People's Democracy

FIRST GODAVARI PARULEKAR LECTURE

UPA Govt Talks Double On Agriculture: SRP

P R Krishnan

The UPA government is no different from its predecessor, the BJP-led NDA government, when it comes to economic policies. This becomes crystal clear when we look back upon the UPA government’s performance in the last three years. The worst hit by such policies is the Indian agriculture. Farmers, the producers of our country’s agricultural produce, are not given remunerative prices for their products while the government is adamant on importing wheat from abroad and its prices in the domestic markets are skyrocketing. These observations came from the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and All India Kisan Sabha president S Ramachandran Pillai (SRP) in Mumbai on August 4. Pillai was in the city to deliver the first Godavari Parulekar Lecture as part of 150th anniversary celebrations of the University of Mumbai. The event took place at Kavivarya Kusumagraj Marathi Bhasha Bhawan, Kalina Campus of the Mumbai University. The latter’s vice chancellor, Dr Vijay Khole, was in the chair.

In the paper presented on the occasion, SRP dealt with India’s economic scenario under the Congress led regime, with particular reference to the agrarian situation. He acquainted the audience with the courage of Godavari Parulekar, fondly called Godu Tai, with her pioneering work and inspiring leadership during the revolt of the Warli tribe Thane district in Maharashtra against the horrendous feudal oppression in connivance with the state. Godavari Parulekar was elected president of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) in its golden jubilee year, in 1986. She was an outstanding communist leader in Maharashtra and rose to become a member of the CPI(M) Central Committee. She continued as the AIKS vice president till her last. She made a distinct contribution to public life during her six decades as a social reformer, patriot and communist revolutionary.

PEASANT IN CRISIS

Titled “Present Agrarian Crisis and the Way Out,” SRP’s paper was the first in the series of lectures instituted to honour Godu Tai by a university in the country.

Dealing with the current agrarian crisis, Pillai stressed the need of an integral approach in resolving the agrarian crisis. He drew attention to the hardships facing the Indian peasantry today, similar to the hardships for whose amelioration a young Godavari and her husband Shamrao Parulekar had struggled not only against the British but also against the Congress government after independence. Pillai detailed various aspects of the current crisis, namely the unviability of agriculture, stagnation in production, dwindling opportunities, indebtedness, distress sales and suicides. He then explained the causes underlying the crisis in the post-independence period and the current phase of liberalisation with its adverse impacts, and suggested a way out.

Pillai said agriculture has become unremunerative and is increasingly becoming unviable for the bulk of the peasantry. The reason for the squeeze in farmers’ incomes, according to him, was the spiralling input prices on the one hand and highly volatile output prices on the other, caused by international trends rather than by domestic factors. The output prices no longer cover the cost of production in case of a large number of crops in several regions. The problem is most acute for the cash crops in whose case public procurement operations are either non-existent or weak.

Pillai continued: an important feature of the present agrarian crisis is the sharp deceleration in agricultural growth rate and stagnation in agricultural production. The most disturbing feature is the stagnation in foodgrains, which has resulted in a decline in their per capita availability that is now at the 1970s level. While growth in agricultural sector employing a bulk of the workforce is decelerating, there has been jobless growth in the services and industrial sectors, making them unable to absorb the surplus labour from agriculture. This is accentuating the existing inequalities and disparities between social classes and regions.

A direct outcome of the squeeze in farm incomes and dwindling job opportunities has been a phenomenal rise in the level of indebtedness of the peasantry. The continuing trend of farmers’ suicide, currently being witnessed in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra and in other parts of the country, is a sign of the peasants’ extreme despair and hopelessness due to repeated crop failures, inability to meet the rising cost of cultivation and rising indebtedness. The immediate cause of these suicides is an inability to cope with the burden of debt, which peasants are unable to repay. In most cases, the debts are contracted from private moneylenders due to the massive decline in credit from banks and cooperatives. A large number of farmers, especially for small cultivators, have no access to formal credit and are forced to rely entirely on private lenders. Debt relief is absolutely necessary, and that too in an effective and institutionalised form, like what the Debt Relief Commission has done in Kerala.

SKEWED DEVELOPMENT

Explaining the dynamics underlying the crisis, SRP said the ongoing agrarian crisis in India is the result of skewed nature of the capitalist development during the post-independence period. The agrarian reforms effected by the Congress governments after independence have left untouched the landlords’ vast tracts of land. The government did not deem it necessary to protect the tenants, agricultural workers and other poor sections. Instead of implementing land reform measures and providing facilities to the mass of the peasantry for increasing their productivity and production, the successive governments at the centre and in the states relied on the landlords and richer sections for investment in agricultural growth. Assets like land, implements, vehicles, pumpsets, tubewells and finances, including the access to institutional credit, remained in the hands of the rich.

According to Pillai, the state sponsored phase of capitalist development continued from 1947 till 1991 when the post-liberalisation phase of capitalist development started. During the first phase, the government did make substantial investments in irrigation, power, science and technology, transport, communication, storage facilities and so on. It helped to develop high yielding seeds and produce agricultural implements for increasing the productivity. Due to a powerful kisan movement, the government also provided subsidies for purchase of agricultural inputs like fertilisers. The minimum support price (MSP) mechanism was introduced to protect the farmers’ interests in case of major crops. A public distribution system (PDS) was built to provide essential commodities to the masses at affordable rates. Priority was given to increasing the agricultural output to attain self-sufficiency in foodgrains production. But the landlords, rich peasants and other privileged classes appropriated the lion’s share of the benefits of this state sponsored development. Over time, the institutions of the state also degenerated because of corruption and manipulations by vested interests.

In the post-liberalisation phase, Pillai pointed out, capitalist development could not cope with its internal contradictions. Mass poverty and unemployment persisted, limiting the people’s purchasing power. The import liberalisation introduced at the instance of the World Bank, IMF and WTO led to a balance of payments crisis, giving an opportunity to the lending institutions to impose their conditionalities. The post-liberalisation phase has adversely affected our agriculture and the peasantry directly as well as indirectly. Deflationary fiscal policies, trade and financial liberalisation, and privatisation of important areas of economic activity have adversely impacted cultivation and rural living conditions. In terms of fiscal policies, reduced spending of the central and state governments has been a most fatal feature while the declining tax to GDP ratio at the central level has reduced the centre-to-state transfers, forcing the state governments to borrow at higher interest rates from the market. As a result, levels of debt and debt servicing increased, resulting in a fiscal crisis, which affects the critical areas like rural infrastructure, power, water supply, health and education.

On the other hand, Indian big businesses and other privileged classes have reaped huge benefits from the World Bank sponsored structural adjustment programme and are expecting further benefits under the liberalised regime. The Indian bourgeoisie saw in globalisation an opportunity to collaborate with foreign capital in order to further enrich itself and grab a share of the international market.

SRP said the financial liberalisation measures, including the redefined priority sector lending by banks, effectively reduced the availability of rural credit and thus made farm investment more expensive and more difficult, especially for small farmers. The entry of foreign and domestic corporate bodies in agriculture has further aggravated the situation. The TRIPS agreement is out to convert the biodiversity, traditionally the common property, into the private property of Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow, BASD and Bayer, further raising the input costs and cheating through spurious inputs. Without mincing words, Pillai said the agrarian crisis being experienced in the country today is a result of the neo-liberal policies pursued by the centre. Through the withdrawal of state support to the peasantry, income deflating fiscal policies, trade and financial liberalisation and the dominance of the MNCs and domestic corporates over the input and output markets, the government itself created the ground for an agrarian crisis. The problems strangulating the peasant today --- unremunerative prices for his produce, volatility in prices, repeated crop failures, rising cost of cultivation, inaccessibility of institutional credit, growing indebtedness and lack of alternative employment opportunities --- are direct outcomes of its neo-liberal policies. Therefore, there cannot be a way out of the crisis except by reversing these policies.

ALTERNATIVE APPROACH

While comparing our current situation with that of China, Pillai’s paper highlighted the huge gap between India and China. Comparing the India’s 11th plan allocations with those in China, he said the total plan expenditure in the UPA government’s 2006-07 budget stood at a little over Rs 1,70,000 crore while the Chinese allocation for agriculture alone is equivalent to Rs 1,90,000 crore. China’s huge expenditure on rural infrastructure (roads, electricity, communications etc), on education and healthcare and on providing farm support and subsidies is a part of the policy to bridge the rural-urban divide. Pillai said the Chinese resolve to increase various kinds of subsidy and price support for farmers stands in sharp contrast to the chorus of rationalising (!) the subsidies being sung at regular intervals by the ‘reformist’ ministers of the UPA government.

Pillai made a number of observations regarding the way out of the current crisis. He said the solution has to be based on an alternative approach to economic decision making in general and for agriculture in particular. The approach, according to him, should be to protect the peasantry and agriculture from the catastrophic consequences of integration with global capitalism, through resolute state interventions. It must focus on the life conditions of the agriculture dependent population and see the agrarian crisis not only in terms of a deceleration in output growth but also in terms of the burden killing peasantry and agricultural labour. The state must therefore make greater investments in irrigation, electricity, science and technology, rural development and social sectors like health and education in rural areas. It must also actively intervene to provide debt relief, interest subvention, ensured institutional credit at low rates of interest, extension of services and good quality inputs at affordable prices. Most importantly, the state must ensure remunerative prices for agricultural crops by extending the MSP based procurement operations to all regions and crops, backed by an appropriate tariff policy.

SRP therefore asked the government to come forward to ensure minimum wages, equal wages for equal work, better service conditions, supply of essential commodities through the PDS, and social security for agricultural workers like pension, welfare fund, health insurance and compensations. Purchasing power of agricultural workers has to be increased through remunerative non-agricultural employment. If implemented properly, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has tremendous potential of absorbing the labour reserves in rural areas, ensuring them livelihood security and creating productive assets. Most importantly, the unfinished tasks of land reforms in most states must be taken ahead to break the land monopoly, vesting ceiling surplus land and redistributing land among the landless. Along with thoroughgoing land reforms, panchayati raj should also be freed from the stranglehold of the rural elite as well as casteist and communal elements, and transformed into a vibrant institution of democracy. As far as the Land Acquisition Act is concerned, it has become misfit in the current Indian setting and needs to be amended in order to make it congruent with an independent and democratic state, by defining “public purpose” appropriately and ensuring accountability and public scrutiny.

In this regard, the all-important factor is a powerful and united peasant movement, backed by the working class and other sections of people including the teacher community. Pillai thanked the Mumbai University for inviting him to deliver this lecture. Those present on the occasion included the university’s pro-vice chancellor Dr A D Sawant.

The programme concluded with ‘Tadapa’ folk dance of the Warlis, performed by students of the Godavari Parulekar Degree College, Talassari, in Thane district. The collage manager and former member of parliament Lahanu Kom and the CPI(M)’s Maharashtra state secretary Dr Ashok Dhawale were also present. Participants in the function included leaders of the Mumbai University College Teachers’ Union like Prof C R Sadasivan, Dr Tapati Mukhopadhyay, Dr Jose George and Dr Madhu Paranjape, along with a good contingent of university/college teachers and students.

In his introductory speech, vice chancellor Vijay Khole noted Godavari Parulekar’s commitment to the cause of the peasants, for which the university decided to institute a lecture in her honour. He expressed happiness that a top CPI(M) leader and AIKS president delivered this first Godavari Parulekar Lecture. Dr V N Magare, director of the Board of College and University Development, presented the vote of thanks.