One Nation One Market - Perception Management
PC : Indian Express
Recently, in India farmers have voiced their anger, disagreement by holding rallies, and a very famous tractor parade on republic day with a call to repeal the "draconian three laws" which the ruling regime believes would change the agriculture and farming would see transformational change.
The party and its ideological affiliated wings have opinions otherwise, however, the propaganda machine (spokespersons, and media) were devised to "manage the perception" of many Indian farmers mostly landlords, and upper caste privileged to hop on the side of the ruling regime, hence they have started "calling the names" for very own citizens of India as a terrorist, breakers of India, etc.
Despite the protest being known as a "once in a lifetime protest" was ignored and sidelined the demands of the fellow citizens of India, in the beginning, the regime tried to "hogwash" it, later acted like listening to the citizens and then used the tactics of perception management to influence the young vocal to propagate "One Nation One Market" is a message from messiah who is the hope of India. little did they knew the ground reality.
The ground reality, I will try my best to articulate the ground reality of the farmers by emphasizing two crops grown in Vijaypura district; one is perishable and another one is non-perishable.
A little brief on agriculture land of Vijayapura / Bijapur, total geographical area is 10,53,471 hectares, and 21, 77, 331 people live here, so basically, each individual could have around 3-4 acres land. This establishes that in Vijaypura mostly farmers are landless or even if they have land which may not be more than 20 - 30 acres as a family of three or five people. Moreover, our farming is seasonal and depend upon rain, lets look at the rainfall days in Vijapura, its on average of 35-40 days which even doesn't last for a month, will that suffice? No says many farmers I have interacted with however the there is hope, few politicians like Mr M B Patil who have the conviction to irrigate the Vijaypura district which is once in life time investment for future of farmers. His role was instrumental in irrigating ~16,000 acres. the total irrigated land is 1,25,626 by the canals and by other means few hundred hectaers. I deduce we have around 30-40% is irrigated.
Based on the above geographical, infrastructural and social context, isn't MSP (Minimum Support Price) becomes genuine demand of the farmers? this ensures the a little certinity of the income for the hard work of farmers to produce the food grains.
Land is not just the commercial aspect of the farmers, in fact it is the entitlement, the last hope for many farmers in India, if a crony capitalist buy the land with or without informed consent of the people, wold not it erode the entitlement which farmers are belive in ?
Before joining the bandwagon of "one nation one market" lets look at the infrastructure of logistics to sell out the produce outside the village, district leave the selling out of state, hence I called to a farmer who has grape producing farm, which is around 10 acres, and has been in farming since a decade, invested in digging well, drip irrigation, expertise labour and he himself spends most of his time in the farming. This is the conversation,
Me: Anna (Brother), where you sell the grapes?
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| Pic was taken 2017 |
He: "Tasagaon" Maharshtra.
Me: how?
He: I will store in Vijapura warehouse ? then the buyer will visit the warehouse, fix the pricing? its all online (online word he picked from this propaganda machine)
Me: how is it "online"? If online possible, then you must be able to sell from your home and then the buyer or you can transport later (logistics)?
He: hmm.. I don't have cold storage..
Me: which is the nearest one?
He: Vijayapura (which is 60KM away from his farm).
Me: can we build a storage in less than one hour journey for farmers like you?
He: that would be great but huge investment ...
Grape is perishable, which needs timely logistics, isn't this ground reality ?
Next, I spoke to the another farmer, who holds 40 acres land and he grows crops that are rain dependent,
Me: Namaskar Goudra? how are you?
He: Namaskar Goudra, I am good, this time our fate is great I have produce of around 200 quintols of Tur.
Me: wow! congratulations,
He: thanks, but nothing I could save if you look at the expenses,
Me: how?
He: Prices are fluctuating, only if govt buys as it bought earlier would be beneficial. (He was referring to the MSP).
Me: if government doesn't buy, where you would sell?
He: Kalaburgi,
Me: why?
He: prices are competitive.
Me: why not Vijaypura?
He: Vijapura Market is not huge (buyers) as Kalaburgi,
Me: how about logistics / transportation?
He: yeah its going to be another expense, but helpless what to do? bear the cost hoping get better price.
So, to sell outside their own market, they need physical storage, transportation infrastructure than the "a mere website of price list and buyers contact details", the website wont create one market one nation, rather the government must and should invest in the infrastructure to enable and empower the farmers to sell at their own convenience.
Ground reality is the availability of land, irrigation, transportation mechanism and the market (buyers).
The solution the government proposed is propaganda :
1. One nation one market
2. Anyone can buy the farm land
3. No guarantee of MSP.
still the party wins the election means "perception management" is effectively done by the PR agencies and crony capitalists.
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