West Bengal Agricultural Policy: Lepcha farmers at stake

T. K. Das



This article is a sketch of an impact of commercialization of Indian
agriculture on the marginal people of this country like the Lepchas.
The Left-Front Government (LFG) led by CPI(M) proposed for a new
agricultural policy in 2002. This agricultural policy in tune with the
Mckinsey Report is another dimension of the global pressure on the
Indian farmers in general and tribal agriculturists in particular. The
basic target of this policy is commercialization of agriculture to the
extent to ensure full utilization of land, its products and manpower
for satiating global demands. This proposal has an apparent a priori
logic that villagers would be benefited, because this policy will
ensure employment and income generation for the farmers. At the same
time this policy will, on the one hand, relieve the cash-trapped
Government of its responsibility in safeguarding the interests of the
poor farmers of Bengal and, on the other hand, release the same from
the pressure of the global business houses and their Indian agents.

This new policy was a prelude to a major shift from agriculture to
agribusiness, which ‘is central to West Bengal’s 2010 Agribusiness
Vision.’ This policy was, in fact, a product of McKinsey Report on
problems and prospects of agriculture in West Bengal. The McKinsey, an
American consultancy firm, was first invited by the LFG in 1993. The
McKinsey Report proposed for three fundamental changes in agricultural
sector: a) opening of agriculture sector to private companies and
multinational corporations (MNCs), b) bringing variation in
agricultural products, and c) initiating into contract between
farmers and corporate (MNCs) for production and selling of particular
products. The first draft of the agricultural policy was vehemently
criticized by different sections of people and even by the smaller
partners of the Left Front. The LFG was forced to replace this policy
with two other policy-drafts under the supervision of Nirupam Sen, the
Minister of Industry, Government of West Bengal. However, these were
fundamentally similar to the former one. Such recalcitrant attitude of
the LFG primarily lies embedded in hurriedness of LFG for
industrializing West Bengal through free hand of private players. It
propagandizes agriculture as an unprofitable engagement for
livelihood. So, industrialization is the only panacea. To the CPM
veterans, farmers should sell his land and deposit the money in the
bank for living on interests. The urban bhdralok leadership of CPM
never likes tilling field and enjoying jatra as, to them, it is meant
for churl only. In fact, the ideological base of the dominant section
of the LFG also inspires such mode of thinking. It is thought that
agriculturists and their ethnic nexus to land are detrimental to
‘socialist path’ of progress. This disdainful attitude to farming
naturally propagandizes agriculture as an unprofitable affair for
livelihood. So, industrialization is the panacea. However, analysis
of the class character of those LFG propagandists reveals that they
are urban-centric, none of them are real tillers of land and they have
come from upper-middle class or from local elites of any class and
caste. Instead of nourishing the agriculture potential of the state,
what is long due, they obviously have prescribed shift from farming to
multinational contract farming -- the McKinsey solution.

Denuding the land is the consequential action of such institutional
arrangement. On the one hand LFG lays bare land for physical extortion
through hi-tech chemical farming and scrubs of land from the
psychosocial heritage on the other. Such aggressive advances need
certain legal instruments – acquisition and commercial use of land. In
consonance with this purpose and suggestions offered in the McKinsey
report, the LFG enacted a new land reform policy: the West Bengal
Land Reform (Amendment) Act in August 14 2005. The Section 14(Z) of
this new act legalizes entry of FDI in all sectors, like contract
farming, tourism, plantation, etc. It further empowers government to
change land use pattern at its whim. The results are: a) total
destruction of small and medium business including agriculture, b)
total opening of rural areas for FDI, & c) economy, management and
administration in rural areas will be controlled by MNCs. On the other
side, the LFG puts the British colonial policy of land acquisition of
1894 on use for facilitating industrialization in West Bengal. Such
attempt has already gained notoriety, as the clause of “public
purpose” of 1894 act becomes handy instrument for serving private
purposes of the big business. In any case, agricultural lands are
guillotined for non-agricultural use of land.

So, the agriculturists have two options: either giving up land for
industrialization or surrender to commercialization of agriculture.
Commercialized agricultural practices do not oppose cultivation of
staple food crops but propose for decreasing of cultivation area for
food crops. In order to increase production of food crops in
decreasing land-area, the LFG policy-makers encourage plentiful use of
chemical fertilizer, high-yielding seeds and insecticide.
Interestingly, the farmers have to buy all these again from the MNCs.
It also needs good irrigation system, which West Bengal in general
lacks. They also propose for use of land, extracted from land for food
crops, for “dream products” such as mango, litchis, pineapple, cashew
nut, vanilla, coco, mushroom, spices, potato, tomato, vegetables,
aromatic rice, and flowers and ornamental plants, etc. The private
players will select the products primarily according to the nature of
land. Kalimpong, for example, may be selected for floriculture only.
It has further been concluded that the processing of these products
and exporting abroad will be handled by eleven native and foreign
MNCs. In order to facilitate the whole operation, number of small and
big marketing centers will be established in the concerned areas.
Hence, according to McKinsey Report, the MNCs a) will decide what to
produce, b) will decide what type of seeds and fertilizer and how much
of water be used, c) will give loan against fixed rate of interest as
primary capital and d) will buy the produces partly in fixed rate and
partly in market rate.

II

McKinsey has divided West Bengal into four zones mainly in terms of
the nature of lands and other commercial facilities. The second zone
of these four zones comprises of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and North and
South Dinajpur. It has also earmarked 15% of total land of this zone
now used for paddy cultivation will be used for commercial production
of those “dream products”. In order to bypass any sort of wrangling
over negligence to food crop production, the McKinsey report tries to
compensate with the proposal that production of rice per hectare will
be raised from 1.79 ton to 2 tons through high-tech farming as
mentioned above. Especially for Darjeeling, McKinsey often talked
about the horticultural potentiality of the hills. In fact, the Indian
business houses and MNCs have plans for capturing horticulture
business (like cultivation of orchids, gladioli, etc.), which has
already made Kalimpong famous for its contribution. It might have
been possible that these big players will spread their tentacles
through local entrepreneurs. The LFG certainly has accent on such
entrepreneurships. Besides, the LFG has exchanged ideas with the
Mckinsey on the future of cinchona plantation of Mongpoo. The Media
reports reveal that it seeks global buyers for cinchona plantation of
Mongpoo, which covers an area of 8,000 hectares and has work force of
5,000 people. – Mckinsey had proposed restricting the plantation area
to 2,000 hectares and distributing excess land to workers and
providing them with marketing and technical support for the first five
years to make them worthy for agribusiness. However, the Standing
Committee on Commerce, GOI, rejected the proposal and recommended
cultivation of crops like turmeric and cardamom and also sericulture.
The workers (Members of the Hill Employees Association, Cinchona Zonal
Plantation Committee & members of the Sanjukta Morcha comprising of
five unions) of cinchona plantation of Mongpoo also opposed the
downsizing as suggested by Mckinsey.

So it is found that corporate profiteering motivates the attitude and
policy of the policy-makers and business groups regarding the future
of Indian agriculture. A renowned expert on agriculture, Devinder
Sharma, has already laid bare the ominous nexus among the trinity: the
national and local governments, MNCs and Indian business houses. He
has observed that the Indian government follows prescription of WTO
and business interest groups like, the CII, Assocham, and FICCI and is
working to turn Indian agriculture into a “food factory”. In their
opinion, shift from agriculture to agribusiness would usher in
“rainbow revolution”. Sharma also reported that the Assocham has also
prepared a report (“Strategic Plan for Indian Agricultural Sector”)
for boosting food crops production to 5,000 million tones and
suggested modification of land lease norms, transfer of irrigation
management contracts to the private sector and removal of trade
barriers all at the cost of government expenditure. After ‘green’ it
is the era of ‘rainbow’ where revolution will again be propelled not
by tillers of the land but by industrialists. One can see a close
entente between those business houses and Mckinsey as all their
attempts are found laced with prescribed formula of Mckinsey. In
Sharma’s opinion it is part of the global design as ‘the WTO seeks to
liberalize global agriculture trade by increasing market access
through their personal agreement on agriculture. It reduces domestic
support for farmers and export subsidies and lowers tariff barriers to
imports, backed by provisions that limit the role of public stocking
of food crops.’

III

This little bit lengthy but critical introduction about the role of
the trinity in restructuring Indian agriculture is indispensable to
analyze the fate of the Indian farmers in general and the Lepcha
farmers in particular. Suffice it say, farmers in general have been
heading towards a bleak future for such new agricultural policy.
However, farmer-tribes have certain other unique characteristics or so
to say in Spencer’s approach, unfitness, which have made them
unsuitable for Mckinsey prescription.

To begin with the study of effect of such prescription on the Lepchas,
one should take a look at the Lepcha agriculture. There are few but
critical studies on that issue. A quick summarization of Roy’s
observation, a recent study of the lot, would be a good beginning. To
his opinion, the Lepchas 1) are dependent heavily on agriculture, 2)
are mostly small landowners, 3) are dependent on household labor, 4)
believe in communal ownership not individualistic ownership 5) follow
traditional method of cultivation so they belong non-capitalist
society; or so to say, as ‘tribal peasants’ they practice a
pre-capitalist society based agriculture, 6) try to mix capitalist
farming with peasant economy of late: especially in case of production
and marketing of cash crops, 7) thrive on subsistence economy: grow
food mainly to eat, 8) have strong social and kinship obligations and
9) preserve seeds for next year for domestic and communal use. Having
these critical features in mind, he further pointed to certain new but
disturbing trends have already shaken Lepcha agriculture. For example,
more and more lands are being brought under the cultivation of cash
crops at the cost of food crops even if such cultivation of cash crops
denies traditional communal leanings. Young Lepchas have started
taking land on lease on contractual basis either by paying cash or
kind for cash crops cultivation, which flares up sex and generational
differences within the community. Besides, cultivation of cash crops
is capital intensive that drives them into trap of money lenders.
Moreover, the mono-crop pattern is now replaced by multi-cropping with
a typical objective of producing food crops for consumption and cash
crops for money. As luck would have it, these new developments
certainly create tension within the community as it requires changed
mine-set and necessary support base, which they lack in general. On
the other side, due to pressure of middlemen in marketing of cash
crops they cannot get the benefit of hard work. Finally, such
developments also destroy the already vulnerable food security of the
Lepchas.

So, the Lepcha economy, which is highly contradictory to McKinsey
policy, faces new challenges thrown by expansionism of capital over
the globe, which can be summarized as a conflict between the Lepcha
value system (Like absence of desire for accumulation) and private
initiative of capitalist mode of economy based on commercialization of
agriculture (Cash crops in particular instead of food cereals) of
late. The agricultural policy of the Government of West Bengal has
further endangered the future of small and marginal tribal farmers
whose economic interests have already been jeopardized in the face of
indifferent attitude of the government and sheer profit-making
tendency of the Indian and foreign business houses. In absence of
freedom of the farmers scheme of mechanized and commercial farming
will reduce the farmers to agricultural workers who will remain
indebted to investors forever. All these economic factors have hardly
offered a better economy for the Lepchas in place of subsistence
economy.

The draft agricultural policy proposes for corporatization of farming
under the guidance of the government and private actors, namely, the
district administration, local body and MNCs. All agricultural
activities will be controlled by a contract between the small or big
farmers and the MNCs. The State, particularly the district
administration and local bodies, will play the role of the mediator in
case of any crisis grown out of such contract. The farmers’
cooperative is replaced by such joint venture farming. The farmers
will be accountable for any loss bourn due to ground reality. Landless
agricultural laborers are to be employed in the food processing and
marketing sectors again controlled by those MNCs. This policy, though
wants variety in produces, encourages production of cash crops only
rather than food crops.


IV

To conclude this sketchy write-up one has to give attention to some
other alarming issues exhaled out of profiteering venture of the MNCs
and its veiled and unveiled supporters. These are as follows:
a) Commercialization of agriculture gives way to massive unemployment
by displacing agricultural laborers from their own hearth: since 1950,
50 million evicted for development projects of which 40% are tribes.
b) The big business groups also attempts to capture retail business so
that they can destroy any resistance in their way to profiteering. So,
the Lepchas cannot produce and sell their own produces.
c) Dominated by small land holdings Indian agriculture, according to
the experts, is in no position to adopt the high-tech farm practices
espoused by commercial agriculture, which does not take into account
of the differential needs of small and marginal farmers.
d) This policy opposes three cardinal issues of agriculture: opposes
freedom of the agriculturists, opposes sustainability of agriculture
as it ignores natural potential of land & opposes production of staple
food.
e) The MNCs and their followers want to build ‘food parks’ for ‘food
factories’ through uprooting the farmers out of their land. The food
factory projects have already uprooted millions of subsistence
farmers. Not only that, poor man’s food (maize, bajra, millets,
potato, etc.) would become rich man’s edible and drink (beer, whisky)
in the near future. The food crop production in India has registered a
downward trend due to bad policies of the global and native players
and their ‘fatal obsession with intensive agriculture based on
chemical fertilizers. Such practices generate ecological imbalances as
well. As a consequence, starvation deaths would be natural
consequences as land becomes sick and unproductive.’
f) Further, Dr. T.N. Prakash and Dr, Tejaswsini of the University of
Agricultural Science, Bangalore, observed that intensive floriculture,
which is now becoming popular especially in Karnataka, West Bengal,
Tamil Nadu, Andhrapradesh and Maharashtra, will certainly ruin the
land, rendering it unfit for cultivation on the one hand and
pesticides and chemical fertilizers pollute environment and
contaminate ground water on the other.

Do marginal Lepchas have spirit and power to fight against corporate
giants propped up by local bureaucracy and political leaders? The
answer may not be affirmative but constant vigil and good reason would
be an amulet for the Lepcha community or any other affected people.


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