Abstract
Venkatesh B. Athreya’s academic work has been motivated by issues that are aligned with the interests of the downtrodden and marginalised sections of the population. To that end, his understanding of economics has always been in consonance with alternative thoughts in the discipline that are strongly embedded with the existing realities. Agrarian change, political economy of development, food and nutrition security, education and socio-economic inequality are some of the central concerns of his academic work. The chapters in this festschrift reflect some of these concerns.
The policies of economic reforms, initiated in India since 1991, had impacted agricultural development trajectory in India. In this context, the book edited by A. Narayanamoorthy, R. V. Bhavani and R. Sujatha, a festschrift for Professor Venkatesh Athreya, is a welcome addition to the existing literature that discusses political economy of agrarian changes in India due to fundamental changes in the macroeconomic policy regime, since the early 1990s.
This book, a compilation of 12 essays, has contributions from well-known academics, activists and research scholars. There is dominance of economists among the contributors and hence discussions in the chapters largely centres on the economic impacts of reforms on agriculture and rural development in India. A notable exception is the chapter by Staffan Lindberg—a well-acclaimed sociologist—that discusses sociological history of a caste group, Madharis in Tamil Nadu, that were considered as untouchables.
Seven chapters in the book deals with public policies and its impacts on rural development. The new policy regime can be identified with decline in public investment in agriculture and decline in formal credit for the poor farmers with financial liberalisation, worsening of government extension services, decline in subsidies provided to the fertilizer companies thereby increasing its prices and agricultural trade liberalisation and allowing the entry of corporate retail in the supply chain. Each one of these policies are inimical to the interests of petty producers and rural poor either by way of reducing profitability of crop production due to rising costs of cultivation or reduction in wage work on account of contractionary fiscal policies. Thus, there is a distinct class bias of these policies against sections of the population in rural areas that do not have access to capital. The chapters in this book are reflections of these basic features of post-reform agrarian development.
Utsa Patnaik analyses the role of imperialism in shaping macroeconomic policies that had led to widespread distress and misery among the petty producers and rural poor. In her chapter, while recognising the changing nature of imperialism, Patnaik draws parallels between the economic policy regimes of the 1940s and the neoliberal policies that are presently pursued. She argued that one of the main objectives of imperialist domination was to extract and control resources by compressing effective demand in the developing economies for realising the domestic development agenda of metropolis.
She argued that in the 1940s, reduction in mass consumption demand of the peasantry and working population was achieved through profit inflation and fiscal compressions; in the contemporary period it was achieved mainly through the latter. She argued that in both these periods there is a striking similarity in terms of devastating impacts of policies on the rural economies. While the 1940s witnessed Bengal famine, in the more recent period farmer suicides have become a common feature.
In another essay, Prabhat Patnaik added a dimension to the discussion on demand compression by arguing that there is a bias against agricultural sector, in the contemporary economic regime, in which investment in non-agriculture sector is preferred to attain higher growth trajectory. He argued that shifts in public expenditure from agriculture and rural development to non-agricultural sector is akin to primitive accumulation of capital. He goes on to argue that primitive accumulation of capital has stock and flow components in which the latter comprises shifts in government expenditure (from agriculture to non-agriculture) that results in transfer of incomes of peasants to people with access to capital in the non-agricultural sector. An outcome of primitive accumulation of capital in the flow form, according to Prabhat Patnaik, is burgeoning stocks of food grains with the government.
Two chapters, by R. Ramakumar and Madhura Swaminathan, analyse changes in government policies on rural credit and food security in the post-reform period. Analysis in these two chapters have been done from the supply side of the economy in contrast to Patnaiks’ which analyses impacts of policies on the demand side.
These studies revealed that nature of government intervention had undergone changes in the post-reform period. In the sphere of rural credit (a) policy of social and development banking was replaced by commercial motives with more emphasis on maximising profits and (b) changes in definitions of the priority sector that benefited entities not involved in crop production like agro-business groups, exporting companies, power companies and input suppliers.
Food policy in the economy, too, had undergone changes. Madhura Swaminathan identifies three food regimes in India. These are (a) universal public distribution system, (b) targeted public distribution system and (c) recent phase following the implementation of National Food Security Act in 2013. Notwithstanding these changes, vulnerable sections of the population did not receive benefits either in terms of better access to finance or food as compared to the pre-reform period. Recently, there are proposals of replacing the PDS, with cash transfers were being proposed. Cash transfers, argues Swaminathan, will make vulnerable sections of the population susceptible to food inflation and it will not jeopardise the well-established system of procurement and distribution of food grains in India and hence the interests of consumers and producers will be adversely affected.
In an important intervention, U. Shankar analyses agricultural policies in India relating to land, water, fertilisers and pesticides. He argued that in the framing of agricultural policies, environmental sustainability has been neglected and emphasis was given more on increasing production. As a result, sustainable development of Indian agriculture was compromised. Moreover, development of modern technology in agriculture did not benefit the marginal and poor farmers; on the contrary, it reduced biodiversity because these were confined to selected crops like rice, wheat and maize. He argued for elimination of subsidies whose continuation did not lead to efficient utilisation of scarce resources like water and fertilizers, instead, government intervention in payment for ecosystem services will be extremely desirable. His scepticism regarding sustainable agricultural practices like organic farming was primarily due to lower yield rates as compared to the traditional method, lack of consumer awareness and associated problems of marketing.
Arguably, agrarian crisis under neoliberal capitalist development was most acutely seen in cotton cultivation that witnessed substantial number of farmer suicides. The crisis in cotton cultivation is an outcome of combination of policies of the new economic regime, post 1991. Against this background, the study by A. Narayanamoorthy on viability of cotton cultivation across four major cotton producing states, is extremely relevant.
In this chapter, Punjab and Gujarat were classified as high area high yield producing state while Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh as high area low yield producing state. In each of these states, there were fluctuations in profits, estimated over cost C2, between 1972–1973 and 2010–2011. The study revealed that cotton farmers in Punjab and Gujarat were making profits in major part of the period under study. The author argued that fluctuations in profits were witnessed in Maharashtra due to inadequate irrigation facilities. Unlike Punjab and Gujarat, Maharashtra is one state in which farmers incurred losses in crop production. This was due to the introduction of BT cotton technology in the new millennium, which had led sharp escalation in costs. This had led to farmers abandoning cultivation of cotton. In Andhra Pradesh, losses are substantial, that had led to farmer suicides in significant extent. The author recommended that it is important to improve market infrastructure along with improved access to irrigation and credit to increase the viability of cotton cultivation.
Based on ARIS REDS database, Goran Djurfeldt argued that agrarian transformation is an outcome of increased demand for labour from non-agricultural sectors of the economy. He argued that agrarian transformation in India is characterised neither by Leninist understanding regarding the development of capitalism in India, nor Chayanovian understanding which argues for the superiority of family farms, that operates with a high degree of cooperation, over capitalist agro-industries.
Agrarian relations in India is marked by variations across agro-ecological zones and unevenness in capitalist development. The chapters based on field level data—five in all—reflects the local specificities that had driven the process of development in rural India. Of these, three chapters are based on field surveys conducted in Tamil Nadu, one in Jharkhand and the other one across 20 villages located in different agro-ecological zones in nine major states of India.
Chapters by Ramachandran, Lindberg, Heyer and Rawal, Bansal and Bansal revealed that prole-tarianisation of the peasantry and increasing participation in non-farm work has been a feature in rural India. These studies revealed that occupational diversification into non-farm work is due to (a) loss of land and increasing unviability of crop production, (b) industrial development that had led to dynamism in the local economy and (c) land acquisition that had led to changes in land use from agriculture to non-farm work. These processes have produced outcomes that varied across socio-economic classes.
Ramachandran argues that proletarianisation of the peasantry in the post-reform period has led to expansion of the market for hired labour and changes in the labour processes. However, capitalist development did not eliminate the pre-capitalist fetters like untouchability in the rural areas in India. This was discussed in detail by Staffan Lindberg in the chapter on Madharis, a marginalised caste group in the Tirupur area of Tamil Nadu. Lindberg argued that despite economic empowerment of the Madharis due to state interventions in creating employment opportunities and spurt in industrialisation in the region, yet their position in the social hierarchy in the villages did not undergo any substantial change. However, development of transport and communications and opportunities to receive gainful employment outside the village has given them a sense of freedom that hitherto was absent.
The chapter by Judith Heyer, too, analyses positive impacts of industrial development on agriculture and overall standards of living of the local populace. She argued that development of industries since the 1980s in western Tamil Nadu (Tiruppur and Coimbatore) has led to occupational diversification into non-farm work. The study revealed that capitalist development in the region benefited the landed sections, in terms of high-quality non-agricultural work and sustaining the processes of accumulation in agriculture in the post-reform period; however, there is a trickle-down of the benefits to the rural poor as well.
Land acquisition for industrial development has become an extremely contentious issue recently. Land acquisition leads to changes in land use and occupational diversification into non-farm work. Vikas Rawal, Prachi and Vaishali Bansal in a chapter, based on a field survey in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, argued that impact of land acquisition varied across socio-economic classes and caste groups in the study region. Typically, households with access to land were the biggest beneficiaries in terms of monetary compensation and remunerative jobs in industries; however, the landless, mostly Adivasi households were left out of development. Thus, existing inequities in agrarian structure in India tends to widen due to acquisition of land and subsequent changes in land use. They argued that unless these distinctions, across socio-economic classes and caste groups are identified and recognised, resistance against land acquisition can very well serve the interests of landed sections.
An important development of neo-liberal capitalist development in India was the entry of corporates into food retail ostensibly to integrate markets and improve producer’s share in final consumer rupee while not compromising interests of the consumers. The chapter by Harriss-White, Manu, Mody and Sukumar, based on field data collected in 2012–2013, analyses labour processes and conditions of labour in the distribution circuit of rice. They argued that the entry of corporate retail in rice marketing did not lead to integration of markets; rather, there is segmentation between large and small retail outlets with differentiation in the labour process and labour relations in terms of number of workers employed, nature of work, wages paid and patterns of recruitment. The study also identifies certain similarities in labour relations across small retail and organised retail chains in terms of drudgery of work and absence of social security benefits. In this chapter authors argue that there was competition between the supermarkets and small retail for increasing market shares. However, for the workers, it has been a race to the bottom. Authors argue that in terms of quality of employment, the supply chain of the PDS of Tamil Nadu, which is under the control of state, was better as compared to the private sector networks.
In all, the book is an excellent document for the researchers of agrarian studies to enhance understanding of the impacts of policies of economic reforms on agrarian life in India. The book is an important document to critically review India’s growth story that has been considered successful in orthodox economic thinking, following the implementation of neo-liberal reforms. It shows that the trickle-down impact of growth has not been realised in India. Based on secondary and field-based data, the chapters in this book attempt to understand agricultural development trajectory in India from macro and micro perspectives. It is an important contribution to the literature that can be used for undertaking further research on Indian agriculture presently engulfed in a crisis.