People's Democracy

         Urgent Tasks In The Countryside

Suneet Chopra

WITH the elections over and government formation well under way it is time to address ourselves to the urgent issue of survival facing peasants, agricultural labourers, dalits and crafts persons (mostly of the minorities and backward castes) in the villages. We have no time to waste. This is obvious from the continuing suicides of farmers, weavers and labourers even after the victory of Congress and its alliance in the country.

This is largely because many of the practices that lead farmers to commit suicide, like the seizure and sale of their land by creditors for non-payment of loans on time, distress sales by crafts persons and chronic hunger of the rural poor, were time-honoured practices under Congress rule just as they continued to be under NDA rule. So, it is time to call and struggle for a change in this attitude. The least the new government in power can do is to declare a moratorium on loan recovery for farmers with under eight acres of land till the monsoon is over and they are better able to pay. Also the pernicious practice of locking up defaulting farmers in makeshift prisons that resemble animals cages in zoos should be stopped forthwith.

After all, no government seizes a factory and assets of a factory owner because he has defaulted on a loan. The Rs 1.6 lakh crores loans taken by industrialists pending with government banks under the misleading title of non-performing assets (NPAs) are proof enough of the double standards operating where exploiters and self employed small owners are concerned. So, while long term demands like the reduction of interest rates, increase of the amount earmarked for rural credit and remunerative prices for agrarian production are there, the peasantry needs immediate relief after suffering the depredations of NDA rule and the government must announce an immediate package to dispel the despair engulfing the countryside.

The agricultural labourers have been reduced to near starvation, bondage and to fleeing their homes in many parts of the country. While the changeover of the PDS to a broad-based cheap system is essential, what is immediately required is work. Rural India saw a decline in the number of days of work available in the villages in a year. This was a result of the criminal cut-backs effected by the NDA government at the centre, so that for every three days’ work available before only one remained. While greatly increased investment in rural development is a necessity, what is needed is work now. This can be done by increasing the allocation for food for work programmes to dig tanks (to collect surface water), to build roads that will be above flood-level and to provide a proper drainage system for the villages before the monsoon. Proper minimum wages should be paid for this work and instead of employing contractors; the panchayati raj institutions could be utilised.

Certain long-standing demands need also to be taken up immediately. It is no use to talk of piece-meal legislation for agricultural labour or of a provident fund for them. Their conditions of work and the nature of their employment calls for a comprehensive central legislation for agricultural labour on the model of the Kerala legislation that already exists since 1974. A draft Bill is already there since 1980. It is time it was tabled in Parliament.

In the same way, while the NDA government at the centre encouraged the large-scale import of labour-saving machinery like combine harvesters, it did nothing to provide alternative employment for those who lost their livelihood as a result of this. This must be redressed at once. Combine harvesters, threshing machines and the like can be given on loan to service cooperatives of agricultural labourers so that they are not left to starve.

Ultimately, land must be given to the landless before this planting season if everything else fails. The governments of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh must honour their promise to regularise all Adivasi holdings in forests dating back to 1980 and to do away with the infamous Government Order of May 2002 dispossessing Adivasis of their land. Both the BJP and the Congress had promised to do this during the assembly elections. Now there is no reason for delay in ridding us of the infamous GO and the policies that go with it. In fact, the recent statements of members of the government at the centre that foreign investment in agriculture will be welcomed should serve a warning to us that the rights of the Adivasis and small farmers must be protected. These global agro-monopolies are notorious for land grabbing. And the problems being faced by the Zimbabwe government and those of many Central American republics, not to speak of the rape of the forests of Brazil and Borneo should serve as a warning to us that the damage done to peoples rights and the environment is far greater than the profits from such ventures.

Similarly, by deregulating the leather trade and textile production, the NDA government brought ruin to the small producer at the hands of wholesalers and exporters. What is required now is to immediately identify weavers of special hand-woven fabrics like Varanasi Saris, Gadwal Saris, Chanderi and Kanjeevaram and Muga silks, give them identity cards, and a production loan of Rs 50,000 with subsidized raw materials and assured sales from government outlets that the NDA and their allies had closed down. An immediate provision of Rs 50,000 per weaver as a loan without interest will save them from suicide. Both in Varanasi and Andhra there are almost daily reports of weavers committing suicide. So help to weavers on a war footing is a dire necessity.

The government that has come to power at the centre must infuse confidence among the poor but productive sections of our society. It would do better to give credit and subsidized inputs and buy output at remunerative prices for farmers (most of whom hold less than four hectares each) to revive our flagging agrarian production. Food for work programmes are required to liven up rural development and bring life to the vast mass of the rural unemployed. At the same time small producers whose products can be launched globally or have already got a global market, as in the case of our leather and textile cottage industry, should be given immediate funds to produce. This will not only provide impetus for domestic production, but the mass market it will generate for the necessaries of life will help India shine better than the plunder by multinationals ever can. The summer is a particularly hard time for the vast mass of our working people. The government must act fast to ensure they are able to face it.