The New Face of Structural Violence: Lack of Proper Agriculture and Land policy Driving Orissas Small Farmers to a Desperate End
What causes Structural Suicide?
Yet another farmer ends his life in coastal area of Orissa yesterday. When
farmers are ending their life & and poor are starving our Members of
parliament are busy in raising their salary and perks. There are endless
debates on mineral based industry and so-called development in Orissa.
Farmer suicides in Orissa are not new in 2010. Many cases have occurred
after the economic liberalization in 1990s and this silent death is now
widely discussed. According to government record there were 3509 farmer
suicides between 1997 and 2008 in Orissa. These suicides were caused by
policy decisions and the impoverished farmers were pushed into desperation
by the systematic denial of their rights. This amounts to a form of structural
violence.
Farmer suicides are the result of lack of land reforms, negligence of the
agriculture sector and the institutional credit system in the state. Our
rulers totally forgot the land reforms of the 1960s and now even the process
of reverse land reforms is the new occurrence. There is inadequate
investment in the agriculture sector and faulty policies which are so
detrimental to small and marginal farmers that they commit suicide. Climate
change, particularly the erratic monsoon, has made the situation worse. The
fondness of the political regime for heavy and mineral-based industries in
Orissa, in the name of public interest, has not been in the interest of one
of the most vulnerable segments of society: the small and marginal farmers.
Agriculture is the way of life for the majority of people in Orissa so land
is one of the primary necessities. Land is a fundamental asset and is the
primary source of income, security, status and dignity. The record of rights
(ROR) in land has an important part to play in the functioning of the
economy. Without land there can be no state, no habitation and no ground
work for carrying on human activities. Access to land is therefore a
critical factor in how wealth, power and status are distributed within
society. In rural areas land decides power relationships and Orissa has
witnessed many struggles, conflicts and uprisings over land.
Many families in Orissa lack access to land or a secure stake in the land
they till. As a result, acute poverty and related problems of hunger, social
unrest and farmer suicide persist. The landlessness of tribals and scheduled
caste people is a major concern. But its important to note that although
70% of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood, even as
people struggle to get land the Orissa government is signing memorandum of
understanding after memorandum of understanding to give land to corporations
on wholesale basis.
At the national level the importance of ROR was emphasized in the first five
year plan, and plan after plan was designed with noble intent, but the sorry
state of ROR on land continues. The revenue institutions have not been
able to tackle the real issues and there has not been visible impact on the
ground. The record of rights in land in Orissa is in dire state and the
complexity involved makes it a difficult problem to resolve. Land holdings
of a size insufficient for sustainability, sharecropping, the lack of
institutional credit, high input commercial crops, and problems of water
sharing and irrigation all play important roles.
The Problems of Landlessness, Small Holdings and Sharecropping
The average land holding in Orissa is 1.34 hectares but the land
distribution pattern in the state is highly skewed in favour of large
farmers. The majority of farmers have land holdings of a size that are not
sufficient for sustainability: 53.66% marginal farmers and 26.22% small
farmers occupy 19.73% and 26.93% of the states land, respectively. But a
small number of large and medium farmers occupy an abnormally high share of
total cultivated land. In other districts of KBK, the figures are further
skewed and unfavorable to the small and marginal farmers.
Many small and marginal farmers and the landless cultivate large and medium
farmers land as share croppers and also cultivate government revenue and
forest land in order to eke out a living. They thus must pay large shares of
the crops to the owners and are labeled as encroachers on forest lands. A
large percentage of medium and large land owners are upper caste B*rahmins,
Karans* and *Khatriyas* who are no longer actually farmers, but have moved
to the cities to work in administration, politics, business and trading but
still receive almost half the harvest as absentee landlords.
In this situation it is not in anyones interest to invest money in land
development. The 1960s slogan Land to the tiller is no more in the state
agenda. Arable land remaining almost the same, the per-capita availability
of land in Orissa has considerably gone down from 0.39 hectare in the year
1950- 51 to 0.15 hectare in 2004-05 due to increase in population.
Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960, was designed to reform the law relating to
land tenures, agrarian reforms and abolition of intermediary interest,
conferring better rights on agriculturists to ensure increases in food
production and permanent, heritable, transferable rights on land for the
tiller. The provision was there that if the land is cultivated continuously
for 12 years or more by a person other than its owner, the rights to the
land shall pass to the cultivator. But there are no initiatives in the
recent past by the government to record the land in the name of share
croppers. There is further provision of rent not to exceed one fourth of the
gross produce if the land, but in practice owners charge almost half of the
produce and farmers have little option to protest.
Although it is not legal to lease land, concealed tenancy persists, with
tenants having little protection under the law. The sharecropping system is
financially oppressive and most share croppers are unable to break out of
poverty and debt. Share cropping is an open secret in Orissa as major land
owners are now not cultivators. At the same time these farmers are not
entitled to get any institutional credit for the crop.
Farmers who till encroached land also have no incentive to develop the
land, nor are they entitled for institutional credit. As per government
survey (2003-04) there are 4,45,450 landless families in the state but only
few have got the land rights. There are vast numbers of landless, marginal
and small farmers in the state particularly in KBK region, who lack rights
on encroached land. The problem of land alienation of tribals in the tribal
belt is well known. With each passing year more tribals are becoming
marginal and small farmers due to the illegal land alienation, and
development-
induced displacement is a major factor. When the democratic
peoples organizations are raising the issue they are branded as Naxalites
and brutally oppressed sometimes activists are also killed.
Lack of Institutional Credit and Issues with Private Money Lenders.
In our state we have the Orissa Money Lenders Act, 1939, (modified in 1979)
which clearly states that the every money lender should be registered and
prohibits business without registration. The rate of interest is also
defined in the Act. There are provisions for punishment for money lenders.
But it is no secret that private money lenders operate with impunity all
over the state charging annual interests from 60% to 120%. Farmers get
trapped in a cycle of debt when they use these local money lenders because
they have no other options.
It is very difficult for small farmers to get credit from the bank and other
cooperatives. The conditions and bureaucratic processes exclude these
farmers from access to credit that larger land holders enjoy, further
disadvantaging them. It is ironical that although upper class people can
easily be approved for a car loan or other consumer credit scheme, but for a
poor farmer the door is closed. Thus, in lean years these farmers get
trapped with private money lenders and the loans pass from generation to
generation. This hopeless condition leads to suicide as the only way out.
High Input Commercial Crops and Honesty/Ethics of Poor
Aggressive marketing campaigns by seed and fertilizer companies, the
assurances of the governments agricultural extension offices, combined with
the necessity to do as much as possible with small holdings, induce small
and marginal farmers to gamble with high input commercial crops. Investment
costs for this type of farming are high and require loans. When crops fail,
the farmers are unable to repay them. Agricultural subsidies are decreasing
and crop insurance is hard to get. The high ethics of the tribals and other
marginalized village communities makes it intolerable for them to live with
debt they cannot repay and must pass on to their children. Suicide seems the
only option.
Water Sharing and Irrigation Problems
The growth of mineral based industries is causing a water crisis for farmers
because these industries now must share water resources needed for
irrigation. Small and marginal farmers cannot afford the cost of lift
irrigation and there is little electricity in the remote areas to operate
the lifts.
Because of erratic monsoon, agricultural production fluctuates widely from
year to year. The net irrigation potential created in the state by the end
of 2004-05 from all sources was 26.96 lakh hectares, which is around 46% of
the estimated irrigable area of the State. However, this sector continues to
languish for want of inputs and government attention. The only attention has
been negative from the perspective of the small and marginal farmers:
passing the contract farming bill and allowing large Indian corporations to
start marketing farm produce. There is no talk of cold storage facilities,
marketing linkages, easy credit to farmers or development of irrigation
facilities, all interventions that would help this vulnerable population.
What is best for People?
The nature of the welfare state is changing fast in the last two decade and
the state is saying farewell to its constitutional obligations towards the
poor. The farming subsidies of the sixties and seventies are decreasing and
at the same time subsidies to big industries and multinational corporations
are increasing. There are bailout packages for companies but the only
bailout poor farmers have access to suicide. In this situation perhaps the
government wants the farmers should work as daily wage laborer in the
growing industries. The priority of the state has changed and over emphasis
on mega mineral based industries has become costly for poor farmers.
Professional
planners and politicians always regret the fact that though Orissa is
blessed with abundant mineral resources, poverty continues to haunt the
state even after 62 years of independence. This issue is bemoaned in
workshops, conferences and meets held by World Bank and other international
mega developmental financial institutions and trade associations. This
propaganda has been spread over the last two decades. The general public
remains under the illusion that the chronic poverty of the state would
somehow vanish if only our mineral resources are dug out and sold to the
world. This daydream has been created, fostered and nourished persistently
by the MNCs hiding behind trade bodies and potential investors. It is well
known who the culprits are in the recent mining scams. Planners, decision
makers and industries and powerful groups are plundering the national
resources in broad daylight.
The state should not forget that Orissa remains an agrarian economy. The
administrators, planners and decision makers should always focus on
development of agriculture and realization of the full agricultural
potential of its lands and people. More than half of the area which is
irrigable is yet to receive the benefits of irrigation. Instead of borrowing
World Bank and other financial institution funds for high speed roads,
airports and power reforms to feed the growing needs of industry, the state
should borrow money for completing its long pending irrigation projects
which would provide water to millions and also save valuable lives.
Growth in the Indian economy does not necessarily lead to increase of per
capita income of poor farmers of Orissa. The fruits are reaped by the upper
class people. The agriculture sector, the irrigation, the land reforms, the
institutional credit to system to poor has become outdated issues for the
politicians and planners. The recent talk of inclusive growth by the
Planning Commission does not bode well for the poor farmers of the state.
Structural suicide by farmers is a stark example of "exclusive growth. This
is a wake up call to everybody to bring back focus on the agriculture and
development of poor farmers.
By Bidyut Mohanty(bidyut.mohanty@gmail.com) and
K. Anuradha(anuradhaji1973@gmail.com
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All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
