Volume 3, No. 2, February 2002

While the politicians are obsessed with war, terrorism and anti-Islamic hysteria, thousands are dying a slow and painful death in India’s vast countryside. Notwithstanding yet another "good monsoon", droughts and floods have yet again, ravaged vast parts of the countryside. While the BJP-led government can send crores of aid to Afghan refugees and medicine to run a hospital for the Northern Alliance mafia, it is unable to spare a paisa for the lakhs dying in India. Ironically, some of the worst hit states this year — A.P., Maharashatra and Karnataka — boast of the fastest hi-tech modernization. While these governments spend vast sums on computerization of their departments, and on building the infrastructure for the info-tech industry, they claim they have no funds to meet the cash component of the food-for-work programme.

Yet, it is not just a question of national calamities ravaging the countryside; repeated reports of rural destitution, as shown in the columns of this magazine, shows that the cause of the extreme impoverisation of the rural populace lies in the very agrarian structure itself. Yearly occurrence means that the roots of the problem lies, not in exceptional factors, but has become endemic to the very system itself. We find a bad situation has been aggravated ten-fold due to the policies of globalisation.

On the existing fragile semi-feudal framework, has been added policies of ‘economic reforms’, which has devastated the vast countryside. This has entailed: deep cuts in government spending on rural schemes; winding up of cheap rural credit; reduction of subsidies on food, fertilizers, electricity and other inputs; handing over grain purchase to TNCs; and opening up the country to a flood of cheap agrarian imports.

The tragedy of rural India has been witness to a growing number of starvation deaths each year, with this year breaking all records. A year where a mountain of 6 crores (1 crore=10 millions) tonnes of foodgrains, hoarded in Central godowns, is not allowed to feed the dying populace. With millions of tonnes rotting and the government paying huge costs for storage, it is yet unwilling to distribute this to a wasted mass of humanity. It is unwilling to even reduce the hiked up rates of the Public Distribution System (PDS). This is not merely callous, it is outright criminal. It means consciously pushing thousands of children, old and infirm people to an agonizing death, at a time when there is easy availability of grain to save them. Even in the great famines of the past, the cruelty was never so blatant, as then no grains existed for distribution. Today, they are being knowingly starved to death. The Vajpayees, Advanis and their gang of rulers, are nothing but mass butcherers, inhuman executioners and dastardly killers of the worst kind. And when news of starvation deaths come in from Orissa, not only is this denied by government officials and the chief minister, but also by the prime minister himself who said that "some of them even had a bank balance".

The agonizing tales of woe that finally reach the media is only tip of the iceberg. Beneath lies a gigantic mass of suffering humanity unknown to the urban media. The last six months have seen droughts ravage vast parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and UP. Many of these states are facing drought for the third year in succession. In addition, recently, floods have also destroyed much of the crops in Bihar, Kerala, Orissa and AP.

Does willful starvation, not amount to murder? If the number of innocents killed were a measure of ‘terrorism’, then the massacre in India’s countryside by starvation would make the present BJP-led government the worst terrorist institution in the world!!

The Toll

Maharashtra is facing its worst drought since 1972. 20,000 out of the 42,000 villages are reeling under drought. This year’s Kharif crop loss is estimated to be Rs.5,707 crores. According to a report, 8,000 children died due to malnutrition in the tribal district of Nasik alone. If one looks at the entire state, 30,000 children below the age of six have died in the last year in the rural areas. For example, in Nandurbar district, just 12 hours from Mumbai, 871 children have perished in the last 5 months, of which 281 deaths were in August alone. Cattle too are dying. With prices of fodder having risen 10-fold, cattle are being sold at throwaway prices.

This year Karnataka faced its worst drought since the last 15 years. And when rains finally came, the Kharif crop was all but destroyed. In fact 23 out of the 28 districts have been declared drought-affected. In one-third of the cropped area no sowing took place. In some districts, like Bijapur, Raichur, Bangalore rural, Kolar and Mandya, there was virtually no sowing at all. During the period 1999 to 2001, 110 farmers have committed suicide. In Sept.2001 alone, 30 farmers committed suicide. When rains finally came, the bulk of the Kharif crop was destroyed.

In Gujarat 12,000 villages are, yet again, seriously afflicted by drought. The earthquake-devastated district of Bhuj is facing one of its worst ever droughts.

In Rajasthan 3.3 crore people and 4 crore cattle of 31,000 villages are in the grip of drought. 14 deaths by starvation of children have already been reported from Udaipur district. Those in the tribal areas of South and West Rajasthan are facing famine and death due to hunger. Already, in the current year 800 tribal children have died of starvation.

In A.P. the government has declared 22 out of 23 districts as drought-affected. Later, a cyclone, killing 200 and destroying crops worth Rs.900 crores hit A.P. In the first nine months of this year 160 farmers committed suicide, of which 30 were in Anantpur district alone.

In Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh the drought is reported to be the worst in the last 50 years. There have been huge migrations of the population from Chattisgarh. In Bihar floods have ravaged the State, affecting 5 million people in 16 districts, killing over 100 people. And even in vast parts of Punjab and Haryana, entire tracts of the cotton crop have been destroyed by the Bollworm pest, pushing thousands of farmers to ruin. Here too, reports have been coming in of numerous instances of suicides.

And finally, comes the horror stories from Orissa. Not only has the traditional famine belt of Koraput-Bolongir-Kalahandi been affected, but also districts like Rayagada, Gajapatti, etc. have also been severely hit by drought. 21 out of the 30 districts are facing severe drought. Here too, there has been huge migration of the rural population. Kashipur block of Rayagada district has been the focus of media attention. Here, over hundred deaths by starvation, and starvation-related diseases have been reported. Though the actual figure will be far worse, even these have been denied by officials and politicians. The report of a journalist purchasing two little children for Rs.1,100 plus 15kg of rice brings out the extent of the tragedy. Stories abound of entire families being wiped out due to consumption of fungus-infected mango kernel and poisonous mushrooms, for want of other food. Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik said that "mango kernels are a local delicacy; there have been no starvation deaths". No wonder he was greeted by mango kernels thrown at his entourage by irate villagers, when he went visiting the region!

The attitude of both the Central and State governments towards the desperate plight of its citizens is not merely callous, it is outright criminal. Both, in fact deny any starvation deaths at all. Much like their earlier British colonial counterparts, they go so far as to put the blame on the people, for their supposed bad habits.

The Central government has refused to reduce the PDS prices of food grains, even though it is willing to export it at below the BPL rates. Earlie,r it even refused to release any of its huge stocks of grain for the starving millions. Later it agreed to dispatch a meager 24 lakh tonnes, most of which were rotten, and would anyway have had to be thrown away. In other words, foodgrains that were unfit for human consumption, were supplied to those facing starvation, in return for cheap labour extracted through food-for-work programmes. Not surprisingly the amount released was roughly equivalent to that estimated to have been rotting in the godowns — i.e. about 20 lakhs (1million=10 lakhs) tonnes.

Next, the Centre has been announcing scheme after scheme for the poorest (a record 210 in all), which primarily have propaganda value, and lie unimplemented. For example, the Antyodya Scheme, is supposed to give 25kg grain every month to the "poorest of the poor" at subsidized rates. Though the scheme was announced last December, as little as 2 lakh tonnes was lifted in the first quarter of 2001-02 (Apr. to Jun). The situation is much the same with the Annapurna programme of grains for the elderly. Similarly will be the fate of the recently announced Rs.10,000 crore Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojna, which was more of a UP-electoral stunt of the Prime Minister.

The State governments’ approach, whether of the ruling coalition, or of the Opposition, is much similar. After howling for foodgrains, even the limited amounts sent by the Centre lies unused. So, of the 24 lakh tonnes of foodgrains which the Centre has given for free distribution under the food-for-work programme, the States have lifted only 14 lakh tonnes (just 58%). Even of this quantity, it has distributed a mere 7 lakh tonnes.

The reason for this is that, in the food-for-work programmes the State governments have to bear the full cash component of the expenditure — which entails about 50% of the entire cost. This involves the transport costs of the grains together with the cash component of the wage payment. This they are not prepared to do, as they have other priorities.

So, for example, the Karnataka government could allocate Rs.20 crores for the completion of the full computerisation of the revenue departments of all the 175 talukas, but said it had no money to bare the cost of transport of the foodgrains.

In Orissa, till mid-September, as against the 3 lakh tonnes of rice allotted for the food-for-work programme, the State government had drawn only 54,000 tonnes (a mere 18%), and not a single tone of this had been distributed.

In A.P., the CM announced scheme after scheme — the bulk of these lie unimplemented, while the balance found their way into the coffers of the TDP mafia. In fact he even went back on his word to provide a minimum wage to all farm labourers of 5kg rice plus Rs.30 per day. He only gave the rice component of the wage. In AP too much of the food-for-work grains lie undistributed, for ‘lack of funds’ wto bear transport costs.

The all round callousness is so evident that, till today, 16 States and two Union Territories, have not so much as even bothered to identify the Below Poverty Line population. Even the capital city of Delhi, has not so far bothered to mark out its BPL families living in its sprawling slums. And of those that have been identified, there is an estimated 8 million fake BPL ration cards. The BPL scheme is, in fact, a convenient ruse for the bania/trader combine to siphon off vast quantities of foodgrains into the black-market.

From this, it is quite obvious that both the Central and State governments could not care for the lives of this poorest and most vulnerable section of the population. While they can spend crores on lavish living, and hundreds of crores on subsidizing big business and the powerful financial sector, they are not prepared to even spare a paisa for the dying masses. Besides the 50 million starving masses, there is an estimated 350 million more living below the poverty line. And the numbers continue to increase each day.

Conditions in rural India are fast approaching the famine-like conditions that existed during the British raj. Then, crude methods of rack-renting the peasantry devastated the entire rural population; today the methods of globalisation are subtler, but their impact is much the same. Earlier, to ward off an agrarian revolution, some reforms were introduced. Now even these are being systematically done away with, with the government relying primarily on brute force to crush the rising discontent of the peasantry. Welfare programmes are now only targeted at specifically those areas in revolt, through World Bank funding.

Government policies of ‘economic reforms’, done at the behest of the imperialists, are the prime factor for the present rural devastation. These policies seeks to attack the rural populace on all fronts:

Reduction of subsidies and promotion of the profits of the TNCs/Comprador Big Bourgeoisie have resulted in a huge hike in the prices of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, etc. Privatization, and other such policies, have led to a massive jump in electricity and other such charges. For example, in Maharashtra, in the course of the 1990s, the cost of chemical fertilizers increased four-fold and power charges tripled due to withdrawal of subsidies.

With PDS prices coming close to open market prices (even in the BPL category) the off take has dropped drastically. So for example, in the month of April this year, while 528 lakh tonnes of rice was allotted to the States, a mere 146 lakh tonnes was lifted — i.e. just 28% of the amount allotted. With wheat the off take was about 50% of the amount allotted. Even of this meager amount, it is estimated that one-third is siphoned off by the FCI-trader-politician nexus, utilizing fake BPL ration cards. The number of fake BPL ration cards is estimated at a huge 80 lakhs, with AP topping the list. In some the States the amount siphoned off to the black-market is often over 60%.

Next, we find huge cuts in government expenditure in the rural sector, at both the Central and State levels. Investment in agriculture today is, in proportionate terms, half what it was in the early 1980s, and public sector investment is less than a third. The share of public sector in agricultural investment fell from 19.1% in 1979/80 to 9.4% in 1996/97 to 6.3% in 1997/98. In the current year, 2000-01, the outlay for rural development dropped by as much as 14% — from Rs.7,517 crores in 1999-2000 to Rs.6,403 crores in the current year. Besides, in the decade of structural adjustments, policy attention has shifted away from building capital assets, which could contribute to long-term productivity growth, to subsidies and poverty alleviation programmes, the benefits of which are cornered by the big companies and the political hangers-on in the countryside. While the government can plan a gigantic Rs.60,000 crores for its superhighway project and Rs.5,000 crores for other roads, it has no funds for irrigation.

And, ‘hi-tech’ states like Karnataka and Maharashtra have only 25% and 15% of their cultivable land under irrigation respectively. In fact, the so-called most developed state, Maharashtra, if the Mumbai-Pune industrial belt is left out has human development indicators similar to that of Orissa. Of the 15% irrigated land 60% is taken by the sugar planters, which occupy a mere 2% of the cultivable land. For all its wealth, if one leaves out the Mumbai region, State government expenditure on health dropped from 5.5% of the total in 1985 to 4.5% in 1999.

Institutional credit too has dropped drastically due to changes in policy, which discourages priority sector lending. As a result, the peasants are being forced to depend more and more on the rapacious moneylender for their borrowings. For example, in Karnataka, of total bank lending, agricultural loans dropped from 15% of the total in 1980/81 to a mere 10% in 1996/97. In Maharashtra, while cultivator’s costs rise 10 to 25% every year, the quantum of crop loan from banks increases by only up to 1.5%. Moreover, rural banks cater to only 30% of the farmers. The bulk depend on the moneylender whose interest rates have gone up in this drought year from 120% to 180% per annum.

Earlier articles in this magazine have shown to what extent agricultural commodity prices have been destroyed through cheap imports. Similar examples can now even be seen with cotton and mustard.

With this year’s bumper cotton crop in Maharashtra, the Monopoly Procurement Scheme has suggested that it will not buy a single bale of cotton due to huge stocks and potential losses from purchases. The situation has turned so tragic that it has suggested that it would rather incur a payment of Rs.600 crores, paying farmers Rs.400 per hectare rather than purchase the crop and incur a loss of Rs.1,500 crores. Yet, imports have been rising over the past two years from 4 lakh bales to 22 lakh bales (1 bale = 175kg) last year. This year it is expected to increase to 25 lakh bales.

Due to massive imports of edible oils acreage under mustard (rye) has dropped 40% in the last 4 years from 70 lakh hectares to 43 lakh hectares — with a huge stockpile of 14 lakh tonnes.

There has been a continuous decline in productivity during the 1990s. In the last decade, growth rate of agricultural production fell from 3.7% to 2.4%. For foodgrains the decline was more drastic — from 3.5% to 1.8%. With the lack of irrigation infrastructure, the ‘green revolution’ has ravaged the ground water levels destroying vast tracts of soil. Data from remote sensing satellites reveal alarming levels to which the country’s water table has dipped — over 15% of the land mass has fallen below 500 metres, and another 27% is rapidly becoming completely dry.

And into this situation of horror and disaster the blood-sucking leeches of international agri-business are being invited to completely take over the storage and distribution of foodgrains in the country. Not only have they been invited by the treacherous BJP-led government, they have been offered huge concessions in order to enhance their loot. In mid October 2001, the Union government wrote to 11 industrialised countries inviting investment in grain storage capacities in 20 strategic locations throughout the country. The TNCs will get automatic approval for 100% FDI and assured tax-free returns. The major TNCs interested are Conagra, Cargill, Burge and ADM, as they are already operating in the country. The 20 locations for building silos with one million tonnes capacity and integrated bulk handling, will be decided by the FC I (Food Corporation of India), which will itself wind up once the TNCs take over. Already the FCI has cut most of its operations, except in the main Punjab, Haryana, West UP belt, with farmers from all over the country being forced to sell their paddy at Rs.300 to Rs.350 per quintal to private traders, when the MSP (minimum support price) fixed this year is Rs.540 per quintal. Whatever limited food security remained will be finished forever with the take over of foodgrain distribution by these monsters.

While yelling from the rooftops about terrorism etc. it is such policy decisions that were quietly passed which will impact the lives of crores of our rural population. Neither this gets the media attention it deserves, nor do the opposition parties mention a word about it as they are all in favour of the economic reforms being initiated by the governments at both Centre and State level.

It was the PW Party that has openly and consistently attacked such policies — the latest being the symbolic act of destroying the Coca Cola plant in AP. Some Islamic organizations have called for the boycott of US goods. For this about 20 youth were murdered by the police and hundreds injured in Malegaon, Mahrashtra. Curfew was clamped for days on this town. There is a rising tide of anti-imperialist sentiments in the country with hundreds of organizations opposing the US war on Afghanistan. The arrest and sedition charge of six Delhi students for distributing anti-war pamphlets has created a countrywide condemnation.

The time has come for the entire country to launch systematic attacks, not only on the TNCs, but more particularly on their comprador agents operating in our country. In the sphere of agriculture all foreign imports should be confiscated and distributed free to the masses, and the proposed 20 silos should be prevented from being built. This would be a start.

<Top>