Three different symptomatic indicators are a matter of concern for us. First, the political parties without exception being busy shedding their crocodile tears for the farming community. Second, the craze for luring industrial houses to invest in different States, including ours, assuring them of repackaged incentives. Third, the sudden increase in the criminalisation of our society making an average citizen feel unsafe.
Bargarh considered as a rice bowl of Odisha has unfortunately been the victim of failure of crops and an octopus-hold of debt-trap in so far as farmers are concerned. There have been unfortunate cases of suicide. There have been persistent attempts to project as though the agro-rural sector is well cared for and the professed programmes are being properly implemented at the grassroots level. The BJD had rallies in two other western Odisha centres styled as those composed of farmers. Not to be left behind, the BJP had a rally at Bargarh similarly styled as one composed of farmers. The CM addressed the BJD rallies and the PM the BJP rally. Each had to conduct this ritual as there was a feeling that the farming community is feeling neglected and tending to be alienated. The speeches of CM and PM tried to project that they are deeply concerned about the plight of the farmers.
As a State subject, the agro-rural sector calls for effective intervention of the State Government in causing structural changes. A pragmatic rural credit mechanism has not yet received any appropriate attention. Protections against vagaries of nature are dealt with in a ritualistic manner. Non-availability of adequate conservation and distribution of water through well-designed and integrated irrigation system are fundamental requirements but are denied to the toiling tillers. Both the CM and PM went at length to explain what programmes each one was piloting. Agro-based industry is no more limited to rice, wheat and pulses. Half a century has elapsed, but we have to remind ourselves through these rallies that we are yet to serve the cause of “Jai Kisan”. The recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission are yet to be implemented in any effective manner. Vital recommendations relating to size of holdings, choice of technique, modalities of farming, a proper support price ensuring a margin comparable to an industrial activity, easy and simple rural credit facilities still await adequate attention. An appropriate remunerative support price backed by marketing infrastructure spreading out to the roots, i.e., our villages still poses annual problems. The revised crop insurance scheme does not take care of these situations, save and except ensuring survival existence in times of natural calamities and crop failures.
The integrated approach to agriculture, horticulture, pisciculture, animal husbandry, milk production, poultry farming, bee hiving and the like is not new things. One can go to the nearby CRRI to see micro demonstrations of this. The malady lies in translating the available knowhow and proposed projects into effective and fruitful realities. Soil health card will per se not be of any help unless curative measures to improve the soil condition to make it more productive are integrated into this exercise. Organic manure has hardly received any attention. We have been told that a second Green Revolution will start from Odisha, maybe, after ensuring that there is hardly anything green left in the State. Any meaningful form of agro-based reform has to take place with the State and the Centre acting in tandem with each other. While this pretentious propaganda regarding regeneration of agro-based economy continues to increase in its intensity, utilisation of our resources are not properly monitored.
We have compromised national interest in granting state largesse of non-renewable resources contrary to the interest of the community at large. We have now to believe that after 75 years of Independence, we could think of the dreams coming true a few years later. We are also told that our dreams had already come true and the State is now prosperous and vibrant. Alert citizens must now realise that they are being controlled by dream merchants. The kaleidoscope of allurements and corrupting influences has now turned us into a society that wants to make quick money at the cost of the rural and urban poor. Insensitive acquisition of land at prices not compensatory enough and lack of proper management and lack of public accountability of the investment of public resources in private industry have been driving us to be cynical.
Science and technology know of no ethics. Human society cannot be devoid of ethics. Consequently, human society cannot depend solely on science and technology. This elementary truth has been forgotten by us, leading to debasement, distortions and aberrations in our social existence. Ethical norms are fundamental and not peripheral to our social fabric and its future shape.
All these trends have resulted in debasing our society and making it devoid of any norms and ethics. The crave and craze of getting rich quick is now so embedded in our system to the extent that a parallel mafia channel controls every sector of activity in one way or the other. Our villages and cities were never so crime-ridden as they are today. Money at any cost and getting rich by any means have led to degeneration of our social structure, throwing up several layers and several persons linked with crimes. We have reached a state when one feels unsafe in one’s own surroundings. The crime rate is galloping, and sordid stories are being exposed through the wars of individuals or of their gangs.
We have almost reached the crisis point. Further degeneration may turn the trend to be irreversible. The criminality in the society is cascading and snowballing. The younger generation is already fatally vitiated by this virus. The elders in the society having enjoyed the same scheme of things are incapable of reversing trend. A few of them, who may not have gone with the trend, find themselves angry but ineffective; agitated but helpless and finally, frustrated without the ability to cure the situation. We have to have catalysts who inject blood of optimism to replace the tainted blood of pessimism. This calls for intrusive social action so that the downhill spiral does not go beyond the present generation of the youth force. This also requires suitable antibiotic and amputational treatment. It is time voices were raised so that the beginning of a new era is set in motion. If the perilous trend is not reversed, the future looks very gloomy. A spark is needed to set the fire on. The fuel is already available in the form of suppressed anger, disgust and disillusionment of the enlarged middleclass. The missing link is the absence of adequately motivated and effective leaders and activists within our social framework. We cannot permit the situation to be cancerous. Social, economic, cultural and structural alterations are required. Any lethargy in this regard will be to our own peril. These are not issues only affecting any isolated sections of the society. There is a visible need of pervasive visible remedial action in this regard as a common cause. Surely, this concerns us all!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. jayantdas@hotmail.com)