This Article is From Apr 27, 2015

What a Farmer Named Gajendra Singh Has Exposed

The Gajendra Singh misadventure at the AAP rally might have been a deliberate suicide or a publicity stunt gone wrong. We will have to wait till the Delhi Police enquiry and/or the judicial enquiry ordered by the Delhi government come to the end of their labours.

What is more germane is that a relatively well-off farmer from a relatively progressive agricultural district like Dausa should have been forced to take such dramatic action to bring to all concerned the woes of the farming community. This column has already drawn attention insistently to the haunting fact that while the economy grew at nearly 7.5 per cent last fiscal, "agriculture and allied activities" (that is, dairying, fisheries, social forestry and similar rural economic activity) grew by a miserable 1.1 per cent. While economists, in general, and partisan politicians, in particular, cannot stop cheering the lip-smacking achievement of India, in GDP terms, having become the fastest-growing large economy in the world, and better still, overtaking China, behind this statisticians' dream is the nightmare reality that close on two-thirds of our people are living in conditions of desperation. No wonder on the Gross Domestic Happiness scale, India falls behind terrorist-ridden Pakistan and instability-ridden Bangladesh. And on the UN's Human Development Index, India stagnates around position 135 notwithstanding all the economic growth that has taken place since neo-liberalism became fashionable.

The relentless influx into the cities is proof of the terrible truth that our grim urban slums are better than our despairing villages. Not only have we failed the Gandhian injunction "to wipe every tear from every eye", we seem assiduously to be working the pump on the tear ducts of the bulk of our population.

Tempted as I am to mock Narendra Modi's achche din, I refrain from doing so because the present is only a sad continuation of a long and disappointing past. Where Nehru soon after Independence had said, "Everything else can wait, but not agriculture", the current syndrome was summed up for me by one of our most distinguished Finance Ministers (and I don't mean Arun Jaitley - he is hardly distinguished) responding to a question on agriculture at a public meeting saying, "We have 130 million agricultural families in our country and only 140 million hectares of arable land. What do you expect me to do?"

At the heart of the neo-liberal agenda for the economic transformation of India lies the proposition that agriculture is a hopeless dead-end and that the answer lies in unbridled urbanization and industrialization. These goals are to be secured by making land cheap relative to the costs of capital and, to the extent possible, keeping labour costs low compared to capital expenditure. The question of cheap land is sought to be addressed by the forcible acquisition of land from farmers to hand over to infrastructure and industry at throw-away prices. And by propagating the view that it is in the interest of the unemployed themselves to secure employment by keeping labour cheap. Hence, it is argued, the desirability of maintaining a large army of the unemployed to hold down wages and thus make it attractive for capital to employ labour. The logic of this argument may be summed up as follows: keep large numbers unemployed in order to increase employment! And it follows that if wages start rising, it is in the interest of development for capital to be encouraged to import hi-technology from abroad to reduce the ratio of labour employed for every unit of capital invested. Wah! wah!

This is called "technological upgrading" and urged on the grounds of "improving competition". The consequence is a huge amount of labour retrenchment.

This is covered up by the theoretical claim that such and such increment in investment leads to so much growth in employment. If, however, we still have "jobless growth" that is because net employment generation (additional employment minus redundancy) is never cited (and unemployment caused by land acquisition is ignored); only gross employment figures are thrown around to create the illusion that higher industrial growth means higher employment. Hence the bewilderment on the part of the poor Indian as to why we seem to be enjoying boundless growth but suffering joblessness!

The other ploy is to let flow a stream of data to demonstrate that few, if any, want to remain in agriculture. This, of course, is to ask the wrong question. Why would anyone want to stay in agriculture if it is so un-remunerative? The right question is: can we make agriculture remunerative? Of course we can; of course, we should. Where the share of agriculture in GDP has dropped from about half at Independence to a mere 13 per cent now, the share of our population principally deriving their livelihood from agriculture is over half. If, as we should, we add those who partly survive on agriculture, that figure goes up to over 60 per cent. Is it just that nearly two-thirds of our people should live on just over one-tenth of our national income?

To make agriculture remunerative, we need to free the market for agricultural produce. We do not, because our urban middle class does not wish to pay a fair price. By controlling that market, successive governments have kept their urban constituents content. They have tried to make up for this by guaranteeing minimum support prices to some agricultural products, mainly foodgrains. But MSP usually lags behind the rise in input prices (and have largely been frozen in the Modi dispensation). So the burden increases disproportionately on those who can least protest - the scattered ranks of the small and marginal farmer. He is also the most affected victim of natural calamity - the failure of rains; unseasonal downpours; hail; floods; drought - and all the other uncertainties to which the most important segment of our economy is heir, and in a political system that responds quickly to urban woes but is almost unaware, and even when it is aware, barely listens to the rural voice.

That is until some Gajendra Singh ties a rope around his neck at a public rally. Suddenly, the issue becomes - for a while - the flavour of the moment. For the best part of a week, the Rajya Sabha has virtually stopped all other business to discuss agriculture. The media throngs exiting MPs to give their bytes to show their concern. Soon enough, we will return to type and agriculture will revert to being the last item on the neo-liberal agenda of priorities. And Gajendra Singh - reduced from an individual to a symbol - will pass into history. Alas!

(Mani Shankar Aiyar is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

.