Indian Agriculture – Crisis and Cure

Part II: Way out of the crisis

The first part of Indian Agriculture -- Crisis and Cure appeared in the 1-15 August issue of People's Voice. This is the second and concluding part. The first section of Part II below is a recapitulation, in summary form, of Part I.

Agricultural crisis and the bourgeoisie's response – (Recap)

The crisis of Indian agriculture is severe, as manifested in the increasing number of suicides in various parts of the country, in the phenomenon of villages being put up for sale, in the stagnancy of food production and declining crop yield. In the capitalist system, agriculture is one of the spheres of plunder for maximum private profits of a super rich minority. Capitalist growth leads to ever widening disparity between economic conditions in the cities and the villages.

A majority of peasants are very small commodity producers competing with big capitalist farmers and trading monopolies; they lack the resources with which to face the uncertainties of the market and the clout of the trading monopolies. They are producing for the market (which means higher costs of cultivation) but without any insurance against the risks they are exposed to. While input prices have been rising, import liberalisation has forced a fall in output prices. The steady decline in agricultural incomes across the country has squeezed a majority of peasants to eke out a living at pathetically low levels of income. In this context, peasant families have to borrow even for their consumption needs, and indebtedness has been growing at an alarming rate.

The bourgeoisie has no solution to the peasants’ problems. This is because the bourgeoisie is committed to the aim of accelerating capitalistic growth and bringing agriculture more fully under the domination of banks and monopoly corporations. To the bourgeoisie, peasant suicides pose a political problem requiring palliatives. Hence it responds by offering to waive some debt service obligations of the peasants. Bourgeois parties offer ‘relief’ according to their whims and fancies, motivated by immediate political compulsions. The bourgeoisie has neither intention nor capacity to tackle the root cause of the peasants’ problems, which lies in the capitalist relations of production.

A Fundamental Reorientation of the Economy under Worker-Peasant Rule

Since it is capitalism that is at the root of the crisis of the agricultural economy and the ruination of the peasantry, the cure is the elimination of capitalism. The peasantry has to join hands with the working class to overthrow capitalism and begin the construction of socialism. This means to reorient production towards ensuring prosperity and protection for all the toilers and tillers.

The peasantry must ally with the working class to defeat the bourgeoisie and set up a Government of Workers and Peasants, at the head of a Voluntary Union of Workers’ and Peasants’ Republics of India. Rejection of capitalism and organizing for worker-peasant rule is the only solution to put an end to the crisis that has devastated Indian peasants and Indian agriculture and to eliminate poverty in the cities and countryside. The G overnment of Workers and Peasants will implement immediate measures towards reorienting the economy to fulfill the needs of the vast majority of working people in the cities and countryside.

Under Workers’ and Peasants’ Rule, there will be substantially large investments in agriculture, to close the gap between agriculture and industry. This means part of the surplus from other sectors must be invested in agriculture - in the land and other means of production, to raise the living standards of toilers and tillers. Investments would be made to create agro-based industry and services that would provide livelihood opportunities for the vast majority of the population that lives in the country side, thereby developing the rural industrial base. At the same time, there would be investment in social infrastructure to raise the educational, health and cultural levels of the rural population, so they can be fit for productive employment.

Every Republic and the Union government must plan the entire production of the economy, counting the number of mouths to feed, and the number of hands that are available to work, to produce material goods and services. Agriculture, like all other economic activity, will be geared towards fulfilling the needs of the working population. All planning of agricultural production will take into account the principles of self-reliance of each of the Republics, on the one hand, and non-exploitative mutually beneficial trade relations amongst them on the other hand.

Towards a secure livelihood through State support

Under capitalism, the peasantry has been and will be further vulnerable to the vagaries of nature and to the global market. This can only change with the new rule of the workers and peasants. The peasant would be provided with quality inputs - seeds, fertilisers and water for irrigation – at affordable prices. The peasantry would also be guaranteed stable and remunerative prices by the state for all crops; and would not be left to "fend for itself" in a globalised market place dominated by corporate giants.

At an all-India level and in each constituent of the Indian Union, the governments must take charge of organising and managing trade in a way that ensures secure livelihood, both to the peasants who produce the food and to the working people of town and countryside who have to buy their food in the market. An immediate halt must be called to the liberalisation and privatisation of trade and steps taken to nationalise external and domestic wholesale trade. The Union government at the all-India level must cooperate with the Republics to reorganize trade according to one integrated plan for society. The Republics must take charge of trade within their respective territories, and also trade with one another for mutual benefit, according to agreed upon rules. The government of the Union at the all-India level must take charge of external trade, to be conducted in the common interests of all the constituent peoples of the Union.

Under such an arrangement, it will become possible to establish and sustain a Modern Universal Public Distribution System in the towns, villages, and all over the country. All essential items of mass consumption can be provided in adequate quantity, of acceptable quality, and at affordable prices for all. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Republics would use their control over trade to ensure that the PDS is kept fully supplied at all times, and also take steps to progressively bring all spheres of trade under social control. Workers’ and peasants’ rule will ensure security of livelihood of the peasants, and ensure adequate supply of essential consumption needs to all working families at affordable prices.

The majority of peasants in India hold very uneconomic holdings which simply does not have the potential for sustaining a decent livelihood. Under the Worker-Peasant Rule, the governments of the Republics must address the problem of providing special assistance to those with uneconomic holdings to participate in cooperative farming, involving pooling of their land to form collective property and cooperative enterprises. In the first instance, land and resources alienated from the people must be returned to them. Having ensured this, they must be encouraged to move toward pooling their land and resources for the increased benefit of all. Such cooperative farming efforts, in which the poorest farmers will be members, will require initial assistance from the state till such time as they become viable. In other instances, the governments will have to establish state farms that will demonstrate the highest productivity of labour with the most modern technology in agriculture.

While organising to move towards this transformation, the working class and peasantry must block all avenues for monopolisation of land, other natural resources, and of trade. The current plans of the bourgeoisie must be foiled. The expansion of capitalism must be restricted. Agricultural land must be removed from the market for speculative purposes. Lending against mortgage, contract farming and such programmes of the bourgeoisie that will inevitably lead to transfer of land from peasants to the corporations, through banks or through direct purchase, must be blocked.

There are immediate measures that need to be taken towards relieving the crisis of the peasantry; these are the waiver of loans owned by peasants to public and private sector banks and regional rural banks. An Agricultural Insurance Policy must be implemented that will provide protection to the tillers against natural and market risks. Under the Rule of the toilers and tillers, bank credit can be reoriented from profit maximization to ensuring assistance, at minimum possible social cost.

Additionally, measures must be taken to immediately halt the plunder of the countryside, and increase investments in the productive forces in the countryside. The enormous drain of value into unproductive use must be halted, including militarization and debt servicing.

Peasants, everywhere in India, are increasingly coming out on the streets to demand security of livelihood. Their own experience belies any hope that this capitalist system will lift them out of poverty and acute uncertainty, or any hope that bourgeois parties in power will take any measures demanded by them. The Indian peasantry, in order to free itself from the yoke of capitalism that is strangling it today, must march with the working class, on the high road to a society whose central concern is the well-being of the toilers and tillers.