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Index

Chapter – 1 Role of Indian Agriculture in the ConstitutionHistorical Analysis:-

I -4

Chapter – 2 Indian Govt. Policies 5-6b

Chapter - 3 Inadequate Govt. Response to farmer distress 7-12

Chapter – 4 Further Measures to alleviate India’s Acute andGrave Agrarian Crisis

13-17

Chapter – 5 Viable options required to be taken up on emergentbasis:-

18

Chapter – 6 Earlier Successful experiments of National Leader’sand social activists for a viable Agro economy:-

19-24

Chapter – 7 Conclusion:- 25

References Articles & Sources:- 26

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Chapter – 1Historical Analysis:-The twin droughts of 1965 and 1966 led some foreign experts to opine that India couldnever feed itself. Famine 1975, a bestselling book by William and Paul Paddock,predicted global famine by 1975. The authors said limited food surpluses of the Westshould be conserved for countries capable of being saved, while countries incapable ofbeing saved, like India, should be left to starve, for the greater good of humanity.

Indians were angered and horrified by the book, yet it was widely applauded in theWest. Environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, praised thePaddock brothers sky-high for having the guts to highlight a Malthusian challenge.

Harsh Mander who heads the Centre of Equity Studies has been writing ceaselessly onthe drought. In his 2015 book, Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference inNew India, he writes about “the extraordinary indifference that people of privilege hadfor the intensive and pervasive levels of human suffering all around them.”

Today’s Challenge for India':-

In the year ended 2012, there were 269.3 million people or 21.9% of the populationliving below the poverty line from 37.5% in 2004-05, according to the government.India is on course to reducing poverty by half in 2015 from the 2000 level, but it needsto do more in the areas of education, gender and malnourishment, according to a UNreport released in February 2016.

According to a Credit Suisse Report, the top 1 per cent of households in India owned36.80 per cent of the total wealth of all households in 2000, while in 2014 their sharehad increased to 49 per cent, which is higher even than the average for the world as awhole (48.20 percent in 2014) and much higher than for the United States of America,reputedly a highly unequal society, where this figure was 34 per cent. But it is notonly the rich and the super-rich who have benefited from neo-liberal economic policies.

Agriculture forms the backbone of the Indian economy because not only does itcontribute nearly 18% to GDP but, by a number of measures, also engages more than50% of our labour force. In 2008-09, when global recession crippled even the mosteconomically powerful nations of the world, demand and consumption in rural areaswere able to pull India through and the country recorded 8% growth in GDP becauseof its rural population.

In 2013-14, 4.7% growth was recorded in agriculture. After the UPA handed over thereins to the NDA, this figure has fallen to 1.1% in 2014-15. If the present conditionpersists, we may record negative growth in the agriculture sector.

Agricultural exports climbed during 10 years of UPA rule, from $7.5 billion 2003-04 to$42.6 billion in 2013-14. On the contrary, the Modi government’s indifference is likelyto lead to a decrease of nearly 29% in the exports of three crops alone i.e. wheat, riceand corn in 2014-15 itself.

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2016: About 330 million people are affected by drought in 10states as 256 districtsreel from severe water shortages and poor farmers suffer crop losses. The current dryspell is partly because of two back-to-back years of bad monsoons.

As credit rating and research agency Crisil points out, the rising frequency ofweather shocks amid higher vulnerabilities has compounded agrarian stress, slashingcultivation income and farm profitability. The importance of villages in India’s economycannot be over-emphasized.About 58% of rural households engage in agriculture and within this two thirds areheavily reliant on it.

Bitter Truth:-a) According to planners, for India to sustain a growth rate of 8% agriculture

must grow at least 4%. Alarmingly, rural distress – marked by slowing wages,poor incomes and lower profits from farming – now seems to be getting entrenched.

The monsoon is critical because nearly 60% of the country’s arable land does nothave irrigation facilities.

b) One main reason for the stagnation in yields and agricultural productivity has beena consistent under-investment in land development, a trend perhaps bestmanifested in the declining spending on irrigation over the last two decades.

About 58% rural households engage in agriculture, and of this two-thirds areheavily reliant on it. In 2014-15 the agriculture sector grew at 0.2% and estimatesshow that the farm economy will grow barely at 1.1%. Without rural prosperity, theCentre’s plans for an economy firing on all cylinders will be easier said than done.India may be set to grow at a projected 7.6% in 2015-16, outpacing China, but aslowing rural economy can pose hurdles in sustaining this turnaround.

c) This brings us to the bigger question of jobs. Productive jobs are vital for growth,and a good job is the best form of inclusion. Even during the rosiest years of growth(2004-05 to 2009-10) the economy generated no more than 2 million jobs for the 55million people who were poised to join the workforce in that 5yrs (2005-10)

d) India has earned the discomfiting distinction of being home to the highest numberof hungry people among 129 countries monitored by the food and AgricultureOrganization. This was revealed in the state of Food Insecurity in the world 2015report. Though India has improved its own record here by reducing the figure from210 million in 1990-92 to 194 million now, it has fallen behind china in this regard.The figures show 15% of India’s population is undernourished despite all thegovernmental action over decades.

e) Nearly a quarter of rural families in India don't have a literate adult above 25 years.Nearly onethird are landless, and half derive their income mainly from manuallabour. Above all, nearly half of rural Indian households can be considered "poor"in the sense of facing some deprivation.

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These are findings of the "socio-economic caste census" (SECC 2016) that has,for the first time, mapped rural India in such minute detail.It means 49% of rural India shows signs of poverty even if the depth of poverty isnot enough to categories them as poor in the technical sense.

f) One of the interesting bits of the findings are the source of rural household incomes.Nearly 30% are engaged in cultivation, while 51% of families are eking out alivelihood from manual casual labour.

g) Giving a more storied picture of rural India, the Socio-Economic and CasteCensus (SECC) released on Friday says that a staggering 92% of rural householdsreported their maximum income below Rs 10,000 per month. Nearly three quartersof all rural household said that the income of the highest earning member was Rs5,000 or less.

In 13.34 crore or 74.49% rural households, the highest earning members income isless than Rs 5,000 a month.27.5% families, including 28.3% in rural India, were considered below the povertyline.5.39 crore households depend on cultivation while 9.16 crore households surviveon manual casual labour, including farm work.6.68 lakh households live by begging.Ragpicking is the source of livelihood for 4lakh households.

The SECC found that over 9 crore households were living by doing casual manuallabour. That's more than half of all rural households. Cultivators were reportedas numbering 5.39 crore households, making up about 30%.

h) As workers find it difficult to make a living in urban areas, more of them are nowgoing back to villages and fewer rural people are migrating to cities. If the situationremains unchanged, 12 million more will join the agricultural workforce in ruralareas by 2018-19 than those in 2012, a study by credit rating firm CRISILestimated last year.

i) Around 60 percent of the farms in the country still lack proper irrigationfacilities, which, had they been in place, could have effectively countered theconsequences of inadequate rainfall. The rains had been deficient last year too. Butthe policy-makers do not seem to have done much in the meantime to improve theagricultural infrastructure. The result can be seen in the swelling number offarmers taking their lives to escape bankruptcy.

j) Natural calamities are great levellers. This adage, however, is only partly true:Catastrophic events affect everyone, but some — the poor — are affected more thanothers. And, among the poor, it is the ‘most vulnerable’ — women, children, theelderly and the disabled — who take the maximum hit when catastrophes singesocieties.

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According to a report by environmentalist Vandana Shiva, on an average, a ruralwoman traverses 14,000 km a year to fetch water. In Beed, which accounts for thehighest number of farmer suicides in drought-hit Marathwada, widows are bearingthe burden of the suicides. On Wednesday, a report in MINT said that many ofthem don’t even get compensation (`1 lakh) on time and, in several cases, in-lawscorner the money, forcing women to take up low-paying jobs in the unorganisedsector.

Then there are the children. The Centre has stated that over 336 million people areaffected by drought and of these 164 million are children. In such situations,several challenges confront children: Trafficking, forced and bonded labour, childmortality, ill-effects on their health, child marriage and discontinuation ofeducation, especially when they migrate with their parents to cities. According toNobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, more than half of the total child marriages andlabour in India are from the 10 drought-affected states and this will furtheraggravate if things don’t improve.

When migrations happen from the rural areas to the cities, the old and the infirmare left behind. In normal times, their lives can be challenging but in times likethese their difficulties only multiply. With very little help from the State, many ofthese old and disabled are finding it difficult to get two meals a day. Theirneighbours are unable to help because they themselves are stretched. In somevillages of Bundelkhand, NGOs have started soup kitchens to provide the old anddisabled food, but those are more the exception than the norm.

(Hindustan Times Kolkata editorial dt.05.05.16)

k) Between 1997 and 2013, at least 60,000 farmers are suspected to have committedsuicide in Maharashtra. Across India, more than 300,000 farmers - one of thebiggest waves of peasant suicides post-Independence - have taken their lives,according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) annual reports.The rural peasantry has been moving to small towns or shanties in metros indistress: on average, 2,000 farmers are quitting farming every day, going by the twocensus reports from 1991.As many as 15 million farmers (mainly cultivators) have quit agriculture since 1991- which, in itself, is not undesirable. But where are they heading? Nowhere.The census reports show that the number of landless workers has grownphenomenally across the country.

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Chapter 2Indian Govt. Policies

UPA Govt. Policies:-The UPA government pushed through the National Food Security Act to guarantee fivekg foodgrain per person per month at Rs 2 per kg to 67% of India’s population. Of the29 states and seven Union Territories, the identification of beneficiaries has beencompleted in only six states. The Modi government has pushed back the target ofimplementing the Food Security Act three times, and now it is October 4, 2015.

The Shanta Kumar Committee has suggested a reduction in the percentage ofbeneficiaries from 67% to 40% and conducting the purchase of foodgrain onlyequivalent to what is required in the PDS quota.Altogether 9.05 crore rural households will be excluded from government welfareprograms. They account for 50.53% of the total rural households due to needdeprivation yardstick.

However, criticised for estimating poverty on the basis of consumption-based criteria,the then UPA government decided to do away with the BPL and non-BPL yardsticks forselecting beneficiaries of welfare schemes. It opted for selection through deprivationdata obtained from the socio-economic and caste census.

Present Govt’s Policies:-Agriculture and irrigation, which contribute 17% of GDP and cover 49% of India’sworkforce and 62.5% of India’s population, have been the worst-hit by the‘Modinomics of Crony Capitalism’. The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna has seen areduction in funding by Rs 7,426.50 crore. ‘The Animal Husbandry and Dairy Vikas’scheme has seen a cut of Rs 685 crore. The same for the Pradhan Mantri KrishiSinchai Yojna has been Rs 8,156.22 crore. Funding for the National Livelihood Missionhas been reduced by Rs 1,632.50 crore.

Not surprisingly, the rate of agricultural growth has come down from 4.7% in 2013-14to 1.1% in 2014-15, the year the BJP came to power (Economic Survey, 2015). Thearea under cultivation has gone down by 3.322 million hectares in 2014-15 and grainoutput is likely to go down from 265 million tonnes in 2013-14 to below 250 milliontonnes in 2014-15. Even agricultural exports, which increased from $7.5 billion in2002-03 to $42.6 billion in 2013-14, will see a drop of more than 25% under the Modigovernment.

Intervention by Supreme Court:-A staggering 33 crore people, or more than a quarter of the country's population, arein the grip of drought and consequently face drinking water shortage and agriculturaldistress, the Centre informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Money-lenders have traditionally squeezed farmers. Isn't it a pity that after nearly 70years of independence, majority of our farmers, the real sons of the soil, are yet to getproper irrigation facilities?

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But the money-lenders have thrived. They are a powerful lot with close nexus withpoliticians. The Supreme Court had highlighted the role of money-lenders in itsjudgment in Fatehchand Himmatlal case [1977 SCC (2) 670], "It is a cruel legal joketo legitimate as trade this age-old bleeding business of agrestic India whereby the littlepeasant, the landless tiller, the bonded labourer, the pavement tenant and the slumdweller have been born and buried during the Raj and the Republic in chill penury. Istrade in human bondage to be dignified legally, betraying the proletarian generation?For whom do the constitutional bells of the socialist Republic toll?"

After 33 years, the SC in Sarangdharsingh Shivdassingh Chavan case on December14, 2010 had asked the same question. In the 1977 case, the Maharashtragovernment was attempting to defend its legislation against money-lending. But in2010, it was defending then Congress chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh who hadprotected money-lenders who were squeezing farmers with an interest rate of 10% permonth, which is 120% per annum.

In disgust, the SC had said, "The District Anti-Money Lending Committee wasconstituted by Maharashtra government on October 19, 2009 for protecting farmersagainst unscrupulous money lenders.

"But in total disregard of the scheme of the Act, the CM gave instructions which hadthe effect of frustrating the object of the legislation enacted for the protection offarmers. The CM's instructions to district collector, Buldhana, were ex-facie ultra viresthe provisions of the Act." The SC said this amounted to protecting money-lenders whohad violated the law.

The SC said it was "extremely anguished to see that such instruction could come fromthe CM of a state which is governed under a Constitution.

National Food Sec Act Farce:- A bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and N.V. Ramana said there would be "utter

chaos" and a collapse in the country's federal structure if the states chose to violatea parliamentary enactment. The National Food Security Act is deemed to havecome into force from July 5, 2013.

Foodgrain and mid-day meals should be given free of cost, the court said."A state government, by delaying implementation of a law... is effectively refusing toimplement it and Parliament is left a mute spectator.

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Chapter - 3Inadequate Govt. Response to farmer distress

A Perfect Analysis of Grave Agro Crisis by Kobad Ghandhy:-

The real India comprises the three lakh farmer suicides every year —46 per day,one every half-hour.

On August 10, 2015, 25,000 farmers of Mathura have sought permission fromthe President to commit mass suicide. They have been demanding compensation forthe 700 acres seized forcibly in 1998 for the construction of the Gokul Barrage. Butneither the Centre nor the State are bothered!! Independence obviously means little tothem.

After all, if there are no good days for the bulk of this vast population of 18 crorehouseholds (73 per cent of our people) who reside in the rural areas, there can beno happy days for our country. According to this latest socio-economic census, of thisvast populace, 60.6 per cent (or 11 crore households)—that is, roughly 60 crorepeople—are categorised as “deprived households”.

According to the SECC census (2011), released in early July 2015, India has a totalof 24.4 crore households of which 17.9 crores live in the rural areas and 6.5crores are urban. This translates roughly into a population of 90 crores bring rural(73 per cent) and 32 crores being urban (27 per cent). In this article we are concernedwith only the rural sector of the population. The data is devastating.

Of these total rural households, 56 per cent or 10 crore households are landless—that is, roughly a population of 50 crore people in rural India own no land. Andof the total households, 51 per cent (that is, around nine crores) live off casualmanual labour.

It is this fortyfive crore population who comprise the poorest of the poor in ourcountry, a large percentage of whom come from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) andScheduled Tribes (STs).

According to a study, 75 per cent of all these farmers (that is, four crorehouseholds) are marginal farmers who own up to one hectare (2.5 acres) of land.

The model of development adopted by successive governments is leaving an entirenation sick.

As a result, 16 lakh children (under five) die every year, 1000 TB deaths everyday, and five lakh deaths each year due to water-borne diseases. And this wouldbe only the tip of the iceberg.

Virtually dracula-like sucking the blood of the Indian people, out of the 145billionaires in India the maximum (27) are in the pharmaceutical and healthcaresectors (with real estate coming second at 23). This has been facilitated by the

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government’s pathetically low expenditure on healthcare—while in most countriesgovernment expenditure on health-care on every individual varies from 85 percent in Japan and the UK to 50 per cent in China, in India it is a mere 30 percent.

Let us look at examples in a few States:

A. Maharashtra, the wealthiest State in India, has been the headquarters offarmers’ suicides through this entire one-and-a-half decade.

Lately, farmers’ suicide has also spread to the neighbouring Marathwada regionwhich witnessed 500 suicides in the latter half of 2014. The BJP Government hasdiscovered a trick to bring down suicides—just don’t report them.

In 2014-15, the Maharashtra Government only found 141 fit for compensation.And whether the aggrieved actually received it is not known.

B. Take another example—Uttar Pradesh, which saw a large number of suicides dueto unseasonal rains and hailstorms this March-April.

The sugar mills (privately owned) have not paid the farmers for years, and, asa result, every sugarcane farmer is reeling under a debt of an average of Rs 8lakhs.

C. Let us take one last example of Rajasthan, the State from which Gajendra SinghRathore (of the Jantar Mantar fame) hailed. There the government itself announceda damage of 46 lakh hectares of this year’s rabi crop. In a show of concern, itreduced from 50 per cent to 25 per cent of crop damage as the criteria ofcompensation. But when it came to assessment, farmers reported that localpatwaris gave assessments of 20 per cent so that none would be liable forcompensation.

Let alone that, though the government announced an MSP, when the farmers went tosell their badly damaged crop at the mandi, they were told that with the FCI normsbeing so strict, even with concessions their crop did not meet the criteria. Result:distress sales in the open market.

Crop Insurance Schemes:-

Rather than get to the root cause of the problem, successive governments have but asingle solution—crop insurance schemes. Besides being a total failure this onlydeals with crop damages, not issues like pricing, diseases etc. which could beeven more devastating.

To give an example how this insurance scheme works, let us look at Haryana since forthe past two years they have been implementing a national agricultural insurancescheme that made buying an insurance (from one of the 11 private companies)

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mandatory for farmers taking a crop loan. By this, in case of crop damage, theywere entitled to a compensation of a mere 40 per cent of input costs.

Yet, the BJP Government has not only continued the UPA’s insurance policy, butextended it to two major insurance schemes—the PMJDY (Pradhan Mantri Jan DhanYojana) which is through the PSU banks; and the PMSBY (Pradhan MantriSuraksha Bima Yojana) which involves the private sector insurance companies.The latter is gearing to sell 30 crore policies!!!

When the farmer faces losses what he needs is immediate compensation, notsome complicated insurance scheme which he does not understand. If thegovernment can write-off a massive Rs 45,000 crores due in tax (MAT —MinimumAlternative Tax), due by foreign investors on the super-profits made throughspeculation in India, why cannot they grant a few lakhs to the starving farmer?

Irrigation:-

In a country dependent on monsoon—that is, seasonal rainfall—a key factor ofagricultural planning should have been schemes to preserve the precipitation in thosefew months and projects to take this water to the fields. But till today 65 per cent ofour farming is dependent on nature with no irrigation. Of the 35 per centirrigated land a mere 17 per cent is through public government schemes, whilethe bulk is through private borewells.

And due to ecological devastation rainfall has become terribly erratic (either too muchor too little, or at the wrong time) causing havoc to the farmer. So, those who canafford it, resort to the borewell. While this creates a big market for pump-setmanufacturers, it is biased in favour of the big farmers. Worst still, it depletesthe underground water acquifiers. This devastation can be seen in Punjab—the landof five rivers.

In spite of these poor conditions, the already pathetic expenditure of the UnionGovernment on irrigation of Rs 4630 crores in 2013-14 has been savagely cut inthe present Budget (2015-16) to a mere Rs 1000 crores. In addition, thegovernment has also the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) for whichRs 1000 crores has been allocated in this Budget as well as the last. But, as inthe last Budget Rs 4 crores was spent, one can expect this amount to be just apaper figure.

The overall budgetary allocations for agriculture have been slashed drastically—andthis after a year in which the BJP Government spent 26 per cent less than what ithad allocated in its first Budget on agriculture, irrigation and flood control.Compared to 2013-14, the actual spending by the Central Government and transfer tothe States are currently budgeted to decline by 33 per cent.

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Minimum Support Price :-

This year the government announced an MSP (minimum support price) of cottonof just Rs 4050 per quintal (last year it was Rs 4000 per quintal); a huge declinefrom the Rs 7000 per quintal in 2011-12.

Farmers are the only producers in the country who are hit by both scarcity aswell as bumper crops.

For example, this year farmers are committing suicide in West Bengal as therewas a bumper potato crop and prices were next to nothing. Often prices drop solow that farmers prefer to plough their crop back into the soil rather than sell it.

On the other hand, the prices of pulses shot up a massive 40 per cent this lastyear due to drought. Also the prices of vegetables, particularly onions, haveskyrockated. Here too the bulk of the benefit will go to the trader, the farmers sufferthe drought.

**Pepsi contracts to purchase potato from farmers at Rs 0.20 per kg, while theconsumer pays Rs 200 per kg for its Lays chips.

In spite of these pricing problems, instead of protecting the farmer against suchfluctuations, economists continue to recommend the opposite: decontrol ofagricultural pricing. In fact the UPA Government, on the recommendation of theRangarajan Committee (2012), decontrolled the pricing of sugar. But withincreased sugar production, the price of sugarcane dropped this year to Rs 240 perquintal from Rs 320 per quintal last year. At the present price of sugarcane a farmerwill incur a loss of at least Rs 15,000 per acre in the first year of planting. In thesecond year he will barely break even. Since the price of sugar has fallen from Rs3600 per quintal in 2014 to Rs 2600 per quintal in 2015, mills are refusing to pay thefarmers. Today there is a backlog of Rs 20,000 crores not paid to farmers by themills throughout the country—with the governments doing nothing.

The goverment has just decided to bail out the banks by giving them Rs 75,000crores (Rs 20,000 crores before September 2015) for losses suffered due to non-payment of corporate bad debts (NPAs). So they can bail out a handful of bigcompanies, but are not willing to bail out lakhs of sugarcane farmers!

Prices of Seeds /Inputs:-

The Bharat versus India syndrome extends even more ruthlessly to the sphere ofinputs where the seed, fertilisers, pesticides, tractor, pump-set etc. companies makegigantic profits through inflated prices. The seed companies are dominated by themultinationals, where the profits are the largest. All the major big corporatesdominate the control of agricultural inputs.

Take the example of fertilisers. Prices have shot up from Rs 400 for 50 kgs to Rs1100. Due to acute shortage of fertiliser production (urea imports have gone up from

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57 million tonnes in 2008-09 to 88 million tonnes in 2014-15) and shortages ingovernment stores, farmers have to pay as much as Rs 1500 to private traders inthe black market.

For years the US-IMF-EU are demanding that the Indian governments cut theirsubsidies (derogatively called freebies) and the governments have been actingaccordingly. But these same Western governments give gigantic subsidies to theirown farmers. The double-standards are blatant!!!

So, for example, India’s subsidies of $ 12 billion to its 500 million farmers areconsidered by such elements as “trade distorting”, while US subsidies of $ 120billion to its two million farmers are not! Indian subsidies are $ 25 per farmer (eventhis is notional due to pricing distortions), while US subsidies amount to $ 60,000 perfarmer—that is, 2,40,000 per cent more.

If those huge subsidies were not there, food would get so expensive that societywould collapse. But the Indian governments blindly follow the dictates of theWest, and, in this case, are unwilling to ape them.

Ecological Disaster:-

What is called ‘natural disaster’ is more and more man-made. Farmers are beingcontinually afflicted by drought, floods, unseasonal rainfall etc. This is primarily dueto the model of development that destroys forests, usurps agricultural land,destroys the water-retention capacity of the soil and obstructs free-flow of riversand natural lakes. The land mafia, real-estate developers, mining sharks with thecollaboration of governments have been destroying everything they can set theireyes on, to mint fortunes. The devastation wrecked in Srinagar, Uttarakhand andother places is only the tip of the iceberg of ecological destruction.

This rape of the ecology continues unabated no matter who is in power, and anyrestrictions on it is branded as anti-development. Yet, India loses $ 10 billionannually in natural disastars of which $ 7.4 billion is in floods alone.

According to the Sumitra Mahajan Committee, 6.1 crore acres of land has beenacquired by the state since 1947. Records show that between 1999 and 2013 Indialost 10.6 million hectares of forest—that is, 15 per cent of our country’s total forestcover—in less than one-and-a-half decade.

Another reason for drought and floods is the complete destruction of the organicmatter in the top soil, due to the reckless use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

According to Vandana Shiva’s book Soil, Not Oil, a mere one per cent increase inthe soil’s organic matter can increase the soil’s water-holding capacity by 1 lakhlitres per hectare. This, the book says, is our insurance against climate change, bothwhen there is drought and when there is excess rain. On the other hand, cement andconcrete increases the run-off of water, aggravating floods and droughts. Increasingsoil retention will also help prevent depletion of our underground acquifiers.

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According to a parliamentary panel report, the country generates sewage of 57,233million litres per day (MLD). Of this a mere 21,478 MLD goes through the SewageTreatment Plants. In other words, every day 36,875 MLD of sewage lie untreated,the bulk of which flows into the rivers or sea.

Can one imagine that after nearly 70 years of independence our country is unable toeven treat (let alone recycle) its waste, polluting our rivers and spreadingdiseases all over the country!

In places like Punjab the water table is dropping at the rate of one metre per year. InUP water riots have been taking place and in districts like Meerut, Agra,Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad etc. the water table is falling from 70 to 90 cms peryear. Drinking water in at least 630 urban bodies of the country is suppliedthrough groundwater. In other areas the water has turned saline, and in large partsof the country (like West Bengal) high levels of deadly arsenic, cadmium etc. have beenfound in most districts. One can just imagine the havoc this would cause to the healthof the rural people.

Ref:-Mainstream Magazine dt.05.09.15.

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Chapter – 4Further Measures to alleviate India’s Acute and Grave Agrarian Crisis:

Part i..As we have seen, all the big powers in the world—the US, Europe, Japan—heavilysubsidise /support agriculture. We ape the West in all the wrong things, but wherewe need to learn from them, we turn a blind eye.One can learn a lot from China as there were many historical parallels of China with Indiaand soon it will surpass the US as the Number One economic power in the world.

a) Kobad Ghandhy’s Formula (Mainstream Magazine 5.09.15): -

How did all this happen?

In its first three decades of independence, China implemented land reforms. Therural populace could thereby rise above the acute poverty levels of the past. Then,during the late 1970s, it initiated economic reforms starting with agriculture(India did it primarily with finance). During the 1978-84 period China switched fromcommunes to the household responsibility system in land. Agriculture grew by 7.1per cent annually and farm incomes by 14 per cent on a yearly basis. Ruralpoverty halved in just six years, resulting in a huge demand for basic products—spurring manufacturing production throughout the country. Today Chinaproduces more than 600 million tonnes of foodgrains, compared to India’s 250million tonnes (in 2014-15) from a cropped area that is less than India’s and aholding size that is almost half of India’s.

1. For India, that is Bharat, to really develop, it must redirect the giganticsubsidies, bail-outs, tax-concessions etc. given to a handful of big businessand the super-rich, and invest these vast sums in our land, water and forests(jal, jungle, zameen). And with this strong base of enhanced income generation,encourage a wide network of dispersed manufacturing to provide the basic needs ofthe people—thereby generating largescale employment.

2. In Wardha district some Gandhians have shown that an entire family can getall their food needs for the year from a one-acre plot (provided water isavailable)—utilising natural inputs with no chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Thebook Plenty for All has scientifically shown that the Kolhapur grape growerscan get even better yields with local inputs, avoiding the huge amounts ofchemicals used by grape farmers elsewhere.

3. Then all the middlemen, moneylenders, traders should be abolished and thegovernment should guarantee a sales price of at least 20 to 30 per cent (if not50 per cent, as promised by the BJP) over cost of production, as also credit on thesame terms as given to the big corporates. Once agriculture begins to rebound(the GDP from agriculture has dropped from 35 per cent in 1990 to barely 13per cent today) and rural incomes grow, there will be a huge increase in

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demand for manufactured items, giving a boost to industry. For all the talk of‘Make in India’,

4. According to an article in the EPW, the share of manufacturing in GDP hasremained 14-16 per cent since the 1980s and in 2013 it was 15 per cent.Compare this with other countries—China was 34 per cent, Thailand 40 per cent,even Malaysia was more than India’s at 24 per cent. The sector also played anegligible role in the contribution to labour productivity. In the decade of the2000s manufacturing contributed a mere six per cent to total labourproductivity growth in India; the equivalent figures for China was 32 per cent,Malaysia 68 per cent. Value added in total manufacturing output declined from 25per cent in the 1990s to 18 per cent in 2010-11.

With agriculture in decline and manu-facturing in the doldrums, there is nohope for the rural population either in agriculture or in employment. So thisvast populace exists as a mass of the living dead floating around as casual labour.

Therefore, the real axis of development for our rural populace must spin on the twowheels of agriculture and indigenous manufacturing—only then will the motor ofgrowth advance in a positive direction, with sustainability and inclusiveness.

The key for this, as mentioned earlier, is massive expenditures in the threespheres of irrigation, ecology and support for agricultural produce, coupledwith the promotion of manufacturing at the district level. For this the governmentneeds to stop the subsidies to the big corporates to the tune of Rs 5 lakhcrores and stop spending thousands of crores to prop banks collapsing underthe weight of bad debts owed by the corporates. If such radical steps are taken,a miracle is possible in just a few years.

Part ii..A study of the PDS published a couple of months ago by Marta Kozicka and hercolleagues from the Bonn Center for Development Research.:-

Despite its active, long-standing food policies, India is one of the world's worstperformers. Its food supply per capita in 1961-69 was 15 per cent below the world's,and was higher than in China and in Nigeria. In 2001-07, it was 17 per cent below theworld's, and both the countries had overtaken India. Its protein supply fell from 82 to77 per cent of world average.

India's food subsidies, which were 0.4 per cent of gross domestic product in the early1990s, have settled around 0.8 per cent in recent years. In addition, it gave subsidieson fertilizer, power and irrigation; these together came to 15 per cent of agriculturalGDP or 2.7 per cent of total GDP in 2009-10. It also restricted foreign agriculturaltrade, and so prevented Indian farmers from dominating the world rice market eventhough prices in India were much lower than those abroad. If foodgrain controls weredismantled, India could refashion its agriculture and emerge as a major agriculturalexporter.

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The government grain operations are expensive; Vijay Paul Sharma of the IndianInstitute of Management, Ahmedabad has quantified them for rice. The economiccost of wheat to FCI was Rs 2418 a quintal - almost twice the procurement cost of Rs1250; for rice, the extras were much less - Rs 537 on procurement cost of Rs 1285. Ofthese extras, 44 per cent went to buy gunny bags, and 25 per cent was paid to mandis;15 per cent went into sales and purchase taxes, 10 per cent to transport, and 4.3 percent was paid to workers to load and unload the bags in mandis.

We do not have a similar breakup for wheat. But its extra costs are much higher;presumably, the government andmandis of Punjab make a lot of money out of wheat.

One indicator of the differing levels of corruption is storage loss, which is 2 per cent forrice and 10 per cent for wheat. Governments and mandis are local, State-enforcedmonopolies which make food a lot more costly for our poor.

To sum up, the entire world has mechanized grain handling. India has notbecause it compels traders to pack grains in gunny bags. This inefficient handlingadds considerably to our cost of grains. Second, we have statutorily given localmonopoly in agricultural products to mandis, which they use to make huge profits. Itis time to introduce free trade within the country and abolish these monopolies.

Finally, our state governments and municipalities make a lot of money out of graintraders. The Finance Commission keeps raising their share of Central revenue withoutever asking for better behaviour. The least it should insist on is abolition of all taxesthat restrict the free movement of agricultural goods across the country.

Part iii..A better, proactive approach would be to showcase land policy as the road toprosperity, not expropriation. Modi should have a three-pronged strategy. The firstpriority should be “land pooling”, initiated by Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh.The second priority should be land leasing, as provided for in section 104 of the 2013Act. Forced acquisition should be the third and last priority.

a) Naidu has persuaded thousands of farmers to voluntarily “pool” their land tohelp build a new state capital. Once built, farmers will get 1,000 sq yds ofresidential property and 200-450 sq yds of commercial property for each acrepooled. This developed land is expected to be worth Rs 8-9 crore per acre, againstthe current price of Rs 1-2 crore. In addition, all farmers will get an annuity of Rs30,000-50,0000, payable monthly, for 10 years till the city is completed. Landlesslabourers will get a pension of Rs 2,500 per month.

b) Where pooling is not feasible, leasing should be the second option. Instead ofacquiring land, state governments should lease it at double the market rate, linkedto the cost of living. Leases should be renewable every 33 or 40 years, with a lumpsum payable for every renewal. The farmer will remain owner of the land, which willbe an income-earning, appreciating asset. Industrialists will be his tenants, not his

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expropriators. He can sell, divide or bequeath his property, as with any other rentalproperty.

c) For a country that is set to be ranked among the worlds’ top five economies over thenext decade, India cannot afford to be counted as a home for impoverished farmerswho are ending their lives because they do not have the money to return loans assmall as Rs.10,000. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data5,650 farmers committed suicide in India last year. Bankruptcy and indebtednessare believed to be the major cause of nearly a quarter, or 22.8% of these deaths.The numbers are chilling if read with the governments data on rural credit.Indicators from an NSSO (National Sample Survey Organization) report released IDecember last year show that nearly 52% of farm households in India are indebted.

Nearly four out of 10 farmers loans come from informal sources. Moneylenders,who charge interest rates of more than 5% a month or more than 60% a year arethe source of loans for 26% of these peasants.

Microfinance institutions in India, which extend largely small-size loans to theRural poor predominantly, are been mired in controversy in the wake of reportsabout suicides that were linked to allegedly coercive methods by some of theseinstitutions. This has given rise to the view that microfinance was not the miracle itwas assumed to be. There have been suicides by borrowers unable to repay loansraising the question whether micro-credit’s role as an income-generatingmechanism was ‘overstated’.

d) Farmer suicides because of inability to pay loans as low as Rs 10000 are a directresult of lack of institutional financial inclusion. This is why the government’sambitious Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Launched last year with a promise toend ‘financial untouchability’, is crucial. It will enable farmers to borrow frombanks at interest rate far lower than the extortionate charges levied bymoneylenders. Also, the methods to recover money in the case of default will not becoercive simply because sensitivities are built into institutions despite beingprocess-oriented inanimate entities. Besides, a good record in operation a bankaccount will offer an over-draft facility to enable cash-starved farmers to tide overunforeseen developments. Most importantly, bundled with life and health insurance,a bank account can offer a safety option for the family in the eventuality of thedeath of a penurious farmer.

Currently, almost 50% of the Indian land mass stands drought-affected, with 302of the 640 districts having recorded 20% less than normal rainfall. On account ofthe El Niño phenomenon, this is the second consecutive year of drought with 12%less than average rainfall this

e) In the event of such dire rural distress, there is a desperate need to augment ruralincomes by giving generous minimum support prices (MSPs) for the crop that isproduced and providing supplementary employment opportunities through theMGNREGA.

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During the 2014 election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declaredthat MSPs of 50% over input costs would be provided to farmers. Instead, he hasnow announced that any state found giving bonuses over and above MSP would bedisqualified from FCI procurement.

Nine states have officially declared drought and sought central relief to the order ofRs 25,000 crore. The need of the hour is to ensure adequate compensation tofarmers and compel insurance companies to pay amounts truly due to them onpayment of premiums, and that loans are waived and electricity bills recoveredfrom the next crop earnings.Surveys suggest 50% of a community known for their deep bond with their landwant to give up farming. P Sainath, one of the very few journalists who takes ruralIndia seriously, has calculated that 270,940 farmers committed suicide between1995 and 2013.

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Chapter – 5Viable options required to be taken up on emergent basis:-

a) So a core focus of the next budget should be mitigating the growing impact ofadverse weather conditions. One way is to substantially increase the share ofirrigated area from less than half to at least two-thirds within a short timeframe.Larger allocations should also be made for extending drip irrigation as India nowuses up three to four times more water per unit of output as compared to othercountries.

b) Efforts to mitigate such risks by insuring farmers against crop loss have been tooslow, with hardly one-fifth of the cropped area covered so far. This has to beaccelerated by pushing up the budget allocation for extending insurance coveragemany times more than the Rs 2,600 crore currently provided.

c) Increasing allocation for substantially extending irrigation and insurance willrequire that the government reduce spending on fertilizer and food subsidies – byshifting over to direct cash transfers, minimizing leakages and better targeting.

d) Building more storage facilities and removing hurdles to the interstate movement ofagriculture products. Build that common national agriculture market promised inthe last budget.

e) Nobel Laureate and founder of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Kailash Satyarthi.He wants Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare the drought as a ‘NationalEmergency’.

f) At Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, hundreds of people led by water conservationistRajendra Singh converge for a jal satyagraha to demand a ‘Water law’ that willensure water security by identifying and protecting rivers, lakes, ponds and damsas common property.

g) Reinvent & reintroduce Mahatma Gandhi principles of Sarvodaya and village selfsufficiency by replicating successful, experiments of Bunker Ray Harsh Mander,Sridharpur Bengal Case study, Iskcon village Communities, Gramdan Concept, etc.

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Chapter – 6Earlier Successful experiments of National Leader’s and social activists for aviable Agro economy:-

The only person who had vision for India’s future was Mahatma Gandhi as he activelypropounded self-sufficient village communities and Sarvodaya Samaj.

Fortunately his ideals are also enshrined in the Directive principles of state policyportion of our constitution. (Article 40, 43, 48, 48A)Unfortunately only few people like Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Acharya Kripalani & fewothers like Iskcons Srila Prabhupada followed Mahatma Gandhi’s directives of Selfsufficiency.

1st Case Study Mahatma Gandhi’s Village Community:-Gandhian approach has always said about the voluntary wants, the need for self-sufficient village communities and the issues relating to better balance between manand nature.

According to him, an increase in personal income is an indication of the growth ofnational income. But the opposite may not be true i.e. the growth of national incomemay not always benefit every man in society.

Gandhi is in favour of the self-sufficient village economy where the villages will be theindependent economic units. In agriculture that techniques will be adopted, which willnot deplete the soil and pollute the environment. For this farmers should use eco-friendly production technique by using lesser and lesser amount of fertilizers,insecticides and pesticides. He prefers well irrigation instead of large hydro-electricprojects since this will lead to exploitation. As regards the ownership of land holding,Gandhi is against the zamindari system and ownership of land should go to the actualtillers of the soil. He also viewed that there should be communal ownership of land forbalanced cultivation and the surplus land, if any must be distributed to the rest of thevillage communities.

In a word, every village should be a self-contained republic. If every village distributesits surplus produce to the poor villagers then there will not be the problem of povertyand starvation in the rural areas.

That’s why Gandhi gives stress on the growth of the rural industries like khadi,handlooms, sericulture and handicrafts. He opines that large-scale industries makepeople lazy and help concentration of wealth in the hands of few. On the contrary,rural industries are based on family labour and required less amount of capital.

Machinery, being capital-intensive, displace labour and naturally augmentsemployment and under-employment. Machinery creates a Pareto optimum situation inthe sense that it improves the economic conditions of a few at the cost of manyunfortunate rural people leaving them unemployed and exploited. Therefore it is asituation of two-person zero sum game. But what is disappointing is that it reduceswelfare of a large section of rural population.

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In line with Gandhi's dream of expanding village industries, industrial policyresolutions of 1948, 1956 and 1977 have offered a special favour for the developmentof small scale and village industries. The village and small-scale industries have beenplaying an important role in Indian economy in terms of employment generation andpoverty alleviation. This is due to fact that these industries are labour-intensive andcapital saving.

Although the ratio of poverty has been declining, roughly one-third of the rural peoplestill live in abject poverty. In order to improve the conditions of the rural poor it isnecessary to expand rural industries further at a rapid rate. At the same time it isessential to review seriously the rural anti-poverty programmes in the light of lapsesnoticed and in the context of formulating the tenth five year plan (2002-2007).

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2nd Case Study of Bengal (Sridharpur Village Burdwan, WB) 1950’s :Self-sufficient village economy is an alternative solution and in this context the role ofinstitutions in the rural sector like the village panchayat and rural multipurpose co-operative can play a vital role. We cite here an example of multipurpose co-operativesociety located at Sridharpur village of Burdwan district of West Bengal. The societyis formed with the unlimited liability. It perform multipurpose activities like depositmobilisation, credit supply, sale of inputs like fertiliser, HYV seeds, to the farmers,purchase of agricultural goods, cloth business! and ration shop. In addition to theabove activities the society set up grain gola (grain warehouse) in 1951 The bye-laws ofthe society require members to purchase a share of the grain gola valuing threemaund of paddy. The grain gola gives paddy loan up to six maunds per member in theoff season. The grain gola helps the marginal and small farmers and landlesslabourers by providing paddy loans for consumption purposes at a reasonable rate ofinterest saving them from the hands of private hoarders who had been charging a veryhigh rate of interest. The society has constructed a cold store in 1977 which givespreference to the members. After meeting the needs of the members the farmers of thelocality are preferred. The society also gives loans to the people against their utensilspledged at a very low rate of interest. This saves them from the clutches of the privatemoney lender who had for a long time been charging an interest so higher that peoplecould not repay loans and thus ultimately bound to sell their utensils to them at amuch lower price. The society also provides irrigation facilities to the farmer members.For this twenty-one mini deep tube-wells were installed. This covers 80 percent landunder irrigation throughout the year. This society has set an example in the sphere ofperforming society welfare activities. The statutory bye-laws providing for welfare andcharitable activities are given successful shape of results, as a result of harmoniousrelation among members, the board of directors, and the members of the staff. All thewelfare activities are so designed, identified and implemented that nobody is a loserand that everybody living in the villages emerges gainer. The society is able to create abenign atmosphere all around and members legitimately feel that it is their societyupon which their development depends.

We therefore plead for Sridharpur type society which is free from politicalinterference. This can fulfill Gandhi's dream of self-sufficient village economy.

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3rd Case Study of Bhoodan Movement of Acharya Vinobha Bhave:The mission of the movement was to persuade wealthy landowners to voluntarily givea percentage of their land to the landless people. However, this land could not be sold.In effect, landless labourers were being given a small plot of land on which they cansettle, as well as grow some of their own food.

Vinobha Bhave walked across India on foot, to persuade landowners to give up a pieceof their land. He also wanted peasants to give up using bullocks or tractors or othermachines for agricultural purposes. This was called 'rishi-kheti'. He also wantedeverybody to give up using money, this was called 'kanchan-dan'.

The initial objective of the movement was to secure voluntary donations of land anddistribute it to the landless, but the movement soon came out with a demand of 1/6share of land from all land owners. In 1952, the movement had widened the concept ofgramdan (village in gift) and had started advocating commercial ownership of land.The first village to come under gramdan was Mangroth in Hamirpur Dist of U.P.

After India had independence, Vinoba started out on his extraordinary & unprecedented inrecorded history, the Bhoodan (Land-Gift) Movement. Over a period of twenty years, Vinobawalked through the length & breadth of India persuading land-owners & land-lords to givetheir poor & downtrodden neighbours a total of four million acres of land.

To conclude taking an overall view it cannot be gainsaid that the Bhoodan-GramdanMovement, despite all its real & apparent limitations, it would ever be deemed as aglorious attempt for a peaceful & non-violent solution of the basic land problem ofIndian society & through it for a non-violent reconstruction of the Sarvodaya socio-economic-politico order of universal relevance & significance.

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4th Case Study of Bunker Ray village community formula (TiloniaRajasthan case study):-Bunker Roy, the founder of the Barefoot College at Tilonia, in a Rajasthan village.He is a firm believer in Gandhi’s view of development. His aim is to get villagersthemselves to provide the skills needed by their community. So he brings doctors,architects, educators and many other professionals together with villagers to discusshow they can learn from each other and evolve ways in which the villagers, with littleor no formal education, can practise skills urgently needed in rural India.

I was amazed to see a barefoot dentist at work. The patient seemed to have completefaith in her. Then there was a barefoot teacher conducting a night class for children.

I saw educational toys designed by barefoot educators and made by barefoot craftswomen and men. Tilonia encourages the revival of rural crafts too. A team of Tiloniapuppeteers and musicians were part of a two-month-long festival at the world-renowned Eden Centre gardens in Cornwall. There they taught the Rajasthani art ofpuppet making and learnt how to make the larger puppets the Centre is known for.

Bunker delights in telling visitors that Tilonia’s glove puppets are made from recycledpaper.Barefoot solar engineers from Tilonia are involved in the battle against pollution. Aftersix months’ training in manufacturing and maintaining solar panels they go out intothe villages and install panels on house roofs. One trained engineer told me she hadinstalled 140 in one month.

Tilonia’s barefoot solar engineers have become so famous that women from all over theworld come to Tilonia to learn how to maintain panels. I saw a class of 39 women from12 countries stretching from Vietnam via Africa to the Dominican Republic.

Bunker sees Tilonia as a disseminator of technology. But it’s not just run-of-the milltechnology.

5th Case Study of Iskcon Founder’s Village Communities:-

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Back in 1970s’ Abhay Charan Dey of Bengal who had joined Mahatma Gandhi’s

movement in the earlier stages now himself known as Srila Prabhupad would go to the

west with the Vedic knowledge of Puranas & Upanishads & propound Self SufficientVillage Communities as the only way for Rural India & the World at large to Survive

& thrive in an age of ecological devastation, global pollution and world wars.

Today Iskcon is one of like few global organization which have successfully

implemented the wisdom of Bhagwat Purana by founding village Communities in all

continents including India which comprises Goshalas, Gurukuls, farming, water

conservation & Water harvesting, Tree-plantation, ayurveda, natural pesticides, etc.

These communities need to be replicated all over India on an emergent basis to save

our communities and natural resources.

Chapter – 7

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Conclusion:-1. Although our Founding Father, Mahatma Gandhi tried to install an Agro

Economy along with help of Acharya Vinobha Bhave and others but thesemovements could not sustain themselves due to inertia and apathy of state &Central govts.

2. Further, Industrialization became the bedrock of the Nehru Model ofdevelopment which shifted attention from the agro economy for many decadesleading to growth of Inequality in Indian society & growth of Super corporates.

3. Similarly, Left Front régimes in Bengal & Kerala did introduce Panchayatsystem but their land redistribution and power to panchayats led to growth ofNew power elites and Cadre Raj which brought downfall of these govts due tonon completion of Agrarian policies & growth of new powerful and rich politicalelites. Andre Beittle comments the left created new forms of Inequality.

4. Today as ,manmade ecological disaster looms right in front of us and the Elninoweather patterns brings floods and drought together, the state and Central govt.can no longer avoid their responsibility of strengthening our original Agroeconomy or else face the inevitable manmade disaster facing the subcontinent.

References Articles & Sources:-

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1. (2010-2016) Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph, NDTV, Front Line,

Main Stream, India Today, Economic & Political weekly, Yojana, 5years Plans,

online Articles, etc.

2. Harsh Mander’s Articals & Books.

3. P.Sainath Articles & Books.

4. Vandana Shiva Articles & Books.

5. Bunker Roy Articles & Books.

6. Supreme Court rulings (online database)

7. Vijay Paul Sharma, IIM Ahmadabad Report.

8. National Crime Record Bureau, Annual Reports.

9. Socio Economic & Caste Census( SECC) 2016

10. CRISIL Reports / Credit Suisse Report.

11. Kobad Ghandy’s Articles (Ref. Mainstream) 2015

Kobad Ghandy, accused of trying to set up a base for banned outfit CPI (Maoist) inDelhi has been granted interim bail for three months by a trial court on grounds of“ailing health.”The case, in which Ghandy along with co-accused Rajender Kumar alias ArvindJoshi is facing trial, is at the stage of recording of prosecution evidence.Ghandy is facing trial for alleged offences under the Unlawful Activities PreventionAct IPC.

The Times of India 30.09.15

Ghandy, an alumnus of the prestigious Doon School and St. Xavier’s College Mumbai,is facing prosecution in around 20 criminal and terror cases in deferent parts of thecountry. Acquitting Ghandy of charges under UAPA, additional sessions judge ReeteshSingh noted that “none of the evidence relied upon by prosecution have been found tobe admissible in evidence by this court. The testimonies of prosecution witnessessuffer from infirmities.”

“….in the facts and circumstances of this case, there are reasonable doubts on theversion of the prosecution on charge under sections 20 and 38 of UAPA.

Material relied upon by prosecution to prove membership and association of Ghandywith said banned organization in not reliable and admissible in evidence,.

Times of India 11/06/16