File photo: Women entrepreneurs at a discussion meeting on the need of a separate bank to promote women entrepreneurial activities Rajib Dhar/Dhaka Tribune
Bangladesh has again topped South Asia in terms of gender equality, said the World Economic Forum.
Bangladesh jumped 25 notches to 47th place in the Global Gender Gap ranking 2017, closing the gender gap by 72%, said the study published on Thursday.
According to the report, Bangladesh scored 0.719 on the gender parity index and was ranked the highest among South Asian nations. Maldives was the second highest ranked South Asian nation at 106th place.
India slipped down the rankings by 21 places and ranked 108th while Sri Lanka ranked 109th, Nepal 111th, Bhutan 124th and Pakistan 143rd.
Bangladesh ranked 7th among 155 countries in the political empowerment category, and performed the worst in the economic participation and opportunity category, in which it ranked 129th.
Bangladesh ranked 72nd last year.
Through the Global Gender Gap Report, the World Economic Forum quantifies the magnitude of gender disparity in various countries and tracks their progress in addressing the issue over time, with a specific focus on the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics.
Valwadi/Lasalgaon/Pimpalgaon, Nashik (Maharashtra): A year after the government replaced high-denomination currency notes with an aim to encourage a cashless economy, onion farmers in Nashik, India’s onion bowl, are finding themselves without money to make essential purchases.
Vijay Nikam, an onion farmer from Maharashtra’s Nashik district, does not have a smartphone, has not heard of netbanking and the ATMs in the nearest town are always out of cash. He had no money for Diwali. One year after demonetisation, IndiaSpend revisited India’s onion bowl to find an economy in crisis.
Government prodding has ensured that middlemen pay them by cheque, but banking facilities are so few and cheques move so slowly between branches that they take weeks to encash.
Since the rural economy still runs largely on cash, farmers without cash are unable to buy seeds and equipment and to pay labourers–which can be disastrous if it delays crop sowing–forcing them to turn to private moneylenders, who charge high interests.
Six weeks after the government removed 86% of currency from the economy on November 9, 2016, IndiaSpend had reported its immediate impact on onion farmers in Nashik, who had complained of inadequate banking facilities, poor internet connectivity and slow cheque clearance.
A year on, we revisited Nashik to see how demonetisation has affected farmers’ lives, and found them no closer to participating in a cashless economy.
Gloom at the mandi
The Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Lasalgaon in Nashik district is Asia’s largest onion market, which handles 15% of the onion crop produced in India.
A week after Diwali, IndiaSpend found the mood there gloomy. Some farmers were gathered around a few lone trees, watching tractors tip produce onto the ground, as traders decided what price to pay.
“The crop which was priced at Rs 3,250 three days ago is now at Rs 2,000 to 1,800 per quintal [100 kg],” Ashok Kadam, a farmer in his 50s, told IndiaSpend to explain why farmers appeared downbeat.
Yet low prices are not their only worry. Since demonetisation, farmers selling their produce at mandis (agricultural marketplaces) such as this one are being paid by cheque.
But cheques take anywhere between four and six weeks to encash, Kadam said, explaining that after he deposits a cheque at a bank branch in his village, Maygavdevi Damori in Kopargoan block in Ahmednagar district, it takes a week to reach a bigger branch and then another week or two to get processed there.
“Farmers sell onion when they are in desperate need for money,” Kadam explained. Unlike some tubers, the white onion can be stored for between four and six months, and sold when a farmer needs money, whether to plant the next crop, settle bills from the previous one, or meet medical or household expenses.
Until November 8, 2016, farmers would receive cash immediately on selling produce. “But now we are not getting cash when we need it most, forcing us to take loans and pay interest,” Kadam said. Notebandi, as demonetisation is colloquially known, did not impact him directly because he did not have much cash, but now cheques are putting him under debt, he emphasised.
“I have no option but to keep my wife’s jewellery as collateral and take a loan to travel to sell my produce. Once the payment gets deposited in my account, I repay the moneylender,” another onion farmer, Bhikaji Gavare from Sheuge village in Yeola block, told IndiaSpend, adding that he is forced to borrow each time he needs money.
“Farmers have repeatedly demanded that mandis switch back to cash transactions, but there has been strong resistance from traders,” said Ashok Gaikwad, an accountant at the Lasalgaon Agricultural Produce Market Committee, Asia’s largest onion market.
Farmers have repeatedly demanded that mandis switch back to cash transactions, but there has been strong resistance from traders, said Ashok Gaikwad, an accountant at Lasalgaon APMC. Earlier this year, when the APMC asked traders to pay in cash or by RTGS (real time gross settlement), traders went on strike, he said, explaining that the slow processing time for cheques gives traders a newfound leeway, which they do not want to lose.
Many traders issue post-dated cheques to further delay payments, Gaikwad said, adding that many farmers have complained against bounced cheques at the APMC.
Traders would pay in cash if the APMC passed a resolution, Sushant Bhandare, another onion trader who sells at the Lasalgaon and Pimpalgaon APMCs, said. The Pimpalgaon and Chandwad APMCs are continuing to pay farmers in cash.
A cashless economy requires an entire ecosystem, which the village still lacks a year after IndiaSpend last visited–there is still no Internet access; and the closest ATM is still 25 km away, the closest nationalised bank 15 km away, and the district cooperative bank 10 km away.
Most villagers here do not own a smartphone–1 billion people across India do not–so they cannot access mobile banking services or internet-based payment systems.
Price control
Meanwhile, traders are facing mounting pressure from the government.
In September, the income tax department raided godowns of seven big onion traders in Nashik, soon after a delegation from the central ministry of consumer affairs visited Lasalgaon to ascertain the reasons for a massive fluctuation in onion prices at the APMCs.
Onion prices had soared in August, a rise partly attributed to 30%-40% less production in Karnataka due to poor rains, and partly to cartelisation by traders, which the federal agriculture ministry had asked the Maharashtra government to check.
The resulting raids halted auctions for a few days, and prices crashed by 35%. In October, traders were asked not to store onions for more than four days, further affecting trade.
Trucks unload onions at the Pimpalgaon Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Nashik, one of the few APMC markets that pay farmers in cash. Farmers prefer to accept a lower rate for a cash payment, instead of accepting cheques that take weeks to encash and often bounce.
“We have reduced our purchase from 5,000 quintal per day to 500 quintal per day,” Bhandare said, adding that it is difficult to unload, sort and transport large consignments in four days because the work is dependent on labour supply and fewer labourers are available for work since Diwali.
As a result, traders are buying at least 50% less than usual, Sanjay Agarwal, an onion trader at Chandwad APMC, told IndiaSpend. “Traders are not willing to buy more than they can sell,” he said, adding that this is the first time in his 25 years as an agent that such stock-keeping curbs have been imposed.
The efforts to keep prices low are aimed at keeping the urban consumer happy, but hurt farmers. “Since this government sees the urban electorate as its core voter base, it is committed to keep them happy at the cost of farmers,” Giridhar Patil, an agricultural expert from Nashik, said. “Even (a) loan waiver is being delayed indefinitely, it was expected to be disbursed from October 31 but last heard, loan waiver documents were ‘under scrutiny’,” he added.
Experts said farmers are not getting the minimum support price for moong (green gram), urad dal (black gram) and soyabean, rendering them unable to recover their investment. And then there are efforts to control prices of farm produce such as onions. “Won’t this push farmers out of farming?” Vaijnath Bhonsale, an activist farmer from Beed district in Maharashtra, said.
In Madhya Pradesh, too, farmers are angry at not being paid in cash and the government has intervened to ask traders to make cash payments for amounts of upto Rs 50,000.
Cashless economy a long way off
Vijay Nikam, an onion farmer from Dabhadi village in Malegaon taluka of Nashik, said he does not have a smartphone, has not heard of netbanking and the ATMs in the nearest town are always out of cash.
IndiaSpend met him at the Pimpalgaon APMC, another large onion market, 70 km from his village. Although there are other markets closer by, he prefers to go to Pimpalgaon because traders there pay in cash. “I had no money for Diwali because of cheque transactions,” he said, adding that he prefers to sell cheap if the payment is in cash because it pays for his transportation, at the very least.
Large farmers affected too
Valwadi is a small village of 1,500 people in Malegaon, Nashik. Located 295 km from Mumbai and 123 km from the district capital, it does not figure on Google Maps. Perpetually short of water, Valwadi’s wells go dry by January each year, just months after the previous year’s monsoon.
Women ferry water from the only well that is the village’s source of drinking water. Half the houses lie abandoned as their owners have moved to live on farms downhill, where there is more water.
By government definition, Deepak Patil, 37, who owns 40 acres of land, is a large farmer–one among India’s 0.70% large cultivators. Even though he grows corn, onion and tur, he is a worried man.
The red onion he had sown in June was destroyed due to unseasonal rains in October. “I need money to sow onion again,” he said, but he has been given post-dated cheques that will take months to encash. “I had a cheque given to me from the biggest onion trader in the city for Rs 21,000 and it bounced thrice. Only after I sat in the branch and called him up did he agree to pay me in cash,” Patil said, adding, “No one gives fertilisers, pesticides or seeds on credit. We need cash on a daily basis to farm.”
Deepak Patil, 37, who owns 40 acres of land in Valwadi village in Nashik, is one of many farmers who find themselves in a bind due to the government’s push towards a cashless economy. He owns a smartphone but his village has no Internet connectivity to enable online transactions. The closest ATM is 25 km away and the closest bank 10 km away. Banks take weeks to process the cheques that farmers receive for selling their produce.
Patil employs 20 labourers, each of whom has to be paid Rs 250 per day. “We spend Rs 1 lakh for 2 acres of land which produce 200 kg of onion,” he told IndiaSpend. Due to low prices and poor rainfall, he earned only Rs 50,000 last season, leaving him unable to pay instalments for a Rs 17 lakh loan he had taken two years ago.
In all, he said, his losses over the last three years amount to Rs 4 to 5 lakh each year. With such poor returns, farmers are losing their faith in farming, he said, adding that he has bought a kirana (grocery) shop in Vadner, a town nearest to the main road, as a backup. “I get calls from the bank asking for loan repayment several times every month. They talk about auctioning my land and shop,” Patil said.
Deepak’s uncle Vijay Patil, who owns 1.5 acres of land and is also under debt, summed up the sentiment among a large section of farmers in the area when he told IndiaSpend: “Farmers do not need loan waiver. We want the right price for our produce.”
Banks treat farmers poorly
Before demonetisation, most farmers relied on district cooperative banks (DCCBs), and many did not have accounts in other banks.
During demonetisation, the Reserve Bank of India prohibited DCCBs from exchanging defunct notes for newly minted ones.
In November 2016, DCCBs in Maharashtra had Rs 2,240 crore in old currency notes, and were allowed to exchange these for new notes only in July 2017.
When Maharashtra announced a loan waiver on agricultural credit of up to Rs 1.5 lakh in June 2017, farmers stopped repaying their debts and the cash reserve with DCCBs dwindled further, stalling their functioning.
Onion farmers say they now have to visit nationalised banks, which they are unfamiliar with and where the staff are unhelpful. “Nationalised banks have never cared to cater to farmers,” Nikam said. “Not even the peon in a nationalised bank helps an illiterate farmer fill the cheque slip,” Gavare added.
(Yadavar is a principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)
British politicians talking about forced migration often like to tell us that ‘Britain has a proud history of welcoming refugees’.
Image: Entrance to the Aida Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem, Wikicommons.
Spending time in the Calais ‘Jungle’ refugee camp last year I asked people there what they thought of British politicians’ words. I heard one answer again and again: ‘You know Britain came uninvited to our countries, and created many problems we experience now’.
Returning from Calais to a research role with the Quakers, I embarked on my own process of self-education. I began by looking up the UN figures on where cross-border refugees are displaced from. Of 22.5 million people, 5.5 million came from Syria, 5.3 million from Palestine, 2.5 million from Afghanistan, 1.4 million from South Sudan. And so it continues – 1 million from Somalia, 646,000 from Sudan, 432,000 from Eritrea, 308,000 from Iraq…
I then began the process of reading up the histories of each of these countries. I knew some of it – but not from my school-time history lessons. In common with many people educated in Britain, the history I was taught principally covered the Roman and Norman invasions of Britain, a quick jump forward to Henry the Eighth’s wives, and then the Second World War, three times over (although mainly the European bits). The only British occupation we learnt about was in post-Nazi Germany.
Missing from the curriculum was Britain’s involvement in the same countries from which people are fleeing now, many of them attacked or ruled by Britain in my grandparents’ lifetimes: Palestine: Occupied by Britain in 1917, part of which in 1948 became Israel after the British mandate ended.
Afghanistan: Invaded by Britain in 1838, continued military actions in 1920s and 30s, invaded with others again in 2001.
Somalia: Occupied by European powers including Britain in 1888, and ruled in part (Somaliland) until 1960.
Sudan: Divided and ruled by Britain from 1898 to 1956.
Eritrea: Occupied by Britain in 1941, ceded to Ethiopia in 1952 laying the groundwork for the long running civil war that followed.
Iraq: Invaded by Britain in 1917, 1941, 1991 and 2003.
The list continues: Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe. All of them countries which thousands of people have fled from, all of which have been occupied or ruled by Britain or British interests within living memory.
Taken together, they account for well over half of the world’s refugees. Include Syria – being attacked by British forces right now for the third time in a century, and it’s more than three quarters.
With my heart in my mouth I then made my way to the figures for what proportion of the world’s refugees reside in Britain. There it was: around 0.5%.
The point of this exercise is not to make British people feel bad. It’s to say that the story of people being forced to flee their homes did not begin in 2015 when it reappeared on our television screens. This is the effect of a decades-old cycle of violence – fuelled by resource exploitation and arms sales – which can have effects for generations.
It’s a cycle of violence which has been accelerated in the past fifteen years. As with the rise of IS/Daesh – beneficiaries of the recent British military interventions in Iraq and Libya – the effects can sometimes be both rapid and catastrophic.
Six former, senior IAS bureaucrats, including two belonging to the Gujarat cadre, CK Koshy and , Dr VV Rama Subba Rao, both of whom served as additional chief secretaries, industry and home, respectively, in the Gujarat government, have taken strong exception to making Aadhaar compulsory, insisting that step by step, it is encroaching upon and disrupting the lives ordinary people, denying entitlements, particularly to the poor.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the six former IAS officials have particularly objected to the government adopting what they call “a laissez-faire approach” to Aadhaar, adding, there is complete “absence of effective regulation and control”, leading to “unauthorised trading of personal data, rent seeking by intermediaries and touts, issuance of fake cards, targeting of Aadhaar number holders, and such like abuses.”
Pointing out that the CEO of the Unique Identity of India (UIDAI), which is supposed to own Aadhaar, “has registered about 40,000 cases for various malpractices”, the ex-officials say, “The penal provisions in the Act have not proved to be a serious deterrent.”
The four other IAS officials who have signed the letter are — MK Bezboruah, former Chairman, 3rd Delhi Finance Commission; Surjit Kishore Das, former Chief Secretary, Government of Uttarakhand; Kamal Kant Jaswal, former Secretary, Government of India; and Lalit Mathur, formerly Director General, NIRD, Union Ministry of Rural Development.
“The recent hacking of Aadhaar data by an IIT alumnus has demonstrated how fragile the system is”, the ex-officials say, adding, “The unabated seeding of Aadhaar in different databases has introduced new vulnerabilities into the system by providing access to hitherto isolated silos through a common platform.”
Pointing out how private entities are allowed to get away with their wrong doing, the ex-officials cite a “campaign of the team led by Sharad Sharma of iSpirit and IndiaStack, entities that are deeply involved with the Aadhaar enterprise”. They add, “When these individuals were exposed on social media, instead of being chastised for spreading falsehoods, they were actually congratulated by Nandan Nilekani and other luminaries of the industry for being ‘brave’ enough to apologise!”
“With vested interests of such stature in support, Aadhaar seems to have descended into the realm of post-truth”, they say, adding, “It is incredible that no one really knows how Aadhaar has been performing. This is because the UIDAI, which is the sole repository of all information on Aadhaar, has resolved not to disclose any data; it has even refused information under the RTI, on grounds of national security.”
Pointing towards how unreliable Aadhaar dependence on fingerprint biometrics, based on “an intrinsically unreliable technology”, is, the ex-officials
, “The UIDAI’s own proof of concept (POC) trials for fingerprint recognition showed an error of up to 15 percent with the best finger”, adding, “The implications are serious and worrisome… With a population of 80 crore under PDS, rejections can be as high as 12 crore”, as evident “from reports and surveys in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.”
“According to the State of Aadhaar Report 2016 -17 by IDinsight, in the case of pensions in Andhra Pradesh, the rate of fingerprint authentication failure after three attempts was as high as 17.4 percent. In Telangana, the failure rate under MGNREGA averaged 7.8 percent”, the ex-IAS bureaucrats note.
The much acclaimed “Harvard Business Review” (HBR), in a strongly worded commentary to mark one year of demonetisation, has said that demonetization in a “complex economy” should been preceded by “a sound theory; a rationale for why the underlying assumptions are valid, and the evidence for those assumptions; and cost-benefit analyses, including accounting for the systemic effects, unintended consequences, and learnings from similar actions elsewhere.”
The study, titled “One Year After India Killed Off Cash, Here’s What Other Countries Should Learn from It” and written by Bhaskar Chakravorti, senior associate dean of International Business & Finance at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, the commentary says, “It’s unclear if any other experts have been consulted on the India policy.” Commenting on the fact that the only “expert” who might have been the inspiration was “a hitherto unknown mechanical engineer-turned-turned-social-activist named Anil Bokil”, HBR says, all that he did was ‘a five-point plan for ‘principled, prosperous, and peaceful living’ and a 94-page PowerPoint manifesto that he pitched to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
What are the factors that should have been considered before “invalidating cash” of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes,asks the study. “Invalidating 86% of the value of cash in circulation should be an automatic red flag, because it could bring the economy to the brink of chaos,” HBR answers.
Observing that “90% of India’s workers are in the informal sector, where the predominant form of payment is cash. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which such “double” invalidation would not constitute a body blow to the workforce and the economy.” “In a recent analysis of income tax probes, the cash component of undeclared wealth in India was estimated to be only about 6%. In other words, the policy instrument was aimed at the wrong target: most undisclosed wealth is held in noncash assets. All of this data was readily available and should have given the policy makers pause,” HBR continues.
There are also sharp comments on how the privileged and the rich in India get over regulations. The fact, says HBR, was the fact that “in Indian society, there is access to money-laundering networks and creative schemes for getting around rules and regulations,” rendered the step meaningless. Thus, during noteban, “people with large holdings of the old banknotes sold them at a discount to brokers who then distributed them across a network of other people to deposit smaller amounts at banks so that they would not trigger an audit.”
The result was, says HBR, “India’s central bank, the RBI, recently reported that of the estimated 15.28 trillion rupees ($239 billion) in currency taken out of circulation by demonetization, almost 99% had been returned to the banking system. The original argument for demonetization unraveled because of the strategy of leaving the holders of illegal cash stranded with useless banknotes appears to have mostly failed.”
As for the rationale that the “demonetization was good for weaning the country off its dependence on cash and moving transactions to digital platforms, thereby leading to greater efficiencies, transparency, and growth of online commerce, thereby catapulting India more forcefully into the digital age”, HBR says, “Unfortunately, here, too, the policy’s impact has fallen short.” “According to additional data from the RBI, while digital transactions did spike post-demonetization (when consumers had few alternatives), they have now dropped below the peak levels in both volume and value. Growth in digital transactions has been slowing each month since demonetization”, it says, wondering, “It is not clear why invalidating 86% of the country’s cash was necessary to promote a single payment platform.”
In what should prove to be a warning bell for Gandhians of all hues, a dangerous trend appears to be taking shape, accelerated amidst a sharp upswing of information explosion, especially through the social media. A senior Dalit rights activist, who has been actively involved in organizing the Valmiki community in Gujarat, put out a Facebook post justifying Nathuram Godse murdering Mahatma Gandhi on October 3, next day of Gandhi Jayanti.
While this activist deleted the post 24 hours later when he was told this would send a “wrong message”, when contacted, he told Counterview, “I went to a Dalit rally in Dholka. There I came to know for the first time how Gandhi pressured Babasaheb Ambedkar into giving up the demand for separate electorate for Dalits, allowing us to elect our own representatives to legislatures.”
The activist, who has been in the forefront of the fight for the cause of manual scavengers and manhole workers, continued: “Gandhi betrayed us Dalits. This was pretty evident. This angered me. Why did Gandhi, who is called a Mahatma, blackmail Ambedkar like this this? In my angry mood, I began surfing Facebook, and I found on that day a post justifying Godse killing Gandhi. I copied it and posted it on my timeline.”
The grassroots activist, who has worked hard to identify manhole workers who died due to asphyxiation, fighting for their legal right to get the Rs 10 lakh compensation, as ordered by the Supreme Court, admitted, “Of course, I didn’t know the implications of the post. When brought to light, I deleted it.”
A senior Gujarat activist, known for his campaigns on mining issues across India, Ashok Shrimali, also a Dalit, surprised over the extent of hate towards Gandhi could reach, admitted, however, that the “dislike for Gandhi is nothing new. It exists among Dalits in Gujarat, as elsewhere.” He added, this comes from “lack of rapport between Dalits and Gandhians.”
Poster at Dalit rally contrasts Gandhi’s view on separate electorate with Ambedkar’s
The Dalit rally in Dholka, which took place on October 2, Gandhiji’s birthday, was part of a series of similar rallies, organized by the Abhadcched Mukt Bharat Andolan (Untouchability Free India Movement): Mission 2047, launched by well-known Dalit rights activist Martin Macwan, where speakers, who included Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar, asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to accept the demand put forward by Dr BR Ambedkar, made 85 years ago, to provide separate electorate for Dalits. An earlier rally by the same organization, in which thousands of Dalits participated, took place on September 24, 2017, the anniversary of the pact between Ambedkar which “blocked” separate electorate for the Dalits, at Modi’s birth place, Vadnagar, pointing towards Gandhi’s “betrayal” of Ambedkar.
Separate electorate, as demanded by Ambedkar in early 1930s from the British rulers, was meant to allow Dalits (Ambedkar called them depressed classes) to choose their own elected representatives, with Dalits having two votes — one for the general candidate and another for the Dalit candidate. Ambedkar believed this was necessary to give proper representation to the Dalits in legislatures, and remove the scourge of untouchability.
Disagreeing with Ambedkar’s move, which seemed acceptable to the British, Gandhiji sat on fast unto death, “claiming” it would divide Hindus, the rally was told. On September 24, 1932, Gandhiji broke his fast, reaching an agreement with Ambedkar, under which Gandhiji, as representative of the dominant caste Hindus, assured Ambedkar, as representative of depressed classes, that caste Hindus would take full responsibility for the abolition of untouchabily from India.
On getting independence, instead of separate electorate, the Constitution of India allowed separate reserved constituencies where only Dalit candidates would fight elections, with all adult voters would vote, the rally was further told. This has created a situation, over the years, where Dalit candidates mainly woo non-Dalit voters, as they know that the Dalit votes would be divided between Dalit candidates.
Macwan regretted at one of the rallies, “Even 70 years after independence and 85 years after the Poona Pact, untouchability has remained intact, and successive governments of India have failed to abolish it despite the existence of stringent laws. Reserved constituencies for Dalits candidates has not helped either. Hence the demand to revert back to the demand put forward by Ambedkar to provide separate electorate for Dalits.”
India’s agricultural crisis has taken a toll on farmers and peasants across the country. First, some of the country’s most productive farming belts suffered under successive droughts in 2015 and 2016. Then, just as things began to look up on the weather front, the Modi government dropped two consecutive bombs of demonetization and GST, which according to experts, completely destroyed the rural economy.
Image: Indian Express
In an exclusive interview to Sabrangindia, P Krishnaprasad, Finance Secretary of All India KisanSabha, tells us how India’s farming community continues to suffer even today.
“The BJP came to power on the back of campaign slogans about the economic inadequacies of common people. But their subsequent policies have failed to reflect that commitment,” says P Krishnaprasad. He speaks of the series of protests and agitation by farmers in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and says that this is a reflection of their growing discontent with the present government. “Even simple things like implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission Report like paying farmers 50% above the minimum support price have not be done yet,” he says explaining why big and small farmers across India are frustrated. “Take the case of Mansaur where farmers who used to sell white onions for Rs 120 a kg are now forced to sell it for throwaway prices like Rs 10 to Rs 15 per kg! Why wouldn’t they be upset,” he asks.
He is also critical of the failed demonetisation experiment which according to him broke the backbone of the rural economy by wiping away currency.
“Without cash agricultural trade came to a standstill, forcing them to sell at a loss ranging from at least 20 to as much as 60 percent. This trend of distress sale continued for as long as four to five months after demonetisation,” says Krishnaprasad. He is also critical of the forced digitization of money which he says is not viable in rural India. “First, many of the Jan Dhan accounts were just on paper. Then, the banks were in towns that were 15 to 20 kilometers away from the villages, making it difficult for farmers to operate on a day to day basis,” he says, adding “Ground realities in rural India are very different from Delhi and Mumbai. We don’t have an ATM at every street corner!”
Krishnaprasad also feels GST played a huge role in pushing the agricultural economy further down a spiral. “All agricultural produce needs to be transported from the fields to the markets, from rural to semi-urban and urban areas. GST adversely affected the transportation industry and therefore impacted the agricultural sector too,” he explains. “What’s worse is that the Modi government has failed to bring down fuel prices, thus worsening the economics of transporting agricultural produce,” he says.
Krishnaprasad is also critical of other government policies related to agriculture such as the new land acquisition law which he feels completely ignores the best interest of farmers. He also finds FDI in agriculture problematic as he feels it can be misused to perpetuate the monopoly and dominance of corporations over farmers. “Even initiatives like digital platforms to help traders find agricultural produce at cheap rates were originally meant to streamline the process by eliminating middlemen, ended up hurting the petty traders while large traders made huge profits. For example, they would purchase dal at Rs 20 a kg and sell it for Rs 180 per kg,” he says.
“The disillusionment is showing. There has been a 42 per cent increase in farmer suicides,” he claims. “Farmers are pushed further and further into debt, the insurance schemes are not managed properly either. Out of a premium of Rs 21,500 crores, only Rs 6,300 crores has been disbursed,” he claims. “Then there is the ridiculous ban on cattle trade. Farmers love their cattle and it’s not like all cattle owners and traders are from the minority community,” he says. “Farmers only sell cattle in emergencies and when they have no other alternative. On one hand you cripple cash supply, on the other you prevent them from getting money by selling cattle,” he laments.
Krishnaprasad says farmers today have three basic demands. “We want remunerative price for all crops. We want the implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission. Finally, we want freedom from indebtedness,” he signs off.
A Dalit woman and her three children were found dead in Junagarh district of Gujarat on Thursday. Their bodies were recovered from the septic tank of their home in Mangrol village. The deceased have been identified as Shardaben Gohel (35), her son Rutvik (13), and two daughters Doli (12) and Neha (7).
Representative Image (Shutterstock)
Shardaben and her husband were both farm labourers. While she was at home with the children, her husband had gone to work in the morning.
“Bodies of Shardaben Gohel, Rutvik, Doli, and Neha were found in a septic tank of a house allotted to them by the owner of the farm,” Mangrol police station sub-inspector H V Rathod said. Prima facie, the four were attacked by a sharp object, the officer said. Police have registered a case of murder and further investigation is on.
