What needs to be done in boosting domestic production of pulses

As dal prices go on an upswing, a harried government is trying to focus on increasing domestic production. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi called upon farmers to grow more pulses to reduce the dependence on imports, he was not only voicing concern over the rising import bill, but also wanting the country to become self-sufficient in pulses production.

Prime Minister is right. All efforts to increase production of pulses in the past few years have not borne fruit to the extent desired. Although domestic production had reached a high of 19.25 million tonnes in 2013-14, falling to 17.38 million tonnes the next year in 2014-15, but still India’s import of pulses continues to hover around 4 million tonnes. This is primarily the reason why the trade finds it convenient to raise prices at every given opportunity.

In the past one year, a 64 per cent hike in the prices of pulses has been observed with most common pulses available at a price exceeding Rs 100/kg in the retail market. Much of this jump in prices has been seen in the past 3-4 weeks after reports of an impending drought in kharifbecame more pronounced. To add fuel to the fire, the statement by Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, assuring the nation that the government will import large quantities of pulses to meet any shortfall expected in the markets, is expected to send international prices soaring.

The same mistake was earlier committed by the former Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.  Some years back when he publicly stated that India will import sugar to offset domestic shortfall in production, international prices had swung to a record high. Consequently, the import bill on sugar grew. This is also true for India’s import of chemical fertilizers. India’s demand for fertilizer is instrumental in keeping international prices high on an expectation of increased imports. In fact, how much will be India’s fertilizer import is something that has been monitored by the global trade very meticulously.

Ever since the weather forecast indicated an overall fall of 12 per cent in monsoon rains, prices of pulses – both nationally and internationally – have gone up drastically. According to reports, the future prices of tur from Myanmar had gone up from $ 800/tonne to $ 1150/tonne. Similarly, the futures prices for chanain Australia swung from $ 550/tonne in March t $ 775 tonne in June. Much of India’s imports are from Canada, Australia, Myanmar, Russia and Ukraine.

Although the government has raised the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of some of the important kharif pulses, price alone may not be enough to raise production in the long run. While the price of tur and urad have been raised by Rs 275 and of moong by Rs 250 per quintal, the idea being to give a message to farmers to shift more area towards pulses, I have always felt that unless the government launches an assured procurement programme for pulses, there is little hope. What has been achieved in wheat and rice is what exactly needs to be done in case of pulses.

Augmenting production of oilseeds and pulses in 60,000 villages, with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) holding 6,000 crop demonstrations over the years, is certainly welcome. But what is required is a two-pronged approach if the government is anywhere serious in boosting domestic production of pulses:  

1.   1.  Pulses attract zero per cent import duty at present. As long as import tariffs are not raised substantially, imports will continue to act a dampener against any move to raise production. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices had recommended raising the import tariffs to 10 per cent, and the Ministry of Agriculture had been toying to hike it to 20-30 per cent. It is high time the import tariffs are raised substantially.

2.    2. The hike in import tariffs has to be accompanied by a nationwide programme to ensure procurement of pulses by the State agencies. What deters farmers from undertaking cultivation of pulses is the volatility in market prices and the lack of an assured market. If only the State governments were to step in and purchase every grain of legume that flows into the markets, India will witness an unprecedented jump in pulses production. #

      *What needs to be done in boosting domestic production of pulses. ABPNewsTV. June 29, 2015

      https://twitter.com/abpnewstv/status/615482660715016192/photo/1

Bitter Politics Of Sugar

A few months ago, Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was at pains to explain the desperate need to raise rail fares. The hike is expected to raise additional annual revenue of  Rs 6,600 crore and reduce fiscal deficit.

Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram has been looking at every opportunity to reduce the burgeoning subsidy bill. The undue haste in launching direct cash transfer, the prolonged calibrations in containing the Food Security Bill, and the failed experiment in promoting balanced use of fertilisers were all aimed at clipping wasteful subsidy expenditure.

The partial decontrol of sugar therefore comes as a surprise. That the mills will no longer be forced to sell 10 percent of their produce at low prices to meet the requirements of the public distribution system, is certainly a sweet decision for the Rs 80,000 crore industry. In addition, as per the recommendations of the Rangarajan Committee, the release order mechanism has been abolished. This means that the mills will no longer have to wait for a direction from the government as to when and how much sugar they will release in the market.

What is baffling is the doubling of the subsidy bill from the existing Rs 2,600 crore to an estimated Rs 5,300 crore. While the sugar industry will stand to gain by approximately Rs 2,700 crore from the abolition of levy sugar quota, Chidambaram has already acknowledged that the annual subsidy bill will now grow by an additional Rs 2,600 crore for the next two years. All that the government has done is free the sugar mills of the financial burden, and take the liability on itself. This is “privatisation of profits, and socialisation of costs”.

The annual increase in the subsidy bill will in turn increase the fiscal deficit. But no questions have been asked. Decibels are only raised when subsidies are doled out for the poor; for the rich it constitutes economic reforms.

Moreover, a day after the decision was announced, sugar stocks of the same “cash-starved” companies jumped. Stocks of Shree Renuka Sugars, Balrampur Chini Mills, Dhampur Sugar Mills, Sakthi Sugars, Bajaj Hindustan and others continue to rally high.

Providing a financial bounty to the sugar industry in an election year has its own rewards. The timing of the crucial decision has to be seen in light of the changing electoral configurations. It has killed two birds with one stone.

First, the decision is certainly aimed at appeasing Sharad Pawar of the NCP and to some extent Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP). In the wake of the talk over the revival of the Third Front, keeping the sugar barons happy will impact the fortunes of the ruling party alliance. Like the 12,000 crore package expected for Bihar in the 12th Plan period ostensibly to appease Nitish Kumar, keeping the remaining flock together is the immediate priority.

At the same time, the government has refrained from fiddling with the cane pricing formula as per the Rangarajan Committee recommendations. Doing away with the State Advised Price (SAP) for cane, which the industry has always been complaining against, has been kept in abeyance, and rightly so. Price decontrol may help big cane growers who can afford the market risk, but for the small farmers, only SAP provides an assured price. Also, for the time being, the government knows that the sugarcane growers lobby is strong in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Electoral tremors will also be felt across the country, from Punjab to Tamil Nadu. But this is only a temporary reprieve. Once the impending elections are over, the industry will push for completing the remaining decontrol process.

And this is where a wider consultative process should happen rather than simply going by the recommendations of the Rangarajan Committee. In Punjab, Haryana and UP, for instance, sugarcane cultivation requires 1,60,00,000 litres of water per hectare. Sugarcane is a water guzzler and poses the biggest threat to food production. At the same time, world over, the emphasis is on reducing sugar consumption in wake of the growing awareness about its negative health impacts. It is time India moves away from what is good for the sugar industry to what is good for its people. It is time to make a historic correction. 

Source: Bitter Politics of Sugar, Tehelka, New Delhi, April 20, 2013

http://tehelka.com/bitter-politics-of-sugar/

India: A hungry nation proudly exports food

Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is visibly excited. Agricultural exports have jumped nearly 56 per cent in 2011-12 to hit a record Rs 187,000-crore. With the government lifting the four-year-old ban on the exports of non-basmati and basmati rice, eight million tonnes of foodgrains were exported thereby swelling agricultural exports. In the process, India has now become the biggest exporter of rice in the world. 

This year, 2012-13, Sharad Pawar is hopeful of an upswing in export of basmati and non-basmati rice to hit an all-time high of 9 million tonnes. To ease stocks, the government has also allowed export of two million tonne of wheat in July, and has set up an expert committee to further examine the issue. No wonder, the Minister is now promising to introduce a long-term export-import policy. “Government is actively considering free exports and imports of agricultural commodities,” he told an economic editors conference at New Delhi recently. 

Either he is oblivious of the repeated UN warnings of global food prices spiralling once again or remains defiant to hand over country’s hard-earned food security to market forces that he continues to argue in favour of freeing food imports of all controls. International prices for wheat have already risen by 25 per cent in 2012, maize by 13 per cent and dairy prices rose 7 per cent in September, warns UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. “It means that food supplies are tight across board and there is little room for unexpected events.”

In such a grim situation, and considering that FAO has placed India among the high risk countries – which may be susceptible to famine and social unrest stemming from food shortages and price fluctuation – along with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Yemen, any tinkering with food import-export policies is likely to be disastrous. My worry stems from the pathetic record in addressing the growing concerns of food insecurity and malnutrition that prevails, and that too at a time when the grain silos are overflowing.  

The day Sharad Pawar was brimming with excitement over possibilities of enhancing food exports, three UN organisations – Food and Agricultural Organisation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food programme -- came out with its annual State for Food Insecurity report. Accordingly, with 217 million malnourished people, India tops the malnourishment chart. As far as child nutrition is concerned, India is placed at the bottom of the global chart. 

It is a strange paradox of plenty. While on the one hand India is pushing its agricultural exports, on the other nearly 320 million people go to bed hungry. The number of hungry and malnourished in India almost equals the entire population of America. When it comes to malnutrition, several studies have pointed out that nearly 43.5 per cent of children under five are underweight. India fares worst than even sub-Saharan Africa. According to the 2011 Global Hunger Index India ranks 67 among 81 countries, sliding below Rwanda.The 2012 Global Hunger Index prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute. Welt Hunger Hilfe and Concern Worldwide have ranked India 65^thamong 79 countries. India’s ranking in the hunger chart therefore sees no change between 2011 and 2012. 

With the per capita availability of foodgrains – including cereals and pulses – sliding to 441 grams per day in 2010, from a high of 480 grams in 1991 when economic reforms began, it is quite evident that hunger is actually growing. Although an impression is being given that as incomes are seeing a rising trend, more people have shifted from cereals to nutritious foods like eggs, meat and fruits. This is however not correct. According to a 2010 report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the consumption of cereals as well as nutritious foods like fruits, milk and eggs too is falling in urban and rural areas. Despite the rapid economic growth, per capita calorie consumption is steadily on the decline. The 2007 NSSO too had pointed to the same trend in falling consumption of both cereals as well as nutritious products.  

Continuously rising food inflation over the past several years has certainly widened the gap between the haves and have-nots. Experts agree that for a large section of the population, buying two square meals a day is now becoming more difficult. Several studies have pointed to the growing inability of a majority of households to the per capita calories consumption of 2,100 in urban and 2,400 in rural areas. It means most people are unable to meet the minimum nutritional requirements. 

In other words, hunger is becoming more acute and visible. More and more people are going to bed hungry. I therefore don’t understand the logic of exporting food at a time when millions are living in hunger. The mounting food surplus is essentially because the poor and needy are unable to buy foodgrains even at below the poverty line prices. Opening up the export of wheat (it is banned at present) India will certainly join the ranks of the major food exporters, and in the process earn some foreign exchange. But the bigger question remains as to who will feed the hungry living within the country? 

There can be nothing more criminal for any hungry nation to export its staple food. It is the primary responsibility of the government, as enshrined in the Directive Principles, to ensure that every citizen is well-fed. Unfortunately what is not being realised is the declining fall in per capita availability of foodgrains matches the availability at the time of Bengal famine in 1943. Isn’t it sad that even after 70 years of Bengal famine, we still live in the shadow of hunger and starvation? How can any sensible nation therefore justify food exports? 

Food management essentially means distributing the available foodgrains among the poor and hungry. A beginning must be made by immediately stopping the export of staple foods, and simultaneously launch all out effort to reach foodgrains at the doors of the hungry millions. #

Are farmers children of a lesser god?

Expressing alarm at the rising suicides by Army soldiers,  Defence Minister A K Anthony has called for a brainstorming session with the three vice-chief of services, the defence secretary and the head of the Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR) so as to initiate steps that can curb rising suicide tendencies among the lower ranks of the armed forces. 

Since 2003, on an average about 100 Army soldiers have been committing suicide every year. Approximately 1000 soldiers have committed suicide in the past 10 years. The Defence Minister is worried, and this is indicative of his concern to improve the working conditions of the lower ranks. 

Defence Minister A K Anthony’s initiative is certainly laudable. But when I look at Food & Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s complete indifference towards the massive spate of farmer suicides that sweeps the country, it dismays me to think that farmers are nothing but children of a lesser god. In a country where ‘jai jawan, jai kisan’ has been a popular slogan, for all practical purposes farmers remain a forgotten species. 

Minister of State for Agriculture Harish Rawat had recently told parliament that between 1995 and 2011 as many as 290,470 farmers had committed suicide. This averages to about 17,000 farmers every year taking the fatal route to escape the humiliation that comes along with mounting indebtedness. Nothing can be more tragic to know that every hour 2 farmers end their own life somewhere in India. 

Not only for Sharad Pawar, the continuing bloodbath on the farm fields is too serious a crime to be ignored by successive governments. There is no reason why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should not have called for a series of meaningful dialogues and discussions among policy makers, agricultural scientists and economists. Members of the Planning Commission should have been directed to spend at least a month in the suicide hot spots to understand and ascertain the extent of agrarian crisis. 

On the contrary I find the Central as well as the State governments completely apathetic and callous, following a casual approach towards the biggest and the worst of human tragedies in India. Planning Commission had sometimes back sought the screening of Aamir Khan’s feature film Peepli Live to understand what had gone wrong in the countryside. It had even invited widows of the farmers who had committed suicide to Yojna Bhawanto listen to their part of the story. 

As per news reports, Chhatisgarh has found a novel and imaginative way to eliminate farmers suicides. Coming under sharp criticism for recording the highest number of farmer suicides in 2008, 2009 and 2010, the State government fudged the figures to report zero suicides in 2011. In West Bengal, both the CPM and the Trinamul Congress governments have tried to play down the farmer suicides. Reports have indicated how district officials in Burdwan, the State’s rice bowl; have been seeking statements from the families of the victims saying that the deaths were not because of agricultural distress or indebtedness. In Maharashtra, which still maintains a national record, even the definition of ‘farmer’ is being altered to report fewer suicides. 

More than 20 expert committees have submitted reports and equal numbers of studies have been done to know the reasons behind the spate of farmer suicides in the Vidharbha region. According to Kishore Tiwari of the Vidharbha Jan Andolan Simiti: “In 2006, the CM-PM package of Rs 5000-crore was followed by a massive loan waiver in 2008. As part of the Rs 70,000-crore debt waiver, Vidharbha region got a share of Rs 6000-crore. In 2009, the State government extended the loan waiver facility. Planning commission experts also visited the region and submitted their report. In effect, a dozen such committees have studied the farm crisis in Vidharbha. But a lasting solution to make agriculture sustainable and economically viable has evaded the authorities so far.”

In Punjab, another emerging suicide hot spot, State government has in the budget 2012-13 set aside Rs 500-crore to be distributed as compensation for farmer suicides. Besides relief and compensation, State governments are at a loss to know why the death dance on the crop fields shows no signs of ending. 

Farmer suicides have also been a perfect playground for politics. Sometimes back, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Chandrababu Naidu sat on an indefinite hunger strike in Hyderabad. Seeing this, former Congress MP Jaganmohan Reddy too had launched a 48-hour hunger strike against “leaving distressed farmers in the lurch.” Both of them demanded an enhanced compensation package for farmers who lost their crops because of natural calamities. It is however another matter that many farmers had launched a crop holiday in Andhra Pradesh almost at the same time.  

Whether it is crop failure, high cost of inputs, exploitation at the hands of the middlemen, or the slight hand of the markets, the story is the same. While the number of farmer suicides adds on to the statistics, innumerable number of farmers who sell their body organs and simply abandon farming to join the growing ranks of landless labourers goes into oblivion, remains unnoticed. That is why Indian agriculture continues to be in throes of a terrible agrarian crisis, and yet no one seems to be remotely perturbed. 

How long will the government go on setting high-level expert committees is not certain. But what I know for certain is that it has never shown the urgency and seriousness that is required to eliminate farmer suicides. If Defence Minister A K Anthony can seek immediate corrective steps for stopping suicides among soldiers; if the Prime Minister can for all practical purposes assign Commerce Minister Anand Sharma for the past three years or so to create suitable conditions, including political agreement, for the approval of the controversial FDI in retail; there is no reason why the same level of urgency can not be shown towards mitigating agricultural distress. It's all a question of priorities. 

 

Where are farm hands when you need them?

Recently, Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh, rubbished the need for freezing the flagship rural job scheme MNREGA during peak agricultural season. Dismissing the possibility, Ramesh had said: “The matter has been examined by the Mihir Shah committee and rejected.” Knowing that Mihir Shah’s entry into Planning Commission was entirely based on his blind support for MNREGA, I am not the least surprised. What baffles me is the ease with which Jairam Ramesh, one of the more sensible of the Cabinet ministers, rejects the need when the farming community is faced with a terrible shortage of labour at the time of harvest.

Jairam Ramesh was reacting to Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s simple and long standing demand for freezing MNREGA activities in the three peak months of harvesting and sowing. This also found a mention in the Economic Survey 2012 thereby inviting Ramesh’s ire. The Survey had rightly stated: “While the overall performance of MNREGA has been good, there is scope for improvements like focused planning, shifting to permanent asset and infrastructure building activities .. avoiding peak seasons in agriculture.”

Considering that MNREGA provides for 100 days assured employment, and there are 365 days in a year, I don’t see why the Planning Commission, the Ministry for Rural Development, and as well as the National Advisory Council, should have any objections to the legitimate demand of the Agriculture ministry. After all, if rural employment guarantee programme is hampering agricultural operations, the first and foremost need is to redraw the contours of the programme in a manner that agriculture is least affected. Even if it needs an amendment in the MNREGA Act, it must be done. At no cost can the employment guarantee programme be allowed to play havoc with farming operations.    

In any case, MNREGA is supposed to provide assured employment during the lean months and I see no logic in continuing with its activities at a time when agricultural operations are at its peak. This is a time when rural labour in gainfully employed. I see no reason why the Ministry of Rural Development should wean away farm workers at a time when they get assured employment. The basic objective of the rural employment scheme is to supplement job creating rather than to displace workers from agriculture and employ them instead in some mundane activities like digging ponds.

MNREGA has completed five years. And it is in these five years that the crisis in agriculture has also worsened. In lot many ways I find the terrible agrarian crisis directly proportionate to the absence of farm labour in the rural areas. With labour moving to non-farm activities, and with reports of massive corruption that prevails in the way the rural employment guarantee scheme is being operated, it is a known fact that workers now get paid for not doing anything. They get reduced wages but often do not have to work, just sign. Travelling across the country I find workers sitting idle when farm operations are at its peak.

Acute paucity of farm workers is also among the reasons why more and more farmers are quitting agriculture. Let us not forget that over 60 per cent of those who seek guaranteed employment are marginal farmers owning small tracts of land. Sharad Pawar is therefore absolutely right when he demands freezing the employment guarantee scheme at the peak periods of farm operations. Not paying heed to the crying need will ultimately kill agriculture.

Now if you are wondering as to who gains by keeping rural workers away from agriculture, it is the agribusiness industry. Shortage of farm labour has already led to the creation of a National Mission on Farm Mechanisation. More mechanisation is being suggested as the way to overcome the crisis in farm labour. In the absence of manual weeding, it is time to promote herbicides as the solution. It is therefore a windfall for farm implement manufacturers as well as suppliers of pesticides, including herbicides. The more the sale of chemical inputs and farm machines, the more will be the addition to GDP. No wonder, the Planning Commission is not in favour of letting farm workers remain on the farm.


Source: Tehelka, Mar 31, 2012
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Op310312proscons.asp#

The Slap that failed to shake the nation

The day Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar received ‘the slap’ I and Sharad Joshi were speaking at a national conference of farmers in Haridwar. A little after lunch, Swami Ramdev walked in to take his seat on the dais and expressed his apologies for being late. He said he was late because he had got busy responding to media questioning on the thappad.

The moment he gave out the news of the ‘the slap’ there was a round of applause. I think the clapping and cheering that followed was louder than the applause any one of us had received during and after our presentations. Meanwhile, the stream of messages on my mobile seemed never ending. My twitter too was flooded with congratulatory messages. I am aware that howsoever we may strongly condemn the incident, which was the politically correct thing to do, the fact remains that there was a sense of jubilation all around.

For a country reeling under an unprecedented price rise, corruption and economic policies that benefit only 1 per cent of the population, ‘the slap’ was an expression of the simmering anger and increasing frustration. While the more daring have picked up the gun (in the Maoist-affected areas) against the inequalities being continuously perpetuated with impunity, the liberal and the educated in the urban centres too are getting restless. I agree with Shobha De when she says ‘this is not about Sharad Pawar. He just happened to be the man at the receiving end of the most recent slap’.

It certainly could have happened to anyone, including the Prime Minister.

Blame for being politically incorrect, but the self-righteousness and ‘we know what we are doing’ kind of approach that ruling party politician exhibit day in and day out smacks of arrogance. The tu-tu-main-mainthat follows daily on the TV shows have turned into the biggest soap operas where the spokesperson of all political parties simply try to outwit the other to establish his/her shirt is cleaner than the other’s. Not realising that every prime time TV show actually helps build up the disgust and anger against the political class.

Not only the politicians, even the economists and the specialists who are regulars on the TV shows behave like the committed voters like the people political parties bring in to listen to leaders at political rallies. They know what is expected of them, and they deliver it faithfully. I am sure if they were to be ferried to a Congress rally, they would shout Congress Zindabad.  The next time, if the BJP is in power, you can expect them to shift gears and not shy from raising BJP Zindabad slogans. Similarly, in the studio they know what is expected from them, and deliver it faithfully to get their fifteen seconds of fame. It is very rare to see an expert on a TV show who speaks from conviction and is basing his analysis on ground realities.   

Nevertheless, returning back to food inflation, for several years now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Food & Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar have been setting fresh deadlines for bringing down inflation. Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister Dr Kaushik Basu too has been making statements which have little relevance to the realities and which clearly show that his finger is not on the right nerve. Certainly people are fed up and except for the media no one takes these deadlines seriously. They know that the leaders are hiding their inability to stem the rot in the system and are refraining from a crackdown against the stockist, black marketers and speculators.

Roughly a year back, I remember when I was asked by the media to respond to the UPA government's latest claim that food prices will ease by April. Although food inflation has risen to 17.87 per cent for the week ending Feb 20, 2010, Kaushik Basu was quoted as saying that the food price have come down, and the high inflation is because of the base effect. Analysts said that the April harvest would be crucial, and the pressure on inflation will ease after the new crop flows into the markets. 

I made it clear that food inflation will not ebb after April. In fact, I went a step ahead and said that any strong government, if it wasn't faced with the compulsions of coalition politics, would have removed the Food & Agriculture Minister by now. He deliberately makes statements that have helped raise the prices of sugar and made India pay through its nose for wheat imports. The UPA therefore cannot wait any longer. It must get rid of Sharad Pawar, and you will see the prices coming down. I wasn’t wrong. Even Sonia Gandhi had reportedly told a group of visiting farmers and activists that she is helpless when it comes to agriculture.   

However, a few days after the thappad incident, I was expecting some visible changes in the way Agriculture Minister has been operating. But nothing seems to have changed. It is business as usual for Sharad Pawar. In the midst of the logjam over FDI in retail, he said: “The critics are overlooking the fact that the policy’s main objective is to enhance the financial ability of the farmers who are responsible for the produce. If the farmers’ produce is directly lifted from the fields, with them receiving higher remuneration for it, why should there be any objections?” he asked. “It has always been my endeavour to address farmers’ interests.”

This is simply untrue. There is no empirical study that details the benefits that have accrued to farmers from big retail. Nor did Sharad Pawar or for that matter his Cabinet colleague Anand Sharma has held any wider public discussions on the subject. Somehow, ministers have increasingly begun to believe that once they have elected they have the right to do anything in the name of ‘inclusive growth’. The problem is that if the people protest outside parliament, the media chastises them saying street protests cause inconvenience. If parliamentarians protest inside, it is the wastage of public money. How and where people express their dissent?     

            

And this brings me to another burning issue that many felt was an ‘unhealthy' and 'undemocratic' trend. I am talking of the spate of editorials on Jarnail Singh's bold initiative a few years back of hurling his shoe at Mr P Chidambaram, the Home Minister. I am aware that it will be politically incorrect to admire the trajectory the shoe took. But notwithstanding what our political leaders (and the so called enlightened media) believe, the fact remains that the nation is finding it a simple way to express their anger. After all there has to be an outlet for a deep-rooted anger and disgust. If democracy provides no avenues for people to voice their concern, people will eventually find other ways to make their voice heard.     

If shoe hurling and ‘the slap’ is undemocratic, is committing suicide democratic? In the 2004 general elections (correct me if I am wrong), the then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Mr Chandrababu Naidu witnessed a piquant situation when a farmer stood up in a political rally being addressed by him and drank pesticide. He died before he could reach the hospital. Imagine, if he had instead thrown his chappal at Mr Naidu. It would have caused commotion in the crowd, and more attention to the cause for which he eventually died.

Not only in Andhra Pradesh, farmers all over the country have tried to send a strong political signal by taking their own lives. Over the years, when all democratic norms failed to draw attention, they took their own lives. By committing suicide they actually delivered what should be seen as a powerful statement. They failed here too. The world's largest democracy did not take notice. Since 1997, the National Crime Records Bureau tells us that over 2.5 lakh farmers have committed suicide.

I always thought that suicide was an undemocratic tool being used by the voiceless to make their voice heard. But what puzzles me is that why none of the political parties are taking it up as if it was a question of life and death (which you will agree, it is). After all, people are taking the extreme fatal step as an expression of their anger. I always wondered why the enlightened media, which can depute some 450 journalists to cover the Lakme Fashion show, or send an army of reporters and cameramen to cover the IPL cricket in South Africa (as if it is a Mahabharata battle), are not even moved to take up the issue of farmers committing suicide. 

Come to think of it. Wasn't it undemocratic on the part of the politicians as well as the media (which never tires of telling us that it is the Fouth Estate) to ignore human suffering in the crop fields? Media has no regrets when the farmer took their own lives but it certainly would have been furious and "want these perpetrators to be booted out of society" if they had instead thrown shoes. Imagine if the 2.5 lakh farmers had not died but instead flung their chappals/jutis, wouldn't it have been a more civilised form of angst?

Please do not get me wrong. I am not advocating throwing shoes to be a democratic form of dissent. But at the same time, I want you to think, and think deeply, as to why this democracy finds nothing disturbing when farmers kill themselves in order to draw the attention of powers that be to their plight. Such arrogance and indifference in a people’s democracy can’t go on for long. “The slap’ and the chappalcannot be simply dismissed as the work of a mentally unstable person. It is an expression of growing anger among the masses. Let us not wait for an Arab spring to force the Indian democracy to truly respond and represent the people. It is a question of the forgotten 99 per cent. #

An edited version of this article appeared in Tehelka magazine, Dec 10, 2011.
Slaps, shoes and suicides http://bit.ly/tu7vOH