The true face of capitalism was unveiled, when the U.S. President Barack Obama cracked the whip on outsourcing. After coercing several countries including India to peddle globalisation for years, the U.S. is resorting to ‘protectionism’ to save its own skin from recession. Announcing a set of proposals which promise more profits to the companies which create jobs in the U.S. (instead of outsourcing in countries like India and China), Obama said his action would reap tax revenue up to $ 210 billion in the next 10 years, apart from addressing joblessness in his country.
Though Obama could see the writing on the wall within 100 days after coming to office and took measures advantageous to his country by dumping the dogma of globalisation, the leaders in India did never spare a thought during the past 15 years, to save our farmers from committing suicide.
The Congress-led UPA which has won the mandate from the Indian electorate is misinterpreting the victory as an endorsement to the reforms process. In the milieu of the terrible results produced by neo-liberal policies worldwide, Dr. Manmohan Singh should read a leaf out of Mr. Obama’s book and do the urgent course-correction, by reversing the globalisation policies, particularly vis-à-vis the agriculture sector.
Agriculture is an important source of livelihood in India involving about 60% people…unlike in developed countries where merely about five to 10 per cent people are associated with farming. The architect of neo-liberalism in India, Dr. Manmohan Singh should have thought for a hundred times about the impact of his policies on our farmers and peasants, before he allowed globalisation to set its ominous foot on Indian soil.
It was with the SAP (Structural Adjustment Programme) in 1991 that globalisation took the roots in India. The directives to the policies of globalisation came through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation (WTO). Based on the dictates from these organisations, the successive governments in India started reducing the investment in agriculture and allowed the private players to fill the gap.
At the same time, the export-import policy was liberalised and QRs (Quantitative Restrictions) were removed on as many as 1500 agro-based products. This led to ‘dumping’ of highly subsidised foreign grains, sugar, cotton etc., on the Indian soil, without any restriction.
Subsidy and concessions had been the backbone of green revolution in India which ensured food security commensurate to the growth of population in the country. But during the past 15 years subsidies were systematically withdrawn. This has increased the input cost and made agriculture less profitable. The decrease in subsidy to agriculture is a part of the regulations of the WTO and a direct consequence of the policy of globalisation.
The irony is that, though India started implementing ‘subsidy cuts’ in agriculture many years ago, the U.S. and European Union refused to put into practice the WTO guidelines so far. One of the primary reasons for the failure of Doha-round of WTO talks was…the refusal by the developed countries to remove subsidies to their farmers. The absurdity of the situation can be understood by the fact that, a farmer in the U.S. gets subsidy at $2 on a cow everyday, which is more than the average daily income of an Indian farmer!
Another tool of globalisation – viz., Privatisation in banking sector has also played its dirty role to wreak havoc on agriculture. The lending pattern drastically changed during the post-reforms period. As the nationalised banks too looked after profit over the social responsibility…to keep pace with their private counterparts, getting loan for the farmers has become a Herculean task. As a matter of fact, thousands of rural bank branches were shut down during the past 15 years. This situation has forced the farming community to rely on private moneylenders and finally fall into the debt-trap.
As though the miseries heaped on our farmers are not enough, the procurement policy by giving MSP (Minimum Support Price) to the farmers is being dispensed with. This is because, the globalisation policies stipulate that there should be minimum intervention by the government in agriculture. During the past few years, the government is importing wheat by paying more price than the MSP to our farmers. This indicates a hidden agenda to undermine the support mechanism itself.
The message to the Indian farmers seems to be loud and clear – “We no longer provide the price guarantee to your harvest that we have provided all these years”. Thus, the farmers are literally caught between the proverbial ‘devil and deep blue sea’. On one hand, the government is not willing to procure the agriculture produce by offering a reasonable MSP (minimum support price) to farmers…while on the other hand, they find vultures in the shape of private players who bargain their sweat and blood at a throwaway price.
The rural editor of The Hindu, P. Sainath wrote an article “Neo-liberal terrorism in India” in which he gave some awful details about the plight of Indian farmers. It says, the number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at 182,936. According to Sainath, the unofficial figure could be much more, because women farmers are not normally accepted as farmers (as normally, land is not on their names). Hence, they will be recorded as suicide deaths – but not as “farmers’ suicides.”
The article revealed that, the rate of farmers’ suicides has worsened particularly after 2001, by which time India started following the WTO guidelines in agriculture. The number of farmers’ suicides in the five years – 1997-2001 – was 78,737 (or 15,747 a year on average). The same figure for the five years 2002-06 was 87,567 (or 17,513 a year on average). That is, in the next five years after 2001, one farmer took his or her life every 30 minutes on average.
As agriculture became more and more non-profitable laden with plethora of risks and travails, as many as 8 million people have given up farming between the two censuses of 1991 and 2001. It is not only the farmers but also the Dalits and tribals, who heavily depend on agriculture that have become unemployed.
The moot question is: Can Dr. Manmohan Singh walk the Obama way? Does he have the courage to stand up to the globalisation forces…to say that – similar to Obama’s switchover to ‘protectionism’ to address domestic concerns, protecting the lives of tens of thousands of farmers is supreme for him? Given the euphoric mood in Dr. Singh’s new cabinet which is bent to push through the pending reforms aggressively, it is unlikely that the UPA government will stop toeing the line of neo-liberalism…let alone reversing it. A sustained campaign to oppose the policies of globalisation shall continue with a rejuvenated vigour.