For the world's investment bankers used to pumping up
bubbles, India remains a land of economic, or rather, financial promise. That
pitch however masks the mounting social unrest that covers at least 40 per cent
of the country’s geographical area.
India has opted to treat the unrest as "Maoist
uprisings", though that is beginning to unravel as a highly simplistic, if
not distorted, approach to the problem – one that fails to appreciate the
economic dimensions of the unrest. Instead, the Maoism label allowed the state
to use "heavy handed" methods.
Over the decades, the issues raised by the rebels, led by
the CPI (Maoist), were never taken seriously by the state governments of
central India and the central security establishments. The issues range from
land alienation in favour of industry to human rights violations in
tribal-dominated regions. Add to this general scenario of deprivation of
rights, the relentless price rise in food items and rising unemployment and the
situation is obviously desperate. Is it a matter of surprise that the
desperation finds a violent expression?
However, state governments are slowly beginning to think,
only think, changes may be necessary. In January this year India's former Minister
for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, an alumnus from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, a former World Banker and one of the leading
proponents of Enron power project in Maharastra during the 90s, is a prime
mover of the new land acquisition statute. He claimed, "The new law
that has been formed for land acquisition which has recently been passed in the
Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, if implemented properly and with honesty will reduce
a factor that has been spreading Maoism and it will provide the government a
effective weapon against Maoists and it will help indigenous communities."
The new bill proposes that farmers and landowners be paid up to four times the
market value for land acquired in rural areas, and two times the market value
in urban areas. The new ruling coalition led by the BJP that swept to power in
June this year may just step up the pace of forced land displacement.
Yet the high prices are just a façade. Rural poverty caused
by high food price inflation and low wages remains unaddressed. In fact, the
government in India has failed to recognise the parallels of the Arab spring
and the expanding unrest in India. Japan's Nomura Global Economics did an
interesting study in 2011. Nomura compiled a food vulnerability in index for
world economies. The Nomura index looks at food prices and how much food
expenditure eats into household spend. In 2011, rising food prices pushed up
consumer inflation in Egypt to 9 per cent and household spending on food was 49
per cent of the incomes. Hosni Mubarak lost his job! In Tunisia and Algeria,
household spending on food was 36 and 53 per cent, providing a trigger a point
for uprisings. In the U S and even Russia, food expenditure remains just about
8 to 15 per cent of household incomes.
In India, consumer price inflation has remained steadfastly
high. In 2013 alone, consumer price inflation has accelerated to 12 per cent.
That means household spending on food is closer to 65 per cent (elaborate on
the relationship.) But the problem is worse in the states. Presently, the
per capita income in states like Orissa, Chattisgarh, West Bengal, Bihar and
Jharkhand is barely about Rs 40,000 a year or $1.76 a day at present dollar
exchange rates and half the price of the cheapest Subway sandwich in the US.
Even these figures conceal another reality. Per capita income is only an
average. Therefore a large majority of the people in the regions earn far less
wages.
The low incomes in these states, in turn translated into
household spend on food of 80 per cent. That meant the bulk of a family's
income was spent only for meeting food consumption, leavings little for savings
or non-food consumption. In Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, the situation is little
different. But in Chhattisgarh, efforts have been made at state intervention or
increase in food subsidies. Those measures, though, have had little impact,
given the low wages in the region.
In India, high food prices are something of an oddity: the
country has been reporting record foodgrain harvests year after year. So, the
reasons for high food prices are not necessarily due to low farm productivity.
The reasons lie elsewhere, an issue that the state refused to address, or even
discuss. Take the case of rice that is one of the largest consumed cereals in
the country. Farm gate price of rice is about Rs 15 per kilogramme (US cents
25). The wholesale price is Rs 25 (US cents 40) and the final average retail
price Rs 30 (US cents 49), a price loading of 100 per cent. This is a national
average, with region-wise discrepancies. The least price loadings are in Punjab
and Kerala. The highest loading is in states like Orissa, West Bengal,
Chattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkand, all states with high food spends, and food
inflation.
The results of this runway food inflation are apparent.
Orissa has 20 districts under the influence of the rebel groups affiliated to
Maoists. But rebel influence has been spreading around the country. The
new regions under rebel influence include the Kerala's Wynad district and
Karnataka's Chikmagalur and Kudremukh regions. These are also regions where
unemployment and underemployment have increased during the last years.
In all these regions, the focus of the state has been to
treat rebel violence, not as protests against economic oppression but rather as
a law and order problem. The protesters, tribals and farmers on the margins of
the economy, are dubbed as ‘anti-development’. The development, though, in
these regions implies large-scale mining and deforestation, taking over large
tracts of forest and farm land and depriving local populations of their
livelihood. The projects that have come up on tribal land include those
promoted by Vedanta aluminium project, South Korea's POSCO steel project, Utkal
Alumina, Essar Steel and GMR's coal and power projects in Chattisgarh.
Despite the one-sidedness of the development process,former economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went
so far as to call the protesters or "Maoists as the biggest security
threat to India." Incidentally there were however dissensions over the
Congress party's former =Prime Minister's inferences. Indian government's
Planning Commission report chaired by D Bandopadhyay observed " "it should not cause
surprise that a large section of the people are angry and feel alienated from
the polity. It is in this context that it has become necessary to identify the
variety of causes of discontent and to seek ways by which the State could
answer them in a humane, caring and democratic way. If the emphasis of this
exploration is on the Naxalite phenomenon it is not because other modes and
forms of agitation are less important but only because the method of struggle
chosen by the Naxalites has brought the problem to a head."
Ironically enough, few of the protesters are even aware of
Maoist ideology! Documentary film maker Deba Ranjan who produced "At the
Crossroads" -- a film on tribals of western Orissa being targeted by
security forces for being ‘Maoists’ -- says, "When they resist corporate
land grab for mining and industrialisation, they are called Maoists. Maoism is
used as an excuse to target democratic struggles."
An activist in Andhra Pradesh involved in counseling affected
people said, "The state is simply unwilling to recognise the extent of
economic despair and distress among population affected by severe poverty. The
distress does not necessarily translate into discontent as in the case of Arab
spring. Rural population faced with distress loses the will to survive."
This meant more affected by poverty and high food prices
have chosen to commit suicide. Approximately 370 people commit sucide each day, most of them at young
age in the country and more than half of the suicides are in states where
unrest is high. Every 30 minutes a rural or agricultural worker commits suicide
in India. These suicides conceal the numbers that have succumbed to state
sponsored repression.
But then in any investment banker driven reforms, economic oppression
is the reality. The inevitable fallout is tragedy. Has the country reached the
tipping point? Doubtful! Instead, India appears firmly glued to Naipaul’s state
of Million Mutinies!
-Ends-
