(1888PressRelease)
May 11, 2007 - The state of the Indian nation is good and not so good. There are many contrary and contradictory signals in the big and small picture, in the kaleidoscope of the country, its regions not just diverse, but also some of them marching ahead, many others slipping backwards. Within the regions, there are areas of prosperity and belts of great misery. Let us take a look at Ratnagiri and Nashik in Maharashtra. Do the vineyards and red and wine makers hint at new life styles, semi European style, with tables decked with wineglasses for dhoti and pugree wearing farmers sipping in style, sniffing sophisticated flavours with a snack thrown in?
This bright picture fits in with India marching ahead in the globalized village, its corporates buying up steel plants and other industries around the world and inviting massive foreign investments, which rose to $19 billion in the financial year ended on March 31. The expectation of $30 billion overseas investment in the current year is not unrealistic in today's scenario.
Yet within Maharashtra, the Vidharbha region, is often dry as a reed and no doubt hapless, helpless and starving as farmers continue to take their own lives. Why? Why have 50,000 of them done so in 36 districts of the country in the past ten years? Is it because they have no rain, no irrigation and whatever they sow yields little or nothing? Or have they been literally led up the garden path by modern day moonshine operators who promise them a good harvest if they sow very costly genetically modified cottonseeds, which sprout not without large doses of water? But where is the water? It is just not there, more often than not. They fail usually. If it does rain, it is too little.
There is no storage of that little rainwater. It runs to waste. There are no dams or reservoirs, big or small, to release water when needed. There is no water harvesting. There are a few trees, but no real forests to create a green belt of sorts. Yet Rs.3,500 crores provided for afforestation remains in the Central kitty, unspent, unused, not demanded or asked for by the States to protect the environment and possibly build up those reservoirs by the natural process to save lives of men, women and children. This is the story that could be and is repeated in large parts of the country ad infititum as 30 per cent or more of India is not just desert, but also parched dry land.
In this scenario, debt postponement or occasional loan waivers by the State, but not the banks, which must follow businesslike prudential norms, do not save lives. Nor do handouts or doles of Rs.10,000 each to distressed families of dying or dead farmers do not provide adequate succor. Quite a lot of money, about Rs.50 crores for each of the 36 affected districts, has been given as doles. But it is a drop in the ocean of misery. Nobody is better aware of this fact than the Prime Minister himself, who has provided the money from his own relief fund.
Yet what more could the Prime Minister do than this? That question might well be valid. But what more could the Chief Minister not do as it is his prime responsibility not only to rule his State and protect his political fiefdom, that is the party faithful, who keep him in power, but also to take care of his constituency, that is the voters in all of his State, not just his Assembly constituency? Poor Mr. Chief Minister. He faces the threat of incumbency. Incumbency that often takes its toll every five years when he faces the voters and often loses office.
That is what happened precisely to the hapless Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, who was the prime example of India shining or rather Hyderabad shining even as there were dying and suicide prone farmers galore within 100 miles of the new Cyberabad. World repute did not save him and even as he cools his heels after a dramatic rout, he might well be learning his lessons. His successor, Mr. Y.S.R.Reddy, has been eager to take care of the poor farmer. But how much is he able to do or achieve. Time will tell.
But other Chief Ministers like Om Prakash Chautala and possibly Captain Amrindar Singh may not have as bad luck as Mr. Naidu. Soon after losing office, they may have been unhappy, but by now perhaps relaxed men as they lead the Opposition benches. No longer do they wear a crown of thorns, but perhaps they now sleep on a bed of roses. From their perch, they could afford to charge full blast at their successors to answer for all the woes of their States and people.
The question that arises is whether the new retail giants and fast moving consumer goods or FMCG manufacturers will deliver a better deal to the farmer by paying higher prices for the produce than the existing market forces? Will they assist the farmers with good quality seeds and other farm inputs, including pumps to draw water? If they do, they would prove themselves to be the ones engaged in affirmative action. Will the oil companies engage in producing oilseeds like jatropha in a big way to produce ethanol to blend with fossil fuels being imported at a high cost? If they do, they will be serving the nation in a positive way. If they do not, they might face the writing on the wall as tribals in deep misery are gathering together to write a script that may be unpalatable to the system that obtains today.
For long agriculture has been a laggard, growing at the Hindu rate of 2 per cent or even zero in really bad years when there has even been a decline compared to the previous year's farm output. Yet in 60 years since Independence India's grain output has grown seven times from 30 million tons to 210 million tons today with an impressive increase in cash crops and perhaps less impressive growth of cottage industries. But for 70 per cent of the people living in the countryside and depending mainly on farming and allied activities, the quality of life has not changed much. There may be an oasis in Punjab, Haryana, west Uttar Pradesh, parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat, but what about the rest of the country? The answer could not be positive and the rulers of today or bygone years, now in Opposition, are well aware of this fact. Yet what are they doing about it? They may be trying hard and hoping for the best.
Time was when agriculture was sliding, conventional wisdom was that industry should fill the gap of progress by raising gross national product by 4 per cent or so. Today manufacturing grows at 12 per cent, services at 25 per cent year after year. With agriculture being a grey area, GNP is rising between 8 and 9 per cent a year. With the rupee value rising in world markets, India has become a trillion dollar economy. In purchasing parity price or PPP terms, India's GNP could well be $3 to 3.5 trillion as goods and services are still much cheaper in India than in the First World. Financial wizards will look forward to the $2 trillion GNP landmark within five years or less, but how will it help the poor? That is a catch 22 factor.
###
