beginning A new

It's Budget fever again and as Indian farmers wait expectantly for any surprises to spring, Devinder Sharma tries to make sense of it all

Successive Finance Ministers have spared no effort in eulogising agriculture.When presenting the Budget 2003-2004, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had remarked that agriculture is the lifeblood of our economy. A year earlier, his predecessor, Yashwant Sinha had romanticised agriculture, saying that his Budget was aimed at ensuring freedom of the farmer -"kisan ki azadi". It all began with the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, in his earlier avtaar as Finance Minister, the chief architect of the new economic policy. In his famous 1992-93 Budget speech, Singh had said, "Agriculture is the foundation of national prosperity and no strategy of economic development can succeed in our country if it does not ensure rapid growth of production and employment in agriculture. Nor can we hope to provide sufficient jobs for our growing rural labour force unless we can transform the economy of our rural areas." And yet, he concluded by saying that agriculture being in the concurrent list, he was expecting the States to accord top priority to the farm sector. His next part of the speech was devoted to industry. What Mr Manmohan Singh forgot to say, was that industry too was a State subject. He and his successors have made all possible efforts to role out a red carpet for the industrial and corporate houses. Since the dawn of economic liberalisation (June 1991), the annual Budget has become a political instrument providing sops and tax holidays to the corporate sector, trade and industry. I don't expect anything different and brilliant from UPA's Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram when he presents the Budget 2005-06. If the recent utterances by the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia are any indication, Indian farmers should be mentally prepared for yet another bunch of devastating economic policy imperatives. Ever since liberalisation became the economic mantra, and the impetus shifted to business and industry, the persistent neglect of agriculture has compounded the agrarian crisis. What has meanwhile baffled the new government is that the spate of suicides shows no signs of ending even after it announced a series of routine packages - free electricity and more credit, aimed at relieving the farmers’ misery. What is more depressing is that the governments are clueless of the reasons that forces farmers to commit suicides. Nor is there any effort from the so-called distinguished agricultural scientists, economists, and social scientists to come out with proposals to put an end to this shameful blot on the country's image. The reason is obvious. No one has the political courage to point a finger at the real villain—industrial farming model that shifts the focus on cash crops and thereby plays havoc with sustainable livelihoods. Blindly aping the World Bank model of agriculture (as suggested by McKinsey India Ltd.) - with the blessings of successive governments ever...

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