No English Shadow on Farm protests
This is a rebuttal to Andy Mukherjee and David Fickling’s article in Bloomberg Quint titled “The Shadow of England in India’s Farm Protests” claiming India is at cusp of an economic indicator and the farm laws are timed so rightly to aid India’s economic growth take off.
Andy is someone I always read and sometimes disagree. But none of his past takes require a rebuttal because, as in life, there are different takes for same problem or even understand what a problem is. However, this one needs a special response because it summarises something like “if only Modi could handle this without cutting internet and push the laws, India will be back to its glory past.”
Nothing could be more disingenuous.
Act I: Comparing US and India prices
The article compares India and USA’s rice prices in and mentions that it is higher in India. This compares CME’s Rice futures against MSP. While factually this may be right, the reasoning the article takes goes back to Nehru and calling his investment in then modern industries. (“That disparity stems from distortions. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of post-colonial India, repurposed Soviet state planning for a democratic setup, and from 1956 invested heavily in sectors that made machines to produce industrial goods.”)
In 2016, NITI Aayog came out with a report titled, “Evaluation Study On Efficacy of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) on Farmers” and its final paragraph categorically stated, “Finally, almost all the beneficiaries were unanimous with the view that the MSP should continue as it insulated them from an unfavourable market conditions by assuring them a minimum return for their produces.”
There was also statewise takes on MSP and impact of MSP. The main concern even then was exploitative practices when there was no MSP. And in many cases, farmers didn’t sell on MSP. (Report — https://niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/writereaddata/files/document_publication/MSP-report.pdf )
Sample from Report on Andhra: Though there was discontentment among the farmers regarding MSP not covering the costs, there was general support for the continuance of MSP to avoid exploitative practices. The wholesale prices of paddy were observed to be below MSP but the expected prices of farmers were not met through MSP. The payment was delayed and at times more than a month.
I am not sure whether the argument that prices are higher in India — taken in article as one data point comparison actually holds good. The lived reality is quite different.
Act II: Farmers do not know
Article states “The reforms that are making farmers anxious have been deliberated since the early 1990s. When it comes to making them palatable, the missing ingredient even now is skilled midwifery: Farmers need to be able to trust both the intent and execution capacity of political leaders to fashion a new deal with taxpayers and consumers. It’s not enough to say that giving a free rein to markets will automatically make India’s farmers productive and prosperous. Someone has to explain what new organizational arrangements will replace the extensive state support that exists today.”
This is disingenuous. The article fashions the issue as if this is a communication problem. ‘Please explain more so that they know what benefits them’ is a bad take while the farmers have issued point by point rebuttal to the laws.
Imagine: You have a piece of land. If you become productive, you will earn more. Now, please tell me how just ‘private procurement’ and removing government support will increase productivity? In fact, higher MSP and security of MSP is increasing productivity. One can refer to the same NITI report.
Who has more interest in earning more income? A farmer who has piece of land and mostly indebted or us? Framing protest against farm laws as a communication issue is something that should be ridiculed and called out, even if it from someone as respected as Andy.
Act III: Wrong Historical lessons
The article summarises how Britain came into industrial age, how it beat Mughal India and simplifies “It’s unlikely any of this would have happened had it not been for the rapid and early decline of England’s rural workforce.”
Is India’s industrialisation dependent upon reducing farmers and farm labourers? There is no other way to understand this.
Historical evidences suggest one thing: There was massive improvement in farm productivity in England long before Industrial revolution began. There is no empirical evidence to prove that ‘decline in rural workforce’ is the cause for Industrial revolution or absence of this would have stopped Britain industrialising. In fact, most of the industrialisation happened in rural areas.
Act IV: Lewis Turning Point:
Continuing with rural labour force, the article states that India is at a cusp — “the moment when excess rural labour supply is soaked up, resulting in wage rises that eventually improve the productivity of both urban and rural businesses — earlier than anywhere else on the planet.”
CMIE measures India’s unemployment rate to be 6.5%. The greater unemployment rate is 11.75%.
Rural labour force is not stopping India’s industrialisation.
The article uses Lewis turning point as a measure, an indicator that holds the prophecy that India is at a cusp of glory and these farm laws are aiding in attaining that glory. No. It is not. CMIE estimates that there are 12,109,000 unemployed graduates who are actively seeking jobs and 3,287,000 graduates who want jobs but are not actively seeking. Maybe they gave up?
In a country where there are more than 1.5crore unemployed graduates, what stops us from Industrialising?
Certainly not these poor farmers.
And oh, the 40% Lewis Turning point?
Rural Male labour participation is at 71% and female at 12.9% and hence the mathematical average around 43%. Even if Andy and David want to believe that India is at the cusp of breaking below 40%, the realities of India and its social issues around gender doesn’t make it a statistical comparison against other countries.
One can go on and dissect the remainder of the article which compares the farmers to the landed gentry. I am sure the average landholding is 1.1 hectares. Holding this amount of land is doesnt make one ‘landed gentry.’
If not for Andy and his insights in the past, I would have called it a sub-par analysis at best and a serious distortion of real issue at worst.
