Vidarbha146;s ground reality

So what was there for the prime minister to discover anew? The right conclusions could have been drawn without moving out of South Block. Certain basic facts are very clear. First, Vidarbha8217;s farmers are unlikely to be driven to suicide merely because a corp or two have failed. So the causes of suicides are not to be looked for in the immediate past. Second, the adversity this region is experiencing is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until 60 years ago, Vidarbha was considered relatively prosperous. Marrying one8217;s children into Vidarbha families was a matter of pride for the people of western Maharashtra. Similarly young men prided themselves on landing a Vidarbha father-in-law.

So when did Vidarbha travails begin? The date can be pinpointed fairly accurately. Once a rich region of the Madhya Prant, Vidarbha was made to join western Maharashtra out of the political compulsions of the Congress party. After the Maharashtra agitation, there were no way the Congress could have a political majority in Maharashtra. Senior party leaders therefore decided to push in the Congress majority region of Vidarbha in order to maintain control over the whole of Maharashtra, including Bombay. That was how a region rich in agricultural produce, like cotton and oranges, and endowed with abundant resources of iron, coal, manganese and electricity, came to be annexed to an industrially advanced state like Maharashtra.

The inevitable started happening immediately. Soon after the formation of the state of Maharashtra, the Maharashtra State Cotton

Monopoly Procurement Scheme MSCMPS was introduced. As it was, India8217;s cotton producers as a whole were receiving a price that was 110 per cent lower than that prevailing in the international free market, but Vidarbha8217;s farmers 8212; under the MSCMPS 8212; got a price that was just about half the price received by cotton producers in states like Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Vidarbha8217;s cotton farmers, it is estimated, lost more than Rs 30,000 crore only on account of the MSCMPS.

Vidarbha also has abundant water resources. However the Maharashtra government was extremely cagey about making funds available for canalising them. The money went largely towards the improvement of irrigation facilities in the sugar cane rich regions of Maharashtra. Since 1961, Vidarbha has been caught in the scissors-grip of cotton versus sugar cane.

We have long proposed a rescue plan for the besieged cotton farmers along these lines:

One, a helpline should be established within 24 hours that can be accessed by desperate farmers and the administration should try to resolve the problems of the threatened family by studying its needs and possibilities.

Two, it should be solemnly announced that the villainous Maharashtra State Cotton Monopoly Scheme is scrapped forever and that its presence be limited only to ensuring the minimum support price for cotton. Private trade should freely operate, and purchases made without any restrictions.

Three, all coercive recoveries of loans should cease forthwith and in no case should the farmer8217;s land, agricultural implements and household necessities be seized.

Four, farmers who find themselves unable to pursue agriculture as a vocation should be given the option of selling their land at current market prices.

Five, the constitution of a separate state of Vidarbha should be put on the fast track.

The prime minister8217;s package is unnecessarily couched in financial terms. The farmers8217; demands do not involve any additional expenditure but would demand some very hard decisions, which could be severely embarrassing to the Congress party, like the scrapping of the MSCMPS and the formation of the separate state of Vidarbha.

That an eminent economist like the prime minister should consider it necessary to seek the advice of a committee to understand the problems of rural indebtedness is tragic. Given the fact that agriculture in India is a losing proposition, adjusting interest and restructuring repayments can at best be palliatives. Dr Manmohan Singh, in his earlier incarnation as Narasimha Rao8217;s finance minister, had kept agriculture out of the reach of his economic reforms and the present distress of farmers all over India is a consequence of that aberration.

Incidentally, the package announced by the Maharashtra chief minister on December 10, 2005, had the effect of actually accelerating the tempo of suicides. One would have to wait and watch the farmers8217; reaction to the prime minister8217;s package. But one thing is clear already. It seems to have been thrown together in a tearing hurry. Even the totals don8217;t tally. The sum of Rs 3,500 crore for the relief of the farmers is barely 10 per cent of the value of this year8217;s loans held by them in the cooperative banks.

The PM, I suspect, was made to run through a minefield by his party bosses. But Vidarbha8217;s farmers are unlikely to have benefited from the exercise.

The writer is the founder of Shetkari Sanghatana and Rajya Sabha MP

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