Calling for innovative agricultural practices including a scheme of ‘water credits’ to maximise utilisation of scarce natural resources on the lines of carbon credits issued to counter global warming, Narendra Modi mooted urgent measures to revive the floundering agricultural sector and appealed to farmers not to commit suicide on account of the disaster wreaked by hailstones and unseasonal rains in certain districts of Maharashtra.
Addressing ebullient crowds at the BJP’s Jan Chetna Rally at the Swavalambi Vidyalaya Ground, Ram Nagar, Wardha, on Thursday, he said that while “we will not do politics on this score (farmer deaths), no farmer must die”. Firmly asserting that “suicide is not the answer” to the disaster, Narendra Modi said that the suicides were triggered by inability to repay loans taken from loan sharks at exorbitant interest rates; he promised that the BJP would ensure that farmers were not left at the mercy of loan sharks.
Indira Gandhi had defended her decision to nationalise banks on the pretext of serving the poor, he pointed out, but the grim reality was that farmers barely get 5 per cent of total bank loans, while the rest go to wealthy factory owners. The banks ask all kinds of guarantees from the poor, which they are unable to meet, and as farmers need loans to buy seeds, fertilisers, and pay for a family wedding, they end up in the clutches of loan sharks. It is this factor that is pushing the farm suicides, he said, and vowed that “there will be no sahukars when we come to power”.
Lampooning the electronic media for the disproportionate coverage given when a child falls into an open well but ignoring the deaths of lakhs of farmers nationwide, and condemning the indifference of the UPA coalition in this regard, the Gujarat strongman thundered that on no account would the BJP allow farmers to die of neglect, “Peeda hoti hai man mein”. The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he reminded his audience, had launched a crop insurance programme to protect farmers and assured that the BJP would return to this project.
Atal ji had similarly conceived of river linking, especially the Ganga to Cauvery project, to save farmers from the twin problems of flood and drought, and spread irrigation to thousands of hectares across the country. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, he said, had linked the Narmada and Shipra and revived the latter river, besides irrigating lakhs of hectares and reviving agriculture. “Farmers will sprout gold if they are given a little water”, he said to roars of appreciation from the audience, but the Government of India only announces packages every time there is the crisis, and delivers nothing. He said he has been told that a ‘sarkari bank’ in Wardha is refusing to distribute Rs 2200 crore in benefits due to farmers.
The Gujarat Chief Minister cautioned that farmers must utilise modern technologies like micro irrigation, drip irrigation and sprinklers to save water. Just as environmentalists have generated carbon credits through cross action to compensate for the damage to the environment due to developmental projects, India could create the concept of water credits and give benefits to farmers who save water while farming.
Regretting that the new generation has begun to fear agriculture on seeing the plight of their parents, Narendra Modi asked how a nation of 125 crore people would feed itself if young farmers fled to the cities. A country that imports food because it had destroyed its agriculture is a nation that loses its freedom, he warned, because then the world dictates terms to that nation. It is farmers who protect the sovereignty of the nation through food self-sufficiency, he said.
Individual farmers can become self-sufficient, he said, by dividing their farming into three parts to include traditional agriculture, animal husbandry and tree farming. A single tree at the edge of a farm could provide enough income to avert farmer suicides in times of crisis, he said. Animal husbandry could include poultry farming or milch cattle, which can co-exist with farming.
Lambasting the UPA regime for ruining the farmers, he pointed out that two years ago there was a bumper cotton crop in India and high demand abroad, but the Union Government suddenly imposed a ban on cotton exports. In Gujarat alone, he said, this resulted in a loss of Rs 7000 crore to farmers, and in Maharashtra the losses would be higher. The question arises, he said, “For whose benefit was this done?” In neighbouring Bangladesh, he pointed out, which appears to be smaller than Maharashtra when you look at the map, ready-made garment exports are dominating the world market. What India needs is the 5F formula of farm (produce) to fibre (thread) to fabric (cloth) to fashion (garments) to foreign (exports) which should be implemented near the cotton producing centres to yield maximum benefits to farmers, he advised.
Far from thinking of such integrated schemes, the UPA puts hurdles on the incomes of farmers and gives subsidy for mutton exports. By promoting the export of meat the UPA has created a situation where the cattle wealth of India is being depleted at an alarming rate, taking away a valuable resource of poor farmers; in large numbers of villagers in northern India the entire cattle population has been wiped out. Since poor farmers have traditionally survived by selling milk in times of drought or famine, the destruction of milch cattle could result in a situation in which India has to import milk. This visionless Government at the Centre, he said, is committed solely to winning election by gimmicks; the time has come to pack off a regime that only believes in announcing packages and delivering nothing. Wardha, Narendra Modi recalled, is the land from where the Quit India call was given by Mahatma Gandhi; it is the tapobhumi of Vinoba Bhave, and it should now play its role in giving the country a ‘Congress mukt Bharat’, he said.
Calling for the setting up of agro-based industries near the villages to enhance value addition of farm produce, the Gujarat leader said the Railways must also give priority to transporting agricultural goods, rather than concentrating solely upon passenger and industrial goods.
Reminiscing that Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave the call of Jai Jawan Jai Kisan, in response to which Indian farmers filled the granaries of the country and turned a food-importing nation to a food surplus nation, he lamented that the poor governance of the Congress in the past decades has ruined the country completely. Both the jawan and kisan are unsafe today, he said; our soldiers are being brutally murdered and even decapitated as the Central Government remains unconcerned, and farmer suicides are higher than the deaths in any single terrorist incident.
The ‘shehzada’ he said, alluding to the Congress vice president as the crowds roared with appreciation, claimed recently that he had met some army veterans and espoused their cause of one rank one pension and it was done in just three days. Narendra Modi said this legitimate demand had been denied for years even as veterans ran from pillar to post, meeting the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and the President of India, and even now the Congress promises were merely empty election slogans, “they are just fooling the people”.
Corruption, he lamented, is killing both the kisan and the jawan. When Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister and the Congress was virtually the sole party in power across the nation, he (Rajiv) said that Rs 1 sent by the Centre became 15 paise by the time it reached the panchayat; hence today the ‘shehzada’ must explain whose ‘hand’ was responsible for this situation. Exhorting the people not to elect the Congress-NCP “namoonas” (jokers) again, Narendra Modi urged them to make the BJP-Shiv Sena Mahayuti victorious so that a strong and stable Government can take charge in Delhi and change the fortunes of the nation.
Niticentral.com, 20 May 2014
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/20/in-wardha-modi-tells-the-farmer-his-worth-201876.html