - bothpolitical and scientific -- and there is no reason why farmers distress cannot be turned into a scourge of thepast. Economic gimmicks like announcing free electricity and enhancing bank credit will otherwise continue toforce farmers to take the fatal route by drinking pesticides.
Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst. Among his recent worksis the book In the Famine Trap.
Courtesy, Znet.
Tags