Gift-Wrapped Ennui

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Rs3750-crore package for the Vidarbha region, which has seen over 600 farmersuicides in the past year alone, was greeted with howls of protests from theOpposition parties in Maharashtra, while a pink paper described it, a "newdeal for rural India".

New deal indeed. If it were not so tragic, it would be funny. But theVidarbha crisis should not be called a mere tragedy. It should evoke anger, evenrage at the dilapidated administration. Why doesn’t the PM spend more time inreforming his country-wide bureaucratic setup and the antiquated rules thatgovern them, instead of announcing fancy packages? Why doesn’t he make surethat those who govern learn from previous mistakes?

What has the long-awaited visit brought for farmers this time? What does thepackage contain? Rs 50 lakh as immediate relief to affected families for each ofthe six districts, Rs 1,296 crore of agriculture credit rescheduled over 3-5years with one year moratorium in the six drought affected areas of Vidarbha, Rs2,177 crore for major, medium and minor irrigation projects in the six districtsover the next three years, waiver of Rs 712 crore of interest overdue till June30, Rs 180 crore for new cotton seeds to the farmers, Rs 240 crore for waterharvesting and construction of check dams in these districts, Rs 225 crore forthe National Horticulture Mission, Rs 135 crore of subsidiary income throughlivestock, cattle and fodder, Rs 78 crore for micro-irrigation projects, and Rs3 crore for the agri-extension network. Most of this will be direct centralgrant, from the PM’s National Relief Fund, and will be monitored, as with manyother projects, by the PMO.

Phew! That’s quite a large sum of money, even by Indian debt-writeofftradition, being sent here, there and everywhere to chase a target that’s sofar proved very elusive: a cotton farmer thinking of death. And it’s not theonly relief announced, though it may look like the cherry on the icing. Buoyedby the PM’s largesse, the state chief minister has also announced a Rs10,000-crore package, albeit with some overlapping with the former. In fact, thelocal administration hasn’t yet finished implementing a Rs 1075-crore packageannounced a few months ago. There is also talk of total debt writeoff beingconsidered by the Congress high command, finances permitting.

So why does the PM’s package evoke a feeling of déjà vu among thefarmers? Been there, seen that, buddy, several times too, said farmer Kishore, aday after PM’s visit, and jumped in front of a train. The three millionaffected farmers, those that remain, say that the package does not address theirbasic demands: a higher purchase price for cotton, a total loan waiver, and dutyhike for cotton imports.

Mind you, nobody’s questioning the PM’s intentions and sincerity. InVidarbha, the PM gave a patient and sympathetic hearing to his visitors, mainlyweeping widows, ignoring district administration officials who were keen toseparate the genuine grain from the "non-genuine" chaff. He took along alarge entire team -- the fact-finders, agriculture minister, planning commissionmembers. But it’s also true that, faced with this monstrous regularity ofsuicides, the toll rising like the aftermath of a Richter-8 quake, the PrimeMinister of the country had to be seen to be doing something. And whenpoliticians come visiting, they usually come with a basket of financialpromises.

Promises that may not be kept and promises that cannot be kept. The Vidarbhacrisis began in 1994-95 and has festered now for ten years with the fullknowledge of the state government and of Sharad Pawar, current agricultureminister and top Maharashtra politician. The central government has little roleto play, beyond landing up as messiah and soothe sentiments. Two things it canimmediately do but probably won’t: protect Indian cotton-growers fromimports--unlikely in the WTO regime-- and make sure that the ten irrigationprojects stuck in the state are finished as fast as possible, would need hugeinvestments. It can also crack the whip over the state government, at leastbureaucratically through the PMO, though how far that can be achieved, given thePM’s political standing, is anybody’s guess.

The causes of the Vidarbha farmers distress are too many and too well-known:the poor quality of crop, imports from outside the state and country, no minimumguaranteed price, the collapse of the state procurement federation andnon-payment of farmers’ dues pushing them to usurious moneylenders, dishonesttraders, spurious seeds and costly transgenics, total dependence on farming,lack of employment opportunities, lack of risk diversion, lack of timely rainsand irrigation… In a post-WTO globalised world, they are caught in a timewarp;everybody is just waiting for them to die so that the rest of the economy canconveniently restructure itself. Yet, it was the unknown wonders ofglobalisation that pushed many of these farmers to a commercial crop likecotton, diverted from other crops like jowar which dropped from 30 per cent tojust 7 per cent of acreage, at a time when cotton went through its worst returnsever. And when things are left to rot, don’t the vultures make merry?

Indian agriculture is in the process of coming out of its shackles. ManmohanSingh is very keen to make it profitable, complementing our manufacturingindustries, and has commissioned solutions. One of them is food processing wherethe second green revolution is apparently waiting in the wings. Last fiscalyear, $41 million of FDI proposals were approved, pushing the cumulative inflowin this sector towards $3 billion. This in addition to $55 million going tosugar and edible oil companies and $3 million to mega food parks. It also has anamazing employment potential. There is little scope for poor, low-caste,unlettered farmers here unless proper, rule-bound contract farming emerges on alarge scale. Meanwhile, Vidarbha’s farmers will queue up for these new loans.Till another failed crop. As any Indian villager will testify, pesticides aremuch closer home than medicines.