A RURAL MANIFESTO AND AN (ATTEMPTED) ENCYCLOPAEDIA
Varun Gandhi’s 825-page volume tries to fill the intellectual vacuum in India’s rural economy
Farm anger will be one of the biggest issues in the forthcoming general elections. To be sure, India’s rural economy has been mired in a systemic crisis for more than a decade. Yet, we do not have an agricultural policy. The absence of a coordinated and longterm strategy to deal with the farm economy is the biggest testimony to the apathy of the Indian state towards this crisis. It is on this count that Varun Gandhi seems to be an exception. An 825-page volume on India’s rural economy by a member of the Lok Sabha has tried to fill the intellectual vacuum which the legislative and executive arms of the Indian state have left vis-àvis agriculture in the recent past. One hopes that this would only be the first among many such interventions from this group of people.
The book is titled A Rural Manifesto, which is not surprising, given the author’s background in politics. It would be extremely heartening if India were to witness a proactive rather than reactive politics to transform the rural economy. However, A Rural Manifesto is voluminous, not well-organised, and badly edited. For example, in the chapter on non-farm incomes (among the most important ones in the book), the discussion on non-farm diversification begins with a discussion about a drought-affected farmer in Tikamgarh district from the Bundelkhand region in Madhya Pradesh. Bundelkhand is one of the most backward regions in the country, and hence the author had the reader’s attention immediately. Except, the subsequent discussion on non-farm diversification neither returns to the farmer or to any coherent insight on the issue. An intellectual work which is an effort to read can be called anything but a manifesto. The book has other issues as well. The discussion on livestock in the non-farm income chapter does not even mention the ongoing debate on the disruption to the livestock economy due to the gau raksha frenzy. It is difficult to say whether the author is being politically correct – the Bharatiya Janata Party and its fellow travelers have played an important role in fanning the gau raksha frenzy – or he genuinely believes that this is not an issue worth discussing.
Another general feature of the book is its inability to differentiate between clichéd but counterproductive and counter- intuitive but germane points about the farm crisis. For example, a large part of the discussion in the first chapter prioritises the crisis of production in agriculture over the crisis of viability (prices). While there is no doubt that India’s small farmers face many hardships and uncertainties, it is also true that India has not faced a serious food shortage in a long time now. Some of the examples given in the book do not hold today. For example, the book applauds the Yantradoot Scheme – a farm leasing cum training programme – of the Madhya Pradesh government and cites the rise in soya yields as a proof of its success. The same soya has become the embodiment of the farm crisis in Madhya Pradesh today after prices came down significantly compared to earlier levels.
The impact of economic reforms on agriculture is not even discussed in the chapter on economic inputs. While one could agree or disagree with the Left’s view on the impact on Liberalisation on Indian agriculture, any comprehensive analysis of Indian agriculture must look at the changes in input and output markets for farmers in the post-reform period.
To say all this is not to belittle Gandhi’s effort, or more importantly, his intent. The non-farm dependent non-poor Indians, and there are millions of them, need to start thinking about agriculture. We are already behind the curve on this. This book is a much needed political intervention to the collective effort which must be channelized behind this cause.