T.G. Jacob
The Nilgiris biosphere, divided administratively in to three States and three linguistic formations is predominantly an agrarian region specializing in cash crops including vegetables. In the prevalent geographical division of labor the region is what is called a primary producer feeding raw materials to agro based industrial and trading conglomerates generally owned by external Indian and international big capital. Also, the inputs for the production of these primary commodities are also controlled by the outside big capital. The markets, both for the inputs and outputs, are skewed heavily in favor of big capital which constitutes a serious contradiction confronting the millions of primary producers. The farmers’ movements that came up during the 1970s, 80s and 90s were a manifestation of this contradiction. In the Nilgiris biosphere itself this contradiction became clearly manifested more prominently in the Wayanad part.
In Wayanad the movement of the farmers for a fair deal in the markets saw its high point during the last two decades. Farmers committing suicide due to indebtedness became routine after the collapse of prices of the principal cash crops giving rise to militant farmers’ movement divorced from parliamentary party politics. During the same period a militant movement came up from the Adivasis for land. Though the main issues of these two movements are different they become linked when we take a futuristic viewpoint. The State government came up with a palliative ‘package’ for the farmers and a scheme for land distribution for the dispossessed Adivasis. As a measure to stem the tide of suicides of the farmers the methods of loan recoveries were softened. The suicide rate came down partly as a result of this palliative measure but more because of increase in the prices of some of the cash crops. But suicides are continuing. If the prices of some of the cash crops have increased and became remunerative there is collapse in the prices of some other crops. The fluctuations in the market over which the producers have no control at all have effectively made agriculture in to a gamble. The conditions remain highly unstable and volatile which clearly point out that temporary palliative measures are no real solution to the crisis.
No palliative measure touches the core of the issues which actually demands radical restructuring of the market structure itself of which the credit market is only a part. What are needed are qualitative changes in the relative and absolute position of the ground level producers who are currently at the mercy of the big traders and agro businesses. This involves changes in the process of production of primary commodities, organization of the process of value adding, and marketing of the value added products. All these changes, by their intrinsic character, cannot be imposed from above because the organic, systemic participation of the people is mandatory for such changes. As political parties and bureaucratic mechanisms have proved themselves time and again as incompetent/consciously corrupt it will be outright silly to expect them to become harbingers of these changes. This leaves only the victims themselves to take up the prime share of the responsibility to bring about changes. If the farmers are to have their due share in the market they themselves will have to design and implement measures to restructure the market.
Every political party around has its own farmers’ wing. In a State like Kerala the political parties are divided into blocs that alternately enjoy executive power. This is equally valid for other linguistic segments of the entire Nilgiris biosphere. There are also government departments, ministries, corporations, cooperative institutions, agricultural research centers and universities meant to be exclusively catering to agriculture and problems of agriculturists. These institutions keep on expanding in terms of their budgets and manpower year by year. Block development offices and banks are directly involved in the lives of agriculturists in many vital ways. In short, there is no lack of institutionalized infrastructure catering to the whole sector. One can even say that there is a surfeit of institutional infrastructure in the name of agriculture. But, what is the balance sheet?
The balance sheet is that within the last ten years more than 500,000 farmers have killed themselves due to the basic reason of agriculture becoming economically non viable. At the same time, the food processing industries, big traders handling agricultural products, industries utilizing non food agricultural products, and financial institutions have registered impressive growth in accumulation of capital. This stark divergence points at the simple fact that corporate capital and its agents are extracting surplus from the agricultural sector in such a way as to drive the primary producers to bankruptcy and suicide. In whose interests the market forces are working is self evident from the manifest state of affairs. There is no doubt that the millions of farmers are objectively pitted against numerically small but formidable enemies and it has become a life and death question for them.
The non party farmers’ movements and organizations that came up in India during the last three decades did play a tremendous role in highlighting the gross inequalities in the market structure and tried to rectify these inequalities by taking up the means of mass mobilization and agitations. Many farmers had become martyrs in these agitations and they continue to get killed in agitations in many parts of the country. The issues have developed from market inequalities and the resultant immiserisation of the farmers to newer problems of land grabbing by corporate mining and industrial big capital. But it is to be noted that even while corporate land grabbing is going on the basic distortions and victimization through the market structure remains unchanged. In fact, the increasing immiserisation of the primary producers is fast becoming another powerful tool in the hands of corporate capital and state as its facilitator to alienate the only productive asset of the farming community. The already institutionalized market distortions are assuming more devilish dimensions.
Any farmers’ movement has to take a holistic view of the crisis that is threatening their very existence. Certainly, this does not at all mean that the crisis has to be addressed always as a composite issue. The crisis has many dimensions and they get manifested in varying intensities at different times. But the reality that the different aspects of the crisis together constitute the crisis cannot be lost sight of. The proven fact that alleviatory measures to diffuse the crisis in isolation from the totality only disguises the real nature of the plethora of issues which together condemn the primary producers to utter helplessness has to be kept in mind even when highlighting any specific aspect (like the victimization in the credit market). This in turn makes development of consciousness an imperative precondition for real solutions. The primary producers will have to take things in to their own hands. Expecting that those who feed on them are going to solve their problems is only a mirage.
With this perspective we put forth the following propositions as a blueprint for action:
Intensive awareness campaigns among the victimized on the real nature of the crisis engulfing them which will build up real solidarity based on questions concerning vital livelihood issues as well as broader social issues breaking the narrow limits of petty power politics.
Striving for chemicals free agricultural production processes which will free them from the stranglehold of external powerful corporate interests and their agents/facilitators paving the way for sustainable, eco friendly agriculture.
Develop village based value adding units ensuring the primary producers their legitimate share in the value of the end products and build up an expanding network of such units in an organic fashion ensuring the unity of interests of all the stake holders.
Develop a marketing network for the products of the villages eliminating the parasitic traders and corporate plunderers who are currently bleeding the producers as well as poisoning and looting the consumers in total self interest.
Encourage ground level research and development so that newer and better products can be brought to the people at large and becoming a bulwark against the monopoly of a few owners of capital who are currently thriving by sucking the life blood of the vast majority of people.
Utilize to the maximum the existing legal, constitutional and established institutional facilities to create a sustainable, self reliant economy and culture which will be proof against parasitism and opportunism.
Ensure that the peoples’ participation in the process of resolution of their issues is one hundred per cent and devise new foolproof methods and forms of organization which will be subject to dynamic evolution to enable it to successfully withstand external pressures.
There is rampant landlessness in the region and there are also vast land areas illegally occupied by big planters. Effective land redistribution is long overdue and such land reforms can be a powerful shot in the arm for sustainable agriculture and social equity.
The local self governing bodies in place now are potentially creative interventions in the empowerment of the people but it is only through struggles that they can be transformed into effective organs of power. There are examples of such empowerment struggles against destruction of environment and peoples’ health in many parts of the country including Kerala. Moreover, such struggles are a growing trend. Positive lessons from all these past and ongoing struggles are to be necessarily incorporated into any new farmers’ movement.