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Agricultural strategy, internal security & sovereignty

The year 2007 ended with some significant steps in areas relating to internal security and food sovereignty. In November 2007, alarmed by the persistence of agrarian distress in several parts of the country resulting in those engaged in a life-sustaining profession taking their own lives, the Government of India placed a National Policy for Farmers in Parliament. The document is based on the draft submitted by the National Commission on Farmers in October 2006. This Policy , the first of its kind in the history of either colonial or independent India, calls for a paradigm shift from a commodity-centred to a human-centred approach in agricultural planning and programmes. The aim of the Policy is to stimulate attitudes and actions that should result in assessing agricultural progress in terms of improvement in the income of farm families not only to meet their consumption requirements, but also to enhance their capacity to invest in farm-related activities. The National Policy for Farmers has for the first time recognised the “need to focus on the economic well being of the farmers, rather than just on production.” If this Policy is implemented in letter and spirit by the Central and State governments, we can say goodbye to the era of farmers’ suicides.

Another area where some recent policy decisions were announced relates to containing the threat to internal security caused by the spread of Naxalite movements. Here, the major focus has been on strengthening police and para-military forces and providing them with better arms and equipment. While this is important, we should learn lessons from the tragic human consequences of the U.S.-led strategies to contain terrorism. History teaches us that violence breeds violence. Even as the Chief Minister’s Conference on Internal Security announced the decision to strengthen the police-centric approach to contain the Naxalite danger, there was a report that Naxalite leaders have also decided to modernise their weapon power. Where will this end?

A third development is in the area of food sovereignty. India’s decision to import wheat is facing problems related to both cost and quality. The international prices of food grains are going up, partly due to the steep increase in the price of petroleum products and the consequent desire to produce more bio-fuels, leading to the diversion of prime farm land from food to fuel production. In his book, Hand of Destiny, C. Subramaniam, who was Minister for Food and Agriculture from 1964 to 1967, has described vividly the humiliation he had to undergo while seeking urgent food shipment under the PL 480 programme of the U.S. Indira Gandhi’s decision to build substantial food reserves was related to her clear understanding of the relationship between food self-reliance and national sovereignty.

What should we do in 2008 to concurrently strengthen internal security and national sovereignty? The means to both lies in accelerated agricultural advance based on conservation farming, or what I have been referring to as the “ever-green revolution” pathway of improving productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm.

Let me take the example of Jharkhand, a Naxalite hotspot, and examine what needs to be done to avoid the gradual collapse of a democratic system of governance.

Of Jharkhand’s total population of 27 million, nearly 21 million, or 78 per cent live in villages. Nearly 49 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, and India’s poverty line is probably the most austerely defined in the world. In some districts like Gumla and Simdega, where Naxalite activity is serious, more than 85 per cent of the predominantly tribal workforce depends on crop and animal husbandry and minor forest produce for its livelihood. Over 80 per cent of the farm holdings belong to the small and marginal farmer category. More than 80 per cent of the average annual rainfall of 1300 mm to 1400 mm is received between June and September, when farmers cultivate crops such as paddy, maize, pulses and oilseeds. Productivity is low and the marketable surplus is consequently modest. Systematic steps to harvest and store the rainwater during the South West monsoon period and to use the conserved water for a second October to March crop are yet to be initiated. Although the groundwater availability is satisfactory, tube-well irrigation is rare. The availability of electricity as well as rural communications are poor. As a result, most of the land remains fallow from October to May. This in turn results in seasonal unemployment, affecting nearly half the population of Jharkhand. What are the implications of nearly one crore people remaining without work for over six months in a year?

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme provides some relief, but this programme provides opportunities only for unskilled work. Thanks to the expansion of opportunities for education, more and more young women and men are becoming educated, but there is no corresponding growth in opportunities for skilled employment. In the two million hectares of idle land during winter and summer months and in the ten million idle hands of cultivators, we can find seeds of resentment and disillusionment with the current priorities in development, thereby creating conditions conducive for recruitment to the Naxalite cadre.

Guns will not solve the problem without coincident efforts to grow two blades of grass where only one blade grew before. Unless agricultural development and the police pathway of strengthening internal security are integrated, we will see the growth of violence and, kidnapping and the worsening of law and order in States such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and the other States confronted with the problem of crores of men and women who do not know where their next meal will come from. A second crop, particularly a high-value and low water-requiring one such as pulses, oilseeds, medicinal plants, vegetables or fodder crops, will make all the difference between poverty-induced under-nutrition and adequate nutrition and viable livelihoods for millions of farm families now depending upon a single crop. The single monsoon season crop also faces risks like drought and floods.

Effective rainwater harvesting, sustainable use of groundwater and good irrigation water management will help raise at least two good crops, as shown by the residents of Hiware Bazar in Ahmednagar district, who received the 2007 National Water Prize and where no one remains below the poverty line. If groundwater can also be tapped with diesel or solar pumps (in the absence of electricity), even 3 crops can be raised.

What we urgently need in Naxalite affected areas, is an Irrigation for Internal Security Programme. This can be undertaken with funds from Bharat Nirman, the National Food Security and Horticulture Missions and the Rs. 25,000 crore Rashtiya Krishi Vikas Yojana.

The Irrigation for Internal Security Programme should have three dimensions. First, the productivity of current kharif crops like paddy should be doubled with a proper mix of technology, services and pricing and marketing policies. Secondly, one more additional crop, which can fetch the maximum income per unit of water, should be grown using harvested or groundwater. Finally, non-farm employment and income-earning opportunities like sericulture, the production of vegetables, flowers and mushrooms, agro-processing and other market-driven enterprises should be enlarged. Youth will be attracted to agriculture only if brain (that is, technology) and brawn can be combined in farm work.

Under conditions of small farms and fragmented holdings, Jal Swaraj or water security can be achieved only through group endeavour in rain water harvesting and sustainable and equitable use. Lift irrigation using hand-operated treadle pumps can provide crop life-saving irrigation. Community tube wells and community nurseries of location-specific varieties of crop plants will help to improve both crop productivity and profitability. Education, social mobilisation and regulation will all be necessary to promote scientific watershed development and water management. Along the watershed, market driven microenterprises supported by micro-credit can be promoted, leading to the emergence of bioindustrial watersheds. For this purpose, Gram Sabhas should organise Pani Panchayats that can help to ensure effective community cooperation in water saving and sharing.

It will be wrong to ignore the multi-dimensional nature of the Naxalite problem. However, as a single step, creating opportunities for employment from October to May through community managed minor irrigation programmes, leading to year-round work and income security, will make the largest contribution to peace and security. Just as the Government of India has introduced special programmes in 33 districts affected by severe agrarian crisis, it will be prudent to introduce immediately an Irrigation for Internal Security programme, so that there will be work for millions of tribal and rural families from October to May 2008-09. Such a programme will also lead to the production of additional food grains and thereby strengthen food sovereignty.

As stressed in the National Policy for Farmers, there is need for a change in the mindset of those living in shining India towards those producing their food in suffering India. A beginning can be made in 2008 to achieve an attitudinal revolution by recognising the contributions of outstanding farm women and men through “National Sovereignty Saviour Awards.” This will help to underline the pivotal role of farm families in safeguarding internal security and external respect.

The major constraint encountered in implementing the special packages for farmers’ suicide prone districts is the near impossibility of bringing convergence and synergy among the numerous programmes operated by different government departments. The Irrigation for Internal Security Programme may meet with the same fate, unless government, private and academic sectors and civil society organisations work together as Members of a Peace and Security symphony orchestra. This will also be in the enlightened self-interest of politicians, industrialists, public servants, the police and the general public. Grain is a better catalyst of peace and goodwill than gun.

(Professor M.S. Swaminathan is Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and former Chairman, National Commission on Farmers.)

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