P A G E
Wednesday, November 18, 1998
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Wednesday, November 18, 1998 |
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Road
to economic growth
WAITING
FOR VOTERS’ CHOICE |
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Rushdie’s
return will be Bettering
farmers’ lot key
Goodbye,
dear “O”
The
Panipat riots |
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Road to economic growth THE sense of urgency displayed at the first meeting of the Infrastructure Task Force in Delhi on Monday suggests that a key component for speeding up the process of economic growth may at last get the attention it deserves. In a country of the size of India a network of expressways and international airports is necessary for supplementing the efforts of the railways for opening up the economy to global competition. In December Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will lay the foundation stone of the 7,000 km Kashmir-Kanyakumari expressway in Bangalore to demonstrate that expansion of the infrastructure sector is not an empty promise. Of course, going by past experience it may not be wrong to say that laying the foundation stone by itself does not ensure the completion of a project. The “four-laning” of the stretch of National Highway No. 1 between Ambala and Delhi was started in the early 80s. It may take another five years for the stretch to become fully operational as a four-lane national highway. The promise of expanding the power and telecommunications sectors on a priority basis still remains unrealised. Against this backdrop the sceptics may have a valid reason for not showing enough interest in the decision of the Task Force “to begin work simultaneously on the widening of roads at 20 places in the current fiscal year”. Hopefully, the special committee set up for identifying the source of the funding of the 20 projects would have found the answer when it reports back to the Task Force on November 28. To be fair, without the support of the industry the government may find the task of fulfilling the promise of putting the country on the fast track difficult to achieve. However, the good news is
that the process of consultation has started and with
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Jaswant Singh
heading the Task Force the country may indeed witness the
miracle of promises being turned into expressways and
international class airports. To begin with, the Task
Force identified five cities for the construction of
airports but kept open the option of expanding the list.
The possibility of upgradation of the existing airports
to international specifications too would be examined by
the special committee. But much would depend on the
outcome of a high-level meeting on December 14 between
Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and a large number
of foreign investors for exploring the possibility of
foreign direct investment in the infrastructure sector.
At a meeting organised by the Punjab, Haryana and Delhi
Chamber of Commerce and Industry Union Surface Transport
Minister Thambi Durai stated: “We want to give 100
per cent equity participation” for the construction
of expressways. No one doubts his sincerity or his claim
that efforts are being made to persuade the banks and
other financial institutions to invest in the expressway
projects. However, hard-boiled investors do not readily
part with their cash merely on the strength of promises
of “good returns” from the government. After
the hasty opening up of the economy to global players, a
political revision of the policy of welcoming foreign
investors without any checks and balances is on. The fate
of the Tata airlines project and the conflicting signals
sent out by the senseless slogan of “swadeshi”
have done little to encourage private sector investment
in public sector projects. The Indian industry and
foreign investors would expect a firm assurance that the
terms and conditions offered today for participation in
the expansion of the infrastructure sector are not
subject to change (of government in Delhi). Is Mr
Vajpayee in a position to offer such a categorical
assurance? |
So much of harmful hot air ANOTHER bitter battle between the industrialised countries and the industrialising ones has just ended in a draw, with the latter scoring some vital points. The venue was Buenos Aires in Argentina and the contentious issue was reversing global warming. The international conference discussed the pace and pattern of implementing the year-old agreement called Kyoto Protocol on ways to reduce the emission of heat-trapping gases. The USA constituted a one-nation rejection front, and not unnaturally. It is the champion gas producer and its industry stands to lose heavily if it is forced to cut down on the present very high levels of emission. According to one estimate, the dollar kingdom releases into the atmosphere 25 times the gases per citizen when compared to that of Bangladesh, 10 times that of India and six times that of China. This despite the huge population the three Asian countries have. That is the reason why the USA first tried to stall any genuine reduction requirement, and that was at Kyoto, but failed. Now it sought to lower the rate of reduction and over a longer timeframe by trying to force the developing countries to cut down on their rate, even though it would involve a sharp scaling down of economic development. This move too has been defeated by the unity of the G-77 countries and the silent support of the European Union. The European gesture is particularly galling, since it is designed to hit another arm of the economy, trade. Europe is ahead of the USA in installing gas-reduction equipment and if the USA is forced to follow suit, its products will lose their competitive edge. It was a stark economic problem and collective political pressure at the Buenos Aires conference settled the issue. The USA can still have its way if it retains the right to buy emission rights from a deindustrialised country like Russia. Continued freedom to push
on with industrialisation is one gain; the West’s
promise to provide pollution-control technology at a
concessional price is another. At present, the Third
World countries have virtually no commitment to control
such gases and the technology they use is often the
culprit. For instance, China’s steel mills emit six
times the gas for every tonne of production as compared
to the US mills; similar must be the case with Indian
units too. Further, global warming and the inevitable
change in weather is bound to cause a degree of damage
which the Third World cannot bear, like the flood this
year in UP, Bihar and West Bengal and also in the central
part of China. Almost all the hottest years have been
after 1970. Scientific data show that the frozen desert
of Antarctica is becoming warmer and giant blocks of ice
mountains are breaking away under the impact of a rise in
temperature. In certain parts, the change in climate has
led to the disappearance of certain species of fish, thus
depriving the penguin of its food. The starvation death
of the penguin could well be a metaphor for what awaits
humanity. Kyoto and Buenos Aires could be key milestones
in man’s life-and-death battle, literally. |
Everest is not for dirtying WHEREVER man has set his feet, he has only damaged or dirtied the place. The latest well-known victim of man’s greed is Mount Everest. It has ceased to remain what it was in 1953 when New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary first conquered it. Then it was as clean as nature wanted it to be. Now it has become the world’s highest garbage dumping ground. It is faced with a serious ecological disaster, as pointed out by a Canadian mountaineer who was part of a recent expedition that undertook a cleaning-up operation. The situation on the Everest has been getting aggravated for many years. Today it has assumed threatening proportions as climbers — as many as 150 every year — are least bothered about the Nepal government’s guidelines — not to leave on the world’s highest summit anything one carries with oneself. The climbers have been doing exactly the opposite of it, throwing on the mountain their used gas bottles, gas canisters, batteries, etc. The Canadian team brought from the Everest hundreds of such items and sold in the USA many gas bottles to be kept as souvenirs. According to one estimate, the mountaineers leave on the Everest at least 3000 kg of their faeces every year which pollutes the environment. This is so despite the fact that the Nepal government sends teams of Sherpas for garbage removal off and on. South Col, used by climbers as the launching pad to reach their final destination, has become not only a junkyard but also the highest graveyard on earth. The bodies of very few unfortunate would-be Everest conquerors are removed. One day the Everest will also be known—besides its extremely hostile weather—for having the largest number of unclaimed bodies. Even if regular clean-up operations are launched, it is nearly impossible to remove these bodies as Nepali belief (it is considered inauspicious to disturb the dead) comes in the way. Thus the future Everest expeditionists will have to train themselves not only how to fight the inclement weather of the highest peak but also how to overcome the spine-chilling experience they will have after finding so many dead bodies up there. One basic reason why the
Everest has lost its pristine purity is that any
individual or group having the necessary funds is allowed
to move on to the great Himalayan heights. There are
commercial organisations which offer package Everest
tours. This is another unfortunate aspect of the
Himalayan tragedy. Commercialisation will destroy the
mountain’s mystique. It was this painful development
that prompted Sir Edmund to suggest to the Nepalese
government some time ago to ban any expedition to the
Everest for at least five years. This period could be
used to restore the natural grandeur of the top summit.
As was obvious, the idea did not find favour with the
rulers of the Himalayan kingdom. Nepal does not want to
be a loser, finance-wise. It has begun charging a hefty
amount from the climbers, perhaps to force the
non-serious ones among them to abandon the idea. But
there is no decline in the number of expeditions. This
means the dirtying will go on. Only a strict regulatory
measure and the creation of a separate agency to
undertake large-scale regular cleaning-up exercises can
save the Everest from losing its originality forever. |
WAITING FOR VOTERS’ CHOICE BEFORE Indira Gandhi came to power, elections for the state assemblies and the Lok Sabha were held simultaneously. It was her secretary, P.N. Haksar, who had it changed. His reasoning was that national issues should be separated from those of the states, and people should have a clear choice when voting, not mixing one with the other. This worked to some extent. No doubt, it gave rise to regional parties and even parochialism. But local issues came to be discussed in depth. The healthy fallout was that the assembly elections ceased to have much effect at the Centre. It was seen that although the ruling party in New Delhi lost in the state polls, it continued to stay in power on its own right. It would be argued that the issues were different and that the rejection of the one did not affect the other. People, in due course, came to appreciate the demand and response between the two, In fact, the voters of Karnataka once returned Rajiv Gandhi at the Centre but Ramakrishna Hegde a couple of days later in the state. Never before was the choice of voters delineated so clearly and so intelligently. More recently, the acceptance of such a principle was witnessed in the case of Mr Narasimha Rao, who survived the five-year tenure. Despite the reverses, which the Congress suffered in several state elections, he never faced a sustained demand for his ouster. The Opposition did demand his resignation whenever his party was defeated. But it came to be understood that a voter’s choice in the state did not necessarily reflect his opinion on the rule at the Centre. Strange as it may sound,
the assembly elections in the four states — Mizoram,
Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, especially in the
last three — look like affecting the Centre. It goes
without saying that the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata
Party, which is leading the coalition government —
the results will be available on the evening of November
25 — may turn out to be a fatal blow for it. There will be several other repercussions. The majority of the 13 constituents and supporters of the BJP may withdraw from the government. They may consider the poll results as a signal that the BJP is losing its ground. Why should one stay with the party which may not retain even the present strength of 180 seats in the 546-member Lok Sabha? In fact, the political scene in Delhi is frozen at present. The Congress wants to step in if the BJP-led government falls under its own weight. The communists, who are next to the BJP and the Congress in strength, are trying to build a third force, which is yet at the foundation stage. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal are egging on the Congress to challenge the BJP-led coalition but there are no signs of it. The AIADMK from Tamil Nadu and the Telugu Desam from Andhra Pradesh are unhappy. But they too are stuck with the BJP because they do not see any alternative emerging. If the BJP is defeated even in the two states, Delhi and Rajasthan, the situation will begin to thaw. New permutations and combinations will come into play. Already the Samata Party of Mr George Fernandes has put up its own candidates in Delhi. This means that there may be a serious move towards the realignment of secular forces. Even Mr Fernandes and Mr Hegde, now on the side of the BJP, may think of joining the third force. All this may lead the BJP to the wilderness, but this is the fate which awaits the party if it loses the elections. The new government, inevitably a coalition, may not be that of the Congress, which prefers to assume power on its own after fresh elections. The communists’ choice is Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav. But the Congress may not accept him. Once again Mr Jyoti Basu will have precedence over others. It is quite possible that the CPM may not make the ‘’historic mistake” twice. The Congress may even join his government. It is keen to acquire the left-of-centre image. Also, the party feels that if there are forces with which it can do business in the country, they are the communists. True, the Congress and the communists confront each other in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. But Ms Mamata Banerjee, once a Congress dissident and now an ally of the BJP, is the rising star in West Bengal. The Congress has already lost her and the state. Kerala and Tripura may not pose such a problem. In any case, the state elections do not count for much in the Lok Sabha. Elections in the four states will also be a mini-referendum of sorts. It will indicate which of the two parties, the BJP and the Congress, has a bigger following. The Congress victory in Delhi, Rajasthan and Mizoram will make up for the loss in Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP seems to have gained strength to wrest power from the Congress. However, the choice between the BJP and the Congress is like jumping either into the sea or the lake. The absence of a third force gives no other choice. However, if the Congress captures three of the four states, a trend in its favour would have emerged. The biggest test in the elections will be that of Hindutva philosophy. Delhi and Rajasthan have been the BJP’s stronghold. Its defeat in the two states will convey that the tide of communalism is receding and that of secularism rising. This may be an irreparable loss for the BJP, which revels in communalism. When across the border, fundamentalism is showing its ugly head the BJP’s defeat will be a tribute to India’s secular ethos. Take the other possibility. Suppose the BJP retains both Delhi and Rajasthan. It will send a loud and clear message that Hindutva has got entrenched in the North. It would have also given proof of the BJP’s committed following, which was not detracted by the price rise, the sluggish economy or the party’s lacklustre performance at the Centre. The BJP victory will also be a shot in the arm for the coalition. A few splinter groups, or some which oppose the BJP at present, may come to support the coalition because they will find the BJP striking deeper roots. This may give it a larger majority in the Lok Sabha to operate and to lessen the scope of blackmailing by AIADMK chief Jayalalitha. The government’s performance may also improve because it has been labouring under the threat of losing power since its inception. The BJP leaders claim that once it has a good showing in elections, some Congress MPs will join it. This looks unlikely because the Congress expects to come to power sooner than later. And this is enough for the unsteady lot to sustain hope. The BJP too forsees the danger of losing its own MPs, some of whom have crossed into the party when they did not get tickets from the Congress. But these ifs are at best hypothetical and at worst subjective. If elections turn out to
be a draw — the BJP and the Congress sharing two
states each — the status quo will continue for some
more time. The danger to the BJP coalition may be averted
and the country may have to wait for a change till
another bout of state elections, like those in Assam and
Karnataka, scheduled for the next year. Since the BJP is
not in power in those two states, its loss may not affect
politics at the Centre. But the victory of the Congress
or other parties will embolden them. The BJP need not
think of those days. For, its stakes in the November
elections are, indeed, heavy and crucial. |
Industry: unrest is round the corner INDUSTRIAL relations have been relatively calm for nearly two years of recession and slowdown of economic growth. Pressures are, however, building up to indicate that turbulence is round the corner. Representatives of organised industry seem to think that social and political conditions are favourable for them to harden their stance against labour. They are vociferous in demanding that the government should move faster to dismantle what are euphemistically called “rigid labour markets” which, they allege, are stifling enterprise. Any such move is bound, however, to be resisted by organised workers. What is being proposed really is freedom for hiring and firing of workers, especially in organised industry, and an industrial relations scenario in which the bargaining position of workers will be so far weakened that labour costs could come down and profits from investment in industry will become attractive. That will, of course, be the end of recession for the owners of capital even if workers would be exposed to intensified exploitation. Moves in this direction after the programme for structural adjustment of the Indian economy was launched early in the nineties have been neither adequate nor vigorous, according to corporate business cirles. Political constraints and democratic reservations, combined with active opposition of trade unions, have indeed stalled the implementation of the policy to discipline labour which had been high on the reform agenda drawn up for India. Committed economic reformers having spread their wings in the last eight years seem to be now sanguine that they can go on the fast track all the way. They seem to think that the BJP-led government is ready and willing to go along, and the opposition parties have lost the will to stand in their way. The trade union movement, fragmented with its rival party affiliations and buffeted by abrupt changes in political alignments, too seems to be hamstrung and, therefore, acquiescent. The position of the workers is indeed very vulnerable. Nearly 90 per cent of the work-seekers in India have little option but to drift into part-time, low-income employment in rural areas and industry and trade in the informal sectors in urban areas. The net addition to the workforce in a year is estimated to be as high as 9 to 10 million. Hardly one million could find gainful regular employment in a year if and when during the era of planned economic development, a growth rate of 5 per cent could be achieved. The rest had to drift into self-employment or partial employment for pitifully low earnings. The position has gravely worsened under the economic reform dispensation when market-friendly capital and import-intensive economic growth process have been recklessly encouraged. Even when the annual economic growth rate picked up to 7.5 per cent per annum for two years running, opportunities for gainful employment declined. There has actually been large-scale retrenchment of the workforce in organised industry and the service sector. There too have been large-scale closures of small and medium industrial units, especially those engaged in the labour-intensive production of wage goods for the mass markets. The village industries and handicrafts, exposed to competition from big industry, including transnational corporations, are, side by side, in acute distress. High economic growth rates achieved by driving or inducing large-scale corporate industry to become “efficient, modern and internationally competitive” have indeed horrendous implications and disastrous consequences at the present stage and level of socio-economic development of India. It too is cynical of the self-styled reformers to talk about “safety nets” for cushioning the adverse impact of jobless growth, which is deceptively claimed to be a transitional stage in the ongoing structural adjustment of the Indian economy. The so-called “National Renewal Fund” to come to the aid of the workers retrenched under the system of “voluntary retirement” does not provide succour for the millions swelling the ranks of casual and contract workers and the self-employed in highly exploitative working conditions without security of service. A rational wages, income
and prices policy too has been evaded in the formulation
of the market-driven structural adjustment programme for
the Indian economy. It unabashedly gives precedence to
return on capital over reward for labour. If, therefore,
the principle of equity receives no or little
consideration in the growth process, and fair sharing of
the gains of growth is simply denied and derided, there
can be no scope for increasing the efficiency and
productivity of labour either. |
Goodbye,
dear “O” ONIONS dear, you have gone very dear. You are so close to my heart yet you have exploited my tender feelings for you. Tear-jerker! You have drawn bucketfuls of water from countless eyes since ages. Now that you have ditched them, poor souls are pinning and sighing for you all the time and shedding copious tears in your sweet memory. I see you only in dreams as if you belong to some new distant fairyland. You have become so illusive that during day-dreaming I hover around our aromatic Indian cuisine. Murg musallam, roghan josh, shahi paneer, etc. Saliva in the mouth is triggered off. Perforce I lick my fingers muttering, “Real sumptuous....” Such is your magic my love that you transport me to the world of ecstasy far away from the dreary world. Alas! soon the world of sheer ecstasy crumbles down like a house of cards. What a nasty fall! No less than Shelley saying, “I fall upon the thorns of life I bleed”, or Keats flying on the wings of imagination with the nightingale’s song “tolls back to reality and sighs.” “Alas! fancy cannot cheat so well”. From the land of rich delicacies to the kitchen bereft of the flavour of onions, my goodness! The kitchen shelf is so forlorn and deserted without you.... the king of Indian gourmet. Children yawn at the dining table as the food tastes insipid, unsavoury and watery. I feel miserable as they leave for their rooms giving me harsh looks. And hubby, I need not say anything about him. Onions dear! You are so much in the news that media can’t do without you. It has rather pampered you like a sweetheart. The small screen flashes visuals of serpentine queues of people eagerly waiting to get you for any amount of money you are available. What a pleasant surprise! You have overshadowed the vegetable market. You claim a whopping price for yourself! Not a bad idea if tomorrow I stand in the queue to get onions on the ration card by culling a holiday from the office. So, that is our achievement even 50 years after Independence! Yet another TV visual displays bottled onion, garlic and ginger paste. May be your disappearance from the market is in connivance with the industrial sector. Anyway, whatever may be the reason, you have been declared a “luxury par excellence”. In my nostalgic moments I shall recount the days when I used to pay just Rs 7 or Rs 8 per kg for the Nasik ones to my grandchildren exactly in the manner my grandma sitting by the fireside used to recollect the times when “kagzi badam” and other dry fruits were available just for the asking. Sooner or later onion tales will replace the fairy tales for kids and create a sensation in the realm of books for children. Not long ago bullion prices were the great feminine interest. They would swoop at the newspaper to know its price and rush to the jeweller’s shop if it had crashed. Now it is the onion price which is the primary concern of the care-worn housewife. Hence psychiatrists cannot afford to ignore this new mood-turner while treating the females. Onion dear, soon the status of God will be conferred on you. You will be placed high on the altars of places of worship. The day is not far off when poets will pour out their longings for you in soulful and melodious verses or write elegies or an epitaph. “Enjoyed the tears while cutting, regret the tears while burying”. As for myself, I gave my
friends and relatives a pleasant surprise this Diwali.
They would have surely felt highly obliged to receive
onions as gift instead of those rotten sweets. |
Rushdie’s return will be best for
India AUSCHWITZ and Kolyma, racial prejudice and neo-imperialism, have led us to doubt the infinity of human wisdom. We stand at the end of the century experiencing both joy and sadness, and though we think that ours is the most progressive century, one wonders if material progress and political and economic development are the criteria of unmitigated good for the human species. Are we not closer to self-destruction than our ancestors ever were? Is not the world ruled by the rich nations in collusion with the rich client-regimes of the poor nations? Eminent writers have ferociously criticised religion and the state apparatus as a constraining force. Behind their creativity lies their disdain for religion and the nascent power-that-be, compelling them to blast Islamic fundamentalism or the oppression of minority cultures by mainstream culture. In the words of Gore Vidal, “the rulers of any system cannot maintain their power without the constant creation of prohibitions that then give the state the power to imprison or intimidate anyone who violates any of the state’s new-minted crimes”. In such a world torn by religious and economic wars, it stands to reason that L.K. Advani has cleared the hurdles for the return of Rushdie to the land of his inspiration, his “kid sister” as he calls India as she was born on August 14, 1947, eight weeks after him. This brings to a close an exile that must have had its detrimental affects on his creativity, though there are no signs of it as he has not been silenced. Rushdie is up, and about, lecturing, writing his next novel The Ground Beneath her Feet, is happily married again and has a five-month-old child. To survive in India, one has to be convinced of the vital importance of the Nehruvian vision of secular India. Rushdie strongly believes in this and argues that “those who worship the whale — for pursuit is a form of worship — perish by the whale” as in the case of Ahab in Moby Dick. But, I do not think that he separates the conflict between the secularists and the religious into any air-tight categories. His fiction abounds in “mongrelisation”, “a melange, a bit of this and a bit of that” because that is how changes by fusion occur, and it is art that aids in this celebration of “the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs” as elaborated by Rushdie in his attack on foundationalism, essentialisms and absolute categories. Why not give full credit
to a writer who substitutes art for religious faith and
lashes out against fundamentalism by conceiving
literature in terms of secular religion, but in no
respect sacred like religious antagonists would regard
their texts? And this is so because in literature there
is no fixity, no finality, no closure. The writer and the
reader just enter a space of freedom where they can
subvert established harmonies. In this lies the highly
self-conscious vitalism of all great art that enters the
order of play with the aim of establishing freedom from
the world, from time, from the moralities of state and
religion. This complex reality encountered by the creative writer has brought a new sensitivity to human rights, thereby challenging and unmasking illegitimate authority with the purpose of extending the scope of freedom and justice. Standing at the edge of the millennium, debate on the rights and responsibilities of a writer in the context of Salman Rushdie has connections — cultural and political — with historical events and conceptual problems related to the diaspora, to art and to ideology. The more the issue is considered, the more it throws light on the insecurity of religious and political structures that unequivocally take a stand against the freedom of expression, as well as refuse to see the function of art in upholding civilisation. Barbaric fatwas and extreme positions only go to show the fragility of the notion of the “sacred”. And as Rushdie asserts, “to respect the sacred is to be paralysed by it. The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas — uncertainty, progress, change — into crimes”. I would emphasise that the assertion of the refusal to accept the recent lifting of the fatwa by some Muslim leaders in the West amounts to a decision that emerges out of a utilitarian ideology which always shirks to participate in radical or critical practices that might result in a political backlash. They fail to realise that art has the right to express itself, irrespective of others’ religious considerations and must be free from the strictures of politics, of ideology and the whims of a leadership that seeks self-promotion through communalism and false appeals to nationalism. Conflicting beliefs, expression of opinions and differences must be tolerated. Our democracy decieves itself when it asserts that it stands for universal values, while at the same time castigates a work of art for its political standpoints that offend certain sections of society. Art is related to the social and political environment and not an autonomous activity operating only in the world of a writer’s imagination. Any work of consequence has to have social and political repercussions. Ethnicity, religious strife, tribalism and people killing people in the name of race, religion, language and culture are the main characteristics of this age of extremes when we are returning to barbarism. None of us knows what awaits us as we prepare for a new millennium, but many peace loving human beings, though they feel distressed exist on the hope for a world, in the words of Taslima Nasreen “which is still inhabited by people who believe in freedom; freedom to live, freedom to express and freedom to die peacefully”. To be creative you must be dissident. The word “struggle” becomes positive only if it means action and speaking up. Intellectual thinking forgets this. Dissidence is the anti-thesis of power or exploitation. Creative dissidence recognises both the self and the other and it is never aimed at carrying out a one-way critique of the oppressor. A critical gaze towards the self is equally vital to the construction of identity and authenticity. Rushdie’s mind, body and heart is of a dissident and they are inseparable; he is both a novelist and an activist who takes religion to be a philosophical oppression, a political ideology which needs to be countered by the act of writing. If you are a dissident you pay a price and if you submit you pay a higher price. The fundamentalist attitudes towards Rushdie or Nasreen, the confiscation of Wole Soyinka’s passport and his forced departure into exile, his and Saadawi’s detention for their anti-state political activity, all are instances of paying a price for the freedom of expression and human rights. Like Wole Soyinka, let us
hope Rushdie also returns to his homeland and that
Advani’s gesture is not a mere lip-service to
secularism. It is the urgent duty of the state to not
only welcome him, but give him full protection in a world
where it is not advisable to take chances with the
aberrations of terrorism. |
Bettering farmers’ lot key to
economic growth DELIVERING the inaugural address at the recently concluded annual session of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee unveiled a major economic agenda laying emphasis on restoring vibrancy in the capital market, giving thrust to infrastructure development for industrial development and resolving the contentious issues in the telecommunication sector, including a licence fee structure for basic and cellular telephone operators. The Prime Minister’s address was also read out at the parliamentary consultative committee on agriculture. In his speech, Mr Vajpayee had expressed concern over the continuing neglect of the farming community. Dismayed at the growing economic disparity between the urban and rural areas, he made an impassioned plea to find ways and means to make agriculture an attractive proposition. Since Indian agriculture remains heavily dependent on the monsoon, Mr Vajpayee said at least 10 per cent of the crop got destroyed every year after harvest from one or the other kind of natural calamity. All these adversities could be averted if the country had a well-functioning crop insurance scheme. Admitting that it was possible to bring half of the 80 million uncultivated land under the plough, the Prime Minister said this could be only possible if farmers were assured of attractive returns and their risk was adequately covered. The Prime Minister regretted the inadequate provisions of bank credit and other inputs to the farm sector. Stating that farmers currently obtained only 15 per cent of their credit needs from banks, Mr Vajpayee said the state-owned seed corporations were able to provide only 10 per cent of the country’s seed requirement and only about 25 to 30 per cent of the farmers’ benefit from extension services offered by government agencies. And on top of it, agricultural production has been on the downslide ever since economic reforms were unleashed in 1990-91. It is indeed laudable to learn that the Prime Minister appreciates the difficulties being encountered by millions of farmers. But his concern, like that of many of his predecessors, in all probability end with such talks and addresses. After all, if Mr Vajpayee can have six committees set up to essentially see how the government can help the rich industrialists, what stops him from initiating a similar exercise for the hapless farmers? While all the financial support from the depleting government reserves will benefit only a few of the top brass, any meaningful exercise to put agriculture back on the rails will pull several million of the rural poor out of the poverty trap and at the same time ensure food security for a hungry nation. If only the Prime Minister had shown the same sense of urgency that he has exclusively reserved for the business community, the serial death-dance that began with farmers’ suicides in Andhra Pradesh and resulted in the death of more than 500 farmers all over the country could have been easily averted. With millions dying of diseases related to malnutrition, and with an estimated 200 million people going to bed hungry every night, Mr Vajpayee has a more pressing job at hand than distributing the meagre central kitty among industrialists. Mr Vajpayee is not alone
in failing to initiate any measures for uplift of the
poor and downtrodden. Earlier, ‘humble farmer’
H.D. Deve Gowda, had often in public addresses expressed
concern at the neglect of the farm sector. In reality, I
found that the former Prime Minister actually succeeded
in further widening the divide between India and
“Bharat”. At a dinner meeting with this writer,
Mr Deve Gowda talked about the small and marginal farmers
and their inability to add value to their produce and yet
lost no opportunity in relaxing the land ceiling laws to
accommodate agri-business. He thought commercial
agriculture would further marginalise subsistence farming
and still preferred to provide more sops and tax
concessions to the food processing industry. He wanted this writer to convince the farmers not to expand the area under sugarcane and yet sanctioned an additional 180 sugar mills. He expressed regret at the way mainline economists had taken the country for a ride by blindly accepting the WTO doctrine, but was more than willing to lift the quantitative restrictions for foodgrain imports. Two of Mr Deve Gowda’s predecessors, Mr Rajiv Gandhi and Mr Charan Singh, were certainly more enthusiastic and exuded optimism. Somehow, both of them failed to buttress the rural economy. Their dream of bringing in gram swaraj, on the lines suggested by Mahatma Gandhi, remained confined to pre-election speeches and public forums. The dichotomy of the India-Bharat divide has been all-pervasive. That farming is no longer a viable enterprise has been stressed very often. At a time when small and marginal farmers, cultivating less than two acres of land, are being asked to add value to their crops, the rapid fragmentation of land holdings and the industries’ takeover of fertile and cultivated tracts is driving two million farmers every year from subsistence farming to join the growing ranks of landless labourers. And it is this indifferent attitude towards agriculture that has led to a decline in foodgrains production in the past decade, when the compound growth rate in foodgrains actually fell below that of the burgeoning population. I have a feeling that the mandarins who call the shots in the Prime Minister’s office push pious intentions to the background. Like the smartly dressed executives of multinational companies, the bureaucrats in the PMO do not have the faintest idea of how a village looks. It is another matter that they perhaps know every street in London and New York. Nor have the successive Prime Ministers been keen to resurrect Indian agriculture and animal husbandry to encourage capacity building among farming communities. Take, for instance, Mr Inder Kumar Gujral, who spent more time travelling abroad than visiting rural India. And as expected he brought in a foreign policy analyst, but no agricultural specialist, as Officer on Special Duty in his office. Like his former colleagues, Mr Gujral also thought that agriculture is only an electoral issue. Such a disparity is not only confined to the PMO. It essentially stems from the cultivation of the popular image of a farmer that has been built over the years. Talk of a farmer, and the image that strikes, is that of a rustic and illiterate dehati wearing a soiled dhoti and supporting a turban. Eyebrows are raised when a farmer is seen riding a two-wheller, as if he is expected to always travel in a bullockcart. Bypassed by the planning process, and ignored by the political masters, he is left to the vagaries of nature and at the disposal of moneylenders. His day begins at midnight when he is out on his farm, even in the cold and chilly winter nights, to ensure that he gets his turn of irrigation supplies for his fields. And before the sun rises, the farmer has milked and tended his cows and is ready to take up the weeding, hoeing and tilling of his crops. It is the Indian farmer whose courage, wisdom and skill have enabled the country to get out of what was once termed as a “ship to mouth” existence. It is, however, another matter that ever since the days of the green revolution. The Indian farmer has become a victim of disdain and contempt. Ignored by the powers-that-be, and still managing to survive against all odds, more than 400 million farmers have for all practical purposes been taken for granted. Irrespective of what the industry feels, it is the farmer who holds the key to economic development. Unless Mr Vajpayee decides to devote personal attention to remove the simmering discontent in the rural areas, the socio-economic fallout of the farmers’ backlash will be difficult for any government to sustain. Leaving the task to agricultural economists and parliamentary committee will only worsen the food crisis and thereby jeopardise the economic sovereignty of the country. (The writer is
president of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food
Security) |
The Panipat riots EXTREMELY disquieting news continue to be received from Panipat. The Hindus are reported to feel so terrorised that they have not been able to open their shops up to this time. The conciliation board appointed to bring about a settlement acceptable to both the parties has not so far succeeded in achieving its object. It is alleged that the attitude of local officials, all of whom happen to belong to one and the same community, is to a large extent responsible for the continuance of this state of insecurity. We think that the least that the Government can do in the matter is to transfer these officers to some other place, and then make an inquiry into the causes that have led to the present trouble. In the meantime, we call
upon the leaders of the Congress to immediately proceed
to the spot and try to restore confidence in the minds of
the public. It will be advisable for them to associate
with themselves a couple of representatives of the
Khilafat Committee as well as of the Hindu Sabha. |
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