Editor,
While the Father of India’s Green Revolution, late agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan was awarded the Bharat Ratna, his recommendations had ironically been stayed put in cold storage. The Swaminathan Commission had recommended that the minimum support price (MSP) should be at least 50 percent more than the comprehensive cost. This is one of the main demands of the protesting farmers.
What his daughter, economist Madhura Swaminathan, said on 13 February in an event held at the Indian Agriculture Research Institute to celebrate the Bharat Ratna for her father, highlighted the irony of honouring MS Swaminathan while ignoring his suggestions and treating our farmers like enemies. She said, “The farmers of Punjab today are marching to Delhi. I believe, according to the newspaper reports, there are jails being prepared for them in Haryana, there are barricades. All kinds of things are being done to prevent them. These are farmers, they are not criminals. You have to find some solutions. They are our annadatas. I request, if you have to honour MS Swaminathan, we have to take the farmers with us with whatever strategy that we are planning for their future.”
Apart from MSP, another important recommendation of the Swaminathan Commission was land reforms. The commission suggested that the diversion of ‘prime’ agricultural land and forest to corporate sector for non-agricultural purposes should not be allowed. It also recommended setting up of a mechanism which would help regulate the sale of agricultural land, based on a few conditions.
MS Swaminathan in his report said, “Land reforms are necessary to address the basic issue of access to land for both crops and livestock. Land holdings inequality is reflected in land ownership. In 1991-’92, the share of the bottom half of the rural households in the total land ownership was only 3 percent and the top 10 percent was as high as 54 percent.”
Land reforms made China such a strong country in spite of its huge population. Professor PC Joshi rightly said, “… land reforms in India have not assumed the form of gigantic revolutionary upheaval as in China, or that of a dramatic change brought about from above as in Japan.”
Land reforms can boost inclusive growth in many ways. First, it will enhance the productivity of land by improving the economic conditions of farmers and tenants. Second, it will ensure distributive justice and eliminate exploitation. Third, it helps create a system of peasant proprietorship. And fourth, it can distribute income of the few to many which will enhance the purchasing power of the masses and thus energise the market and generate employment while alleviating widespread poverty among small farmers and tribals. Indeed, it can heal the wounds of inequality, poverty, hunger and malnutrition to some extent.
Land reform is a constitutional directive. Article 39 (b) of the Constitution of India states: “The ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good.” Moreover, Article 39 (c) says, “that the operation of the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment.”
The recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission regarding land reforms and MSP should be implemented. It will heal the agrarian crisis that made many farmers take their own lives. The 2022 National Crime Records Bureau annual report shows alarming distress in the agriculture sector. It says that 154 farmers and daily-wage labourers die by suicide in India every day and there is around 4 percent increase in overall suicide rate from 2021.
Sujit De