Q&A: Sharad Joshi
Nistula Hebbar / New Delhi March 16, 2008
Sharad Joshi, the president of the newly formed Swatantra Bharat
Paksha, tells NISTULA HEBBAR that all the Indian farmer wants is a free
access to the market.
With your experience of the agricultural sector, how do you see the
latest waiver of agricultural loans announced by the government in the
Budget?
Well, my problem with the waiver is not that it has been given but why
(it has been given). Some money has been given on account of debt relief but
is it well-intentioned? I firmly believe that agricultural indebtedness is
created by government measures, what I call negative subsidies, that is, you
prevent farmers from accessing the market and get market prices for their
products and create other hurdles in the name of protectionism.
The agricultural crisis in India is an integral whole and one cannot
say that one measure or a cash bailout will end the crisis. The structure of
the waiver also betrays a lack of understanding of the crisis. A small
farmer in this country is in a special situation vis-a-vis his family as
land is held as community property. Thus, a small farmer actually gets
accounted as a big farmer. Then there are areas like Bundelkhand where not a
blade of grass grows and yet it gets less help as the size of the holdings
is bigger. The Indian farmer also does not distinguish between long-term and
short-term loans. Loans are loans, whether for seeds, fertilisers or
tractors.
Also, on the one hand, the government gave a loan waiver, while on the
other, it levied a tax on commodity exchanges. Transactions which were taxed
at Rs 3 will now be taxed at Rs 19.50. With this, many farmers have lost
hope of any access to the exchanges where they will get a market-driven
price for their product.
You speak a lot about farmers. Why is it that movements like your
Shetkari Sanghatana or even Charan Singh’s party have not been able to
evolve into effective pressure groups for farmers?
All movements are different in terms of the way they play out. The
problem with Charan Singh was that he equated the Jat farmer with all
farmers, which we scrupulously avoid. I feel that the Shetkari Sanghatana
and now the Swatantra Bharat Paksha will be able to articulate the various
positions properly. In India, in the name of agricultural economics, we have
the Kolkata school, which talks of protectionism and a huge role for the
government in all economic spheres, and the Bombay school of DALDA or
Dakwala, Alagh, Lakdawala and Dandekar who, without ever having lived the
life of a farmer, feel they can formulate policies for them. In contrast, I
have lived a part of my life as a farmer and my party maintains that the
farmer is not looking for a free lunch but equal access to the market.
If you are ever in a position to influence policy, what are the first
few things you are going to look at?
We firmly believe in the dissolution of the state, we dislike the idea
of a powerful central government. Frankly, the only good poverty alleviation
scheme I have seen till now is the langar at gurdwaras. To this effect, we
want all government intervention in agriculture to end. By this, I mean end
to government procurement, end to Food Corporation of India, and no
Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP). What is the need for a
CACP? Why can’t farmers input costs and his prices be determined by the
market? Also, I would like to see an end to the public distribution system
(PDS). Instead, I would like to see food stamps being issued. That should
take care of the problem of quality of food right away.
In your party’s manifesto, you have called Osama Bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein economic fundamentalists and that they are able to operate in
various countries because of NGOs and other pressure groups, who you call
economic fundamentalists.
By fundamentalist, I mean anybody who believes in one man, one prophet
or that one book will have solutions to every problem. I feel this violates
Francis Bacon’s tenets of scientific enquiry. No book is perfect. All
terrorists belong to this category. The only reason NGOs or other pressure
groups or even religious leaders establish big organisations or empires is
to get territories free of police control. That is also a kind of
fundamentalism. Many of these organisations have little knowledge but
attract great crowds, allowing them to operate in the system.
You call yourself secular but have allied with the NDA.
I’m secular with reservations. I believe that the origin of all
liberal thought is Vedanta, which firmly puts itself on the side of
pluralism and tolerance. Vedanta believes there should be no intermediary
between the infinite and the infinitesimal. Carrying this further, the
government has no business coming between the businessman and the market.
You were an IAS officer. What prompted you to give that up to become a
farmer?
I’ve always believed in degrees of freedom. When I was posted in
Switzerland, I thought a lot about my future. I asked myself about how far I
could go if I continued my present work. At the most, I could have become
deputy secretary general of the organisation I was working for. I have
always believed that one would be asked to give an accounting for one’s life
at the end and if I continued, it would be a poor accounting indeed. That’s
why I decided to become a farmer.
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