Can Cooperation Ministry change Indias agri story?
In the best traditions of laissez-faire, there would be pretty stiff competition there. But bring in agriculture, and go towards the prehistory of the present agitationthe long story from the initial hurrahs of the Green Revolution, to the deep disquiet at how that has itself become a leviathan that sucks the lifeblood out of our soil itself. Any way you look at it, the long stint that Sharad Pawar had at the helm should count as among formatively the most uninspiring, and counterproductive. The immiseration of Vidarbhaand the larger Deccanwas happening in front of him. It would have been obvious to any observer with a sense of Indias past that cooperatives were the way to goto offer a cushion to the individual farmer, and to maximise the benefits from collective bargaining, from information flow, from having a collective wisdom to judge the (often dubious) fruits of modernisation, to be able to play the markets in a way most beneficial for the farmer. Judging by the immediate past of the governmentand the longer past in terms of the relevant personnelit may be a bit optimistic to see this ministry as heralding some neo-Gandhian dawn. The Centre-state tussle this may inaugurate could be only a symptom of the malaise. There are two things we need to care about. One, the farmers, whether agro or dairyan overwhelming majority of India finds its sustenance here; take all those neoliberal theories about pushing 70% of our population out of farming with a handful of organic rock salt. Two, farming itself. It obviously has to be sustainable. And we need to get that viable, universally enriching model into dairy, sugar, fisheries or in fertiliser. We need to leave India intact for the future. It may be too early to sow hope.