The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, October 31, 2002, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I L B A G

Need for change in perception

I have read your front-page editorial "Who cares for Punjab?" (Oct 22). Although you have tried to criticise both the Akalis and Capt Amarinder Singh, still it is a little biased against the farming community. You have pleaded for the development of the state by rising above party politics. But development itself is a vague term. In the name of development the previous government “developed” landlords, traders, transporters and the other upper strata of society. The present Congress government is also appeasing these very sections. So development is meant for the upper strata of society only at the cost of the common people, who have to pay dearly even for the basic necessities of daily life. There is need for basic change in the perception of the governing class, ruling elites and so-called technical experts and intellectuals who have little experience of ground realities of daily life of the common people.

The Congress government has put a big burden on the farming community by withdrawing free power and the general public by increasing the power rates for all sections of society at a time when the farming community hit by draught and a high cost of production is in dire need of relief and a healing touch. The government's plea of empty coffers does not hold water in the face of high spending, extravagancy, over-staffing and rampant corruption on the part of the bureaucracy and high officials who are leading luxurious lives. If the government, which can mobilise resources, is crying horse over an empty excheqher, then how can the empty-handed common people without any resources at their disposal would pay the enhanced power rates and other taxes? Capt Amarinder Singh has run away from all his own pre-poll promises.

Punjab lives in villages and a majority of the people are dependent on agriculture directly or indirectly. When subsidies, although meagre, are granted to the farming community, a hue and cry is raised by certain sections of industrialists, traders and bureaucrats for their vested interests. But when huge concessions in the shape of subsidised loans, exemptions of sales tax etc are given to industrialists and traders, nobody even raises a finger. Subsides are granted to the agriculture sector even in advanced countries of Europe, the U.S.A. and Canada, where a very small percentage of the populace is engaged in the profession. Paradoxically, the imperialist agencies like the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, dominated by multi-national corporations of these countries, wrongly prescribe the abolition of subsidies to the agriculture sector in developing countries like India. Past experience shows that whosoever has complied with the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank, their economies had ruined. The examples of Mexico, Brazil and the so-called Tiger economics of Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines etc. are too vivid to be wished away.

The farmers' organisations are agitating for a genuine cause as the plight of the marginal farmers due to the wrong policies of the successive governments of the state and the Centre is very critical, leading to heavy indebtedness and even to suicides at some places. So please do not brand their agitation as confrontationist.

The state and central governments should immediately accept the genuine demands of the agitating farming community because if agriculture is ruined, the economy of Punjab as a whole, including industry and trade, will also be ruined as it depends heavily on agriculture from food production to raw materials. So far as diversification is concerned, it cannot be brought about in a short period. For diversification also the government has to financially and technically help the farmers right from the cultivation stage up to the assured marketing stage.

KULDIP SINGH, sarpanch, Kila Raipur (Ludhiana)

Minting money in trains

If you are travelling in sleeper class at night with a proper reservation, you are in for trouble, especially in trains running via Delhi. Troopers will not let you sit, what to talk of sleep in your rightful seat well reserved in advance. The railway police and TTEs are mostly busy in minting money. The military and para-military authorities should issue strict orders to all jawans who travel in trains without reservation to behave with co-passengers in a civilised manner. The Railways should reserve compartments for them to avoid unpleasant incidents.

S.K. Khosla, Chandigarh