On emerging political alternatives

It has been proved that the swelling stock markets, the strengthening of the rupee and increasing foreign institutional investment will hardly touch the lives of our farmers — the people who feed us. Nearly 150,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide during the period 1997-2005, while one in two Indian rural children under the age of three goes hungry. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), India is home to the largest share of the world’s undernourished population, and more than 200 million Indian children, women and men eat less than the daily minimum calorie requirement for a human being. Evidence suggests that over the 1990s concentration of land ownership increased, with many more households becoming landless and dependent on casual agricultural labour (45 per cent of households).

Moreover, since the late 1990s, it has been reported that at least 60,000 workers have lost their jobs as the international price of tea has fallen. Millions of others face wage cuts, more insecure contracts and rising malnutrition that include cases of starvation. Alarmingly, they form the majority of the country’s population. Such deprivation means a deep divide, causing economic and social disturbances and loss of peace. But the UPA government seems to be unconcerned about the sufferings of farmers, their pain and miseries. It is happy counting the rising Sensex points.

There is an urgent need to integrate rural India with the overall economic growth of our country. The shine of corporate India can never cover up the poverty and struggle of rural India. The investments of foreign institutions cannot replace the indebtedness of the small farmer who has taken one more loan from the village moneylender after mortgaging his small piece of land.

The United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) has tried to draw the attention of the UPA government to the clear and present danger of ignoring the agrarian crisis. This crisis is a national calamity in the making, given the apathetic attitude of the Congress leadership and its spin doctors. The UNPA has staged rallies across the country to mobilise the farmers and the common people to air their voice to make the government accountable and respond to their problems.