Column

Aren’t you happy for the farmers? Of course you are. The poor dears slog so hard and still can’t make ends meet. Then they go drink pesticide and kill themselves. How good of Chidambaram to write off their debts in this Budget, even if it does cost the exchequer Rs60,000 crore. We don’t mind. We love farmers.

The point is, since we do have such a caring government, should we be happy just with dramatic gestures? Or should we expect more? Sure, this Budget has flashed several good intentions in education, healthcare, women, children, minorities, the elderly, and the middle classes. But could we expect a little more farsightedness in apna sarkar than its keen focus on the tip of its nose? For the moment, let’s assume that there is.

And let’s just look at the centrepiece of this budget — the wonderful waiver for farmers. Over the last 15 years, we have seen lakhs of suicides by debt-ridden farmers across India. The suicides continued even after the prime minister’s relief package. Now we have more sarkari benevolence slathered on the poverty-stricken peasants, but the underlying causes of their distress remain unaddressed.

Sure, the debt trap is the central issue. And let’s not get into the debate of whether it is right or wrong to waive loans for distressed groups. It does discourage those who repay loans. It may not be fair. But in a crisis, we are often not very fair. My point here is that the farmers’ suicides became a crisis many years ago, and remained one. We did not leap into crisis management mode. We shrugged it off as a chronic problem, somewhere in the dusty, droughty fields, far removed from our globalised urban lifestyle.

To stem the surging suicide figures, we decided to rename the victim — he was not a debt-ridden farmer but an unhappy husband with a nagging wife, or an unemployed man with family problems, or mentally unbalanced. We felt much better.And now, we suddenly look at it as a crisis, and quickly throw some money at it to make it go away. We do not want to know why it exists, how it got to this stage, how it could be rectified. That would be too much trouble.

Citizens of a civilised country are not supposed to kill themselves in droves due to hunger. They blame government policies, moneylenders, procurement prices, new technology and their inability to feed their families, to access loans, to claim insurance, to get their due as citizens of a flourishing democracy. They need loans. New technologies and market-driven changes in cropping patterns have affected the soil, cultivation is more expensive and selling prices lower. Guaranteed government purchase is reduced, and private buyers wring the farmers dry. For most, bank loans are inaccessible.

Claiming even small funds earmarked for them, like the PM’s relief, is tough. So they turn to private moneylenders and traders for loans at horrifying interest rates. Often these traders are also their buyers, who yank prices down, tightening the debt trap. Even the fortunate few who can afford crop insurance are usually not compensated for crop failure.

The FM’s debt waiver may be a relief, but it cannot stand in for long-term policies and implementation. Besides, it only applies to small farmers who have managed to get bank loans, leaving huge numbers untouched. Most farmers in debt-traps have private loans. And they often have large farms.

Now that the government has woken up, maybe it should do something meaningful. Accessible institutional credit, proper crop insurance and fair procurement prices would help. So would job options for farmers struggling with chronic crop failure. At the moment, starving farmers come to Delhi to sell a kidney. So much for jai jawan, jai kisan.

The writer is Editor, The Little Magazine