People's Democracy

Why This Panic?

Suneet Chopra

AN extraordinary amount of coverage is being given to the statement of the Indian Meteorological Department that there is a 22 per cent chance that the coming monsoon will show a shortfall of 7 per cent. The last time such a prediction was made by the IMD was in 1997, when a prediction of an 8 per cent shortfall was forecast but we got a successful monsoon that was 1 per cent above the normal. On the other hand in 2002 it predicted 101 per cent monsoon rain and we got a drought with a shortfall of some 20 per cent. The figure for 2004 was equally inaccurate.

The question that arises is why such a panic has been stirred up over a monsoon forecast? The news of the forthcoming shortfall ought to be read in tandem with the shortfall in grain procurement. But that has less to do with the monsoon than government policy.

If we take the situation in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, we find that the market price of grain has been artificially pushed up by hoarders upto Rs 750 to Rs 850 a quintal, while the government procurement price range is Rs 650 to Rs 750 with a lately added Rs 50 bonus. So, it is evident no one is going to sell grain to the government. And against a target of 27 lakh metric tonnes, the UP government has procured only 12,110 metric tonnes in the first fortnight of the season. Of this the state government's share is 11,410 metric tonnes while that of the FCI is 700 metric tonnes. Together this adds up to just half of what ought to have been procured even to keep up with last year's figures. It almost seems that the government wants to give the hoarders a helping hand.

This is not surprising as food security and the welfare of farmers ranks low in their policy perspective. Foodgrains production has been declining despite good monsoons because of the ill-advised retreat of state investment from agriculture and a deflationary economy that has not only increased unemployment by some four per cent since 2001-02, but also reduced the buying power of the people.

It does not worry the government that the foodgrains production growth rate had fallen to 1.7 per cent by 2001 –– lower even than the rate of growth of the population that is 1.9 per cent. According to the economist Utsa Patnaik, the per head annual net foodgrains production has come down from 181.6 kg, from 1992-93 to 1994-95, to only 177.7 kg in 1998-99 to 2000-01. Given that these were years of at least a growth of 3 per cent annually, one would have expected to see food imports growing.

What happened was the reverse. What we saw was the fall in availability of foodgrains: it came down from 485 gms per day per head in 1991-92 to just 411 gms per day per head in 2002-03, close to the level of grain available in the worst years of colonial rule. What was worse was that despite this decline, the offtake from the PDS fell sharply from 21 million tonnes in 1991 to hardly 10 million tonnes in 2001. And the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee boasted of a buffer stock of 6.3 crore tonnes while people could not afford to buy grain whose prices had been doubled while their days of work available had gone down sharply. This was shamelessly presented as a "problem of plenty" saying people were buying less grain but eating eggs, fish, meat, fruit and vegetables instead. But if one looks at the steadily declining calorie intake from 2309 calories per head in 1983 to 1750 calories in 2001, one knows the explanation to be a fraud. The UPA government has allowed PDS stocks to be depleted further. People are being forced to cut down even on food while the successive neo-liberal governments at the centre play fast and loose with food stocks. They deny the people but please their WTO mentors. In 2002-03 the NDA government actually sold grain at a subsidised rate of Rs 4.30 per kg as pig and cattle feed to the USA while Indians were sold the same grain for as much as Rs 7 per kg.

Now, the present government has contracted to buy some 3 million tonnes of grain at Rs 9.50 per kg under international agreement within the dictates of the WTO. And not unnaturally farmers have protested against this. So, to try and divert attention from this, a panic is being created to say there is inadequate grain in stock and more is not available. Even now the government can get as much grain as it likes at Rs 8 per kilo but it refuses to buy it as it has contracted to buy it at a higher price from abroad. And it is allowing home-grown grain to go to the hoarders who are threatening to sell it at not less than Rs 1500 per quintal later by creating fake scarcity in collusion with pro-WTO elements in our society.

The agricultural labourers and poor peasants cannot just wait and watch. The UP state committee of AIAWU that met at Lucknow on April 26-27, 2006 has decided to agitate all over the state on May 16, 17, 18 and 19, demanding the following measures:

1. The government must raise the procurement price to the open market level and distribute that grain at subsidised rates to the people through the PDS in adequate quantity.

2. People must be given the capacity to buy sufficient grain through the strict implementation of the NREG Act, Food for Work Programme and other employment schemes, as well as by giving BPL cards to all those eligible.

3. Measures to ensure dehoarding must be put in place immediately ensuring that an adequate supply is not disrupted in the PDS by creating a panic.

The AIAWU stressed the need to mobilize people to come forward boldly to ensure the reversal of the pro-multinational agrarian policy. A planned mass movement must be unleashed for land, work and an adequate supply of food at reasonable prices.

The government may want to blame the rain-god for its criminal destruction of food security and its profligacy in importing the grain at a higher price and exporting the grain at a lower price. But the people know better than that. Irrespective of the monsoon they have suffered losses that have led to no less than 30,000 suicides of farmers and agricultural labourers till date. Neo-liberal policies in agriculture have led to cut backs on employment and food production. Now they are pushing us towards a man-made famine like the Bengal famine of 1946. We will not permit that to happen. It is of utmost importance that we ensure the present agricultural policy is reversed and set moving along the alternative path mapped out by the AIKS and AIAWU.