The policy of compensation has failed to make its mark because of lax bureaucracy, and complex and dishonest land relations in villages. As damages are paid to farmers having legal papers of ownership or tenancy; in the case of natural calamity, unrecorded tenants are left to fend for themselves
The massive crop failure due to untimely rain is wreaking havoc on farmers. There has been a sudden rise in the number of suicides committed by the affected farmers. As usual the politics of blame game has started again. The Opposition parties are accusing that the Government didn’t provide adequate compensation to debt-ridden farmers which left them with no alternative but to commit suicide. As a solution to this problem, the Opposition is demanding higher compensation to the affected farmers. The immediate response of the Government is to reconsider the compensation amount. But in spite of providing the highest-ever compensation, the menace of farmers’ suicide hasn’t stopped.
The recent suicide of Rajasthan farmer Gajendra Singh at an Aam Aadmi Party’s anti-land acquisition Bill rally in Delhi has caused great furore in the media. Though it was alleged that the farmer’s suicide was a “drama” enacted by the AAP which turned out to be a “tragedy”, but to comment on the issue until the final police investigations are submitted will be futile. Perhaps time will tell what exactly happened to Gajendra Singh: whether he died due to an accident or due to distress caused by crop failure, while seeking attention in front of media, or any other reasons. However the main concern here is that farmers are committing suicide in almost all the major States, irrespective of which political party/parties is/are ruling the States. Whether the State is agriculturally forward or backward becomes pointless.
This brings to the questions which have emerged in the mind of the common man: why do farmers prefer to die in spite of adequate compensations announced by respective GovernmentsIJ Why have all the subsequent Government failed to stop the suicide by farmersIJ Why is this malaise of suicide spreading in all the States from north to south and east to westIJ The answers to these questions are deep-rooted and hence need to be analysed.
Why did the policy of compensation fail miserablyIJ
The policy of compensation has failed to make its mark due to two reasons — the first being the bureaucracy and the other land relations. It is a complex task to provide equal and reasonable compensation to each and every farmer. The estimate of the crop damage is done by the bureaucracy, which is often accused of corruption. Compensation checks of rupees 50 and 100 provided by the Uttar Pradesh Government to its farmers is not unheard of. The misery of the farmers is not just limited to erroneous estimation of crop damage but also lies in the corruption as they had to pay bribes to get this meager compensation. However this problem can be tackled through strict policies taken by the Government.
The crux of the problem lies in the land relations in the villages. land can be cultivated either by the owner himself or through others. A landowner can get his land cultivated by others in two ways —
either by employing hired labour or by leasing out the land on share or fixed rent basis. The lease on fixed rent is an arrangement between the lessor and the lessee, under which lessee pays some pre-determined fixed amount to the lessor in return of using his land. Under the share crop arrangement between the lessor and the lessee, instead of taking a fixed payment for allowing the lessee to use his land, the lessor prefers to share the final output.
The question is why compensation not working uniformly on all forms of cultivation. The irony of compensation, provided by the Government, is that it is always given to the owner of the land or to tenant if they have any written tenancy agreement which is generally very rare.
The agricultural census of India (2010-11) shows that approximately 1,595 lakh hectare is owned by Indian farmers, out of which only 6 lakh hectare is entirely leased-in in Government records. It indicates that less than 0.4 per cent of the land to be leased-in for cultivation under tenancy contracts has been recorded. Whereas, studies based on the primary survey of villages indicate approximately 10 to 50 per cent of the land is generally leased-in under different tenancy contracts. Noticeably the major part of the recoded lease-in land is of Government land, which indicates that the private leased out land have been rarely recorded. It will be worth mentioning here that Government land is generally leased out to powerful and affluent farmers in the village. Since a nominal rent is charged by the Government, things are manipulated to avail this benefit.
The discrepancies in the Government records and the actual numbers of tenancy is due to the fact that generally landlords avoid signing any leasing contract on paper owing to the hassles and stringent laws in favour of lessee, which says that a tenant cannot be evicted from the land cultivated by him before and after a specified period. Hence due to security of tenure clause most of the landlords avoid making an agreement of tenancy on paper. As agricultural census of India is completely based on revenue records of the Government, it takes into account only recorded or registered tenancy contracts which are negligible in numbers.
As the compensation is provided to farmers having legal papers of ownership or tenancy, in the case of natural calamity, unrecorded tenants are not entitled to the compensation. Each form of tenancy has different consequences in the eventuality of natural calamity.
If the crop is damaged due to natural calamity and the landowner has cultivated the land by himself, he will automatically be entitled for the Government compensation. Since the compensation is directly availed by the landowner-cultivator himself, it proves beneficial to them. If the land was leased in on share rent the compensation may be partially helpful. But if the land was leased in on fixed rent, the compensation will not work.
A landlord will be in the win-win situation if he leased out his land on fixed rent basis and the crop is damaged, because in this situation, landlord will not only get the fixed rent from the lessee but also the compensation provided by the Government.
In the case of share rent, the burden of crop failure will be shared by the landlord and the tenant but the compensation provided by the Government will solely be taken by the landlord. So even in this situation the landlord will be fully compensated, while the lessee will not get anything from the Government but will bear some percentage of crop failure, generally 50 per cent.
Can insurance helpIJ
The political parties suggest that the subsidised insurance policy might help farmers in the case of natural calamity. But it needs to be understood that the crop insurance will help the landlord cultivators alone as the crops can be insured only against legitimate property papers. Obviously, the landlord will not insure the crop grown on his land if he is leasing it out. Even the tenant will also not take the pain to do insurance as in the event of crop failure the insurance amount will be credited into the account of the landlord. Evidently the insurance can be helpful only in the case when landlord himself is insuring his crop and cultivating his land.
Can cheap credit helpIJ
The problem with the cheap credit policy of the Government is similar to that of compensation and insurance. As the cheap credit is provided against the mortgage of the land, it cannot be availed by the tenant cultivators. Moreover, the cheap credits are generally availed by the landlord even if they are leasing out their land. In the case of natural calamity, the Government often announces to waive the loan amount. But unfortunately even this policy does not help the tenant cultivators as they are not entitled to avail the loan.
What is the way outIJ
It needs to be realised that any good policy whether of compensation or insurance or cheap credit to farmers cannot work in isolation. The success of the policies of compensation, insurance and cheap credit lies in the answers of the following questions: why are landlords averse to record the tenancyIJ Why do they prefer oral agreement rather than written agreementsIJ
Evidently the reasons why the landlords are averse to sign an agreement are two folds; first, the ambiguous property rights, and second, faulty justice delivery system. The property rights are so imprecise that they can be manipulated in either ways. Apart from this, getting justice in the Indian courts is troublesome. The property cases are passed on from one generation to other without any certainty of the result. On many occasions, the petitioner and the witnesses pass away but the case goes on.
The famous saying in Hindi goes “jhagra jhootha, kabja sachcha”, which means that the possession on the land is more important than having valid papers. The saying in itself explains the long frustrated experience of people of the country where not only the property rights are not clear but also getting justice in property disputes is very difficult.
Until these property rights are made transparent, the landlords will continue to lease out their land without any written agreements. Further, if the tenants will not get a valid paper of agreement related to tenancy they cannot get the benefit of compensation, insurance and cheap credit provided by the Government. Further, if the affected parties are not compensated for their loss, they will continue to kill themselves.
It’s high time the Government contemplated on formulating policies to make property rights transparent and judiciary accountable to get speedy justice in the case of property disputes and to encourage the landlords to record each and every case of leasing out. There are many absentee landlords, who owing to the fear of losing land ownership rights, either keep their land fallow or frequently evict the tenants. If these two important issues are taken care of, it will not only increase the amount of land available for agriculture and stop the frequent eviction of the tenants, but also strengthen the compensation, insurance and cheap credit policy of the Government. The real distressed tiller will be benefitted. The other serious effort required is in the direction of decreasing the dependence on agriculture. At least one member of each agricultural household should be brought under some non-agricultural activity. The sole dependence on agriculture has made farmers financially and emotionally completely dependent on agriculture, which is reflected at the time of natural calamity.
Instead of indulging in blame game, both the Government and Opposition parties should address these issues and together formulate policies to surmount the shortcomings of the prevalent system.
(Anish Gupta and Aaleya Giri teach Economics and English respectively at Delhi University. They can be reached at pioneer.article@gmail.com)