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ShareConsumers, whose already deficient attention spans have been abridged further by information overload, want only easily digestible, bite-sized bits of information, preferably in words of no more than two syllables. The headline number called the GDP, which offers a snappy encapsulation of economic activity, serves that purpose just fine.
Therefore, when official economic data released on Monday showed that GDP for the second quarter of 2009 was 6.1 per cent, against 5.8 per cent in the first quarter, we all feel reassured that the Indian economy is on the recovery track.
In some ways, the recovery hypothesis is true, of course, although that optimism must be tempered by the reality that parts of India are in the middle of one of our most severe droughts in many years.
Yet, such 'GDP worship' reaches perverse levels when the argument is advanced that given the structural evolution of the Indian economy over the decades, this drought won't adversely impact India's GDP growth overmuch, and is therefore not to be feared.
Clichéd television images of farmers squatting on parched fields may momentarily intrude on our consciousness, but other than that we can live with this drought, we're told, because it isn't really all that bad...
Such assumptions don't just reflect a cold-hearted calculus at work among 'GDP worshippers', they also mirror a flawed understanding of economics and its interconnectedness with politics insofar as it influences public policy.
It is, of course, true that the structural drivers of the Indian economy have changed over the years. For instance, the contribution of the agricultural sector (and its related sub-sectors) to India's GDP has almost halved since 1980 --from 34 per cent then to about 17.5 per cent today.
Also, over time, more and more agricultural land in India has come under irrigation, which insulates farmers to an extent from the vagaries of the elements. But even today, less than 45 per cent of area under major crops is covered by irrigation, which still leaves large sections of rural farm-based agricultural activity at the mercy of the monsoons.
However, the true impact of a drought on the farm sector can be better understood by looking at employment statistics. Even today, agriculture accounts for over 55 per cent of aggregate employment in India. For at least until 2050, more than half of India's population will, as Mahatma Gandhi famously said, "live in its villages".
Apart from rendering their wretched lives even more so and proving a drag on rural consumption (thereby bringing down the God of GDP a notch or two), a drought will additionally come to bite even city slickers by way of inflation.
Since 1950, we've had 12 droughts, and on an average, agricultural output fell in each of those years by 3 per cent. Relative to a normal year, when agricultural output grows by about 3 per cent, we'll likely witness a 6 percentage point drop in agricultural output this year.
Consumer price inflation is, at 11.9 per cent, already at a 10-year high, and even the more closely watched Wholesale Price Inflation index is starting to pick up. If a monetary policy intervention is required to tame inflation, it will certainly impact growth.
This drought is, in many ways, closer than you realise. And under its impact, emaciated farmers won't just die in faraway places, their bodies will tumble out of television screens and into your swank living rooms. Perhaps then we'll acknowledge that there's no such thing as a good drought, and we're all in a sense still sons of the soil.
