The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

ARTICLE

Political silence on farmer suicides
Agrarian distress does not figure in the ongoing elections
Inderjit Singh Jaijee

At a rally in Sangrur (Punjab) women carry photographs of debt-ridden farmers and farm labourers who had committed suicide. A Tribune file photo

Even though campaigning in Punjab is at its height and candidates are leaving no stone unturned to corner their rivals, the issue of rural suicides finds hardly any mention.

One farm union leader - Sukhdev Singh Kokri, general secretary of the BKU (Ugrahan) — attributes the silence to class allegiance. He has been quoted as saying that leaders of almost all parties are either from the rich peasantry or from the urban rich class and since agriculture can be revived only through rigorous agrarian reforms - which go against their interests - they deliberately keep silent.

Occasionally candidates of the new Aam Aadmi Party mention the plight of the villagers and the crisis facing the farming community but often they are more interested in corruption and drug trafficking. An eminent Punjab economist, Sucha Singh Gill, Director, Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, attributes this silence to the "mahaul" of the 2014 elections which is a fight between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, or secularism versus fundamentalism, to the exclusion of all else.

And yet the blight that has stricken Punjab's countryside is overwhelming. Farmers, farm labourers and persons in allied occupations constitute more than a third of the state's workforce. As voters, they number about 35 lakh. The number of people affected and the intensity of their immiseration qualifies as the "the elephant in the room" that is the present general election. "Elephant in the room" is an American expression meaning something huge and obvious but at the same time too embarrassing to be acknowledged.

It is not that the Shiromani Akali Dal-led state government is unaware of the issue's potential for evoking anti-Akali feeling. In the last week of March, threatened by a call by farmer unions to gherao Badal's house in Chandigarh and the offices of the Deputy Commissioners in the six Malwa districts, the state government immediately acted on its eight-month-old promise to undertake a fresh survey of rural suicide victims so as to have data for a uniform time period.

The previous survey produced data for three different time spans. One university did the survey up to 2008, another up to 2010 and the third till 2011. The plan now is to complete the survey up to 2013 all over the state. The base year (2000) is to remain the same in the new survey. Principal Financial Commissioner (Revenue) NS Kang dashed off letters to the Deputy Commissioners instructing them to assist the universities assigned to carry out the enumeration work.

Presumably, this enumeration will start after a few weeks when farmers are free from the harvesting and procurement process and student enumerators are free from examinations. Here are some of the things that need to be said:

1. An inaccurate survey is worse than no survey at all:

a. There are many ways to nudge a survey into inaccuracy:

i. commission the work but don't provide adequate funds;

ii. rely on underpaid or unpaid researchers such as students to collect the data;

iii. send police escorts with the enumerators Incidentally, anyone looking for an example of how the police are used to cover up the extent of rural suicides need only visit Khanauri in Sangrur district on the Punjab - Haryana border on the banks of the Bhakra Mainline Canal. The police have been instructed to manage the canal sluice gates so that bodies are not trapped on the Punjab side but flow on into Haryana.

iv. neglect to contact the entire panchayat;

v. do not publicise the survey among the villagers

2. Worse than an inaccurate survey is an inaccurate survey followed by a skewed distribution of compensation

(a) In 2013 the government earmarked Rs 30 crore for compensation and paid out half of the agreed Rs 2 lakh to 2,886 families (those affected up to 2006) out of a total of 6,926 farmers and labourers whom the first survey had declared to be eligible.

(b) In 2001 the then Akali government acknowledged rural suicides and sanctioned a compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh to the next of kin of each victim. (Adjusted for inflation this would be approximately Rs 5 lakh in 2014)

(c) Subsequently the Punjab Farmers' Commission of 2008 recommended a lumpsum payment of Rs 50,000 and a monthly pension of Rs 1,500 for 30 years to the next of kin. (The lumpsum plus pension would work out to be about Rs 6 lakh)

Other experts have also advocated meaningful compensation. The state government has whittled down the amount to Rs 2 lakh per next of kin and has not paid that either.

3. Suicides are a symptom of the agrarian crisis of Punjab - and the rest of India. Treating the symptoms is necessary but the actual objective is to eliminate the disease. Here are some suggestions to address the issue:

a. Make institutional credit available to all farmers, and labourers

b. Waive agricultural loans

c. Scrap the Agricultural Produce Marketing Act

d. Implement the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission

e. On compensation to the next of kin of Punjab farmers who had committed suicide, implement the recommendations of the Punjab Farmers Commission

f. Provide free compulsory education of good quality to all rural children up to Class XII. Build skill-training into the school curriculum from Class VIII onward. Generously provide scholarships for higher education to meritorious students

g. Adopt the Haryana model for setting and distributing pensions to widows, orphans, the elderly and the disabled. Haryana has earmarked a pension of Rs 1,000 per month each to beneficiaries in all categories and its distribution is through the panchayats.

The new survey is all very well but it does not absolve the candidates in the present election from the sin of silence. One who occupies a political office represents the people and articulates their distress. If the candidates sincerely want to sit in Parliament on behalf of their constituents, let them start articulating these views even at this late stage.

Jaijee is the author of "Debt and Death in Rural India", a study of farmer suicides in Punjab

MIDDLE

‘Men are April when they woo’
D. C. Sharma

Come April, and a sense of thrilling experience about the weather comes to our mind. This is what prevails among the people in the valleys, hills and plains. The first half of April is extremely pleasant in the hills. It is only after 15th that the season starts catching heat.

I feel Thomas Crew reflects this much better thus:

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost

Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost

Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream

Upon the silver lake or icy stream

April also reminds us of Shakespeare who says "Men are April when they woo/ But December when they wed." That actually has nothing to do with April. It refers to the change of passion in love. Love is the hottest till one craves for the beloved to possess. But once the object craved for is possessed, the dominance of satiety even in love brings about that unwanted change. This is a bitter truth about love and life.

"April is the cruellest month..." are the initial words of T. S. Eliot's landmark poem "The Waste Land". In order to mark April as the National Poetry Month, even the Academy of American Poets and the American Poetry & Literary Project would distribute thousands of free copies of The Waste Land at selected post offices to taxpayers. In the USA the 15th of April is the annual deadline to mail the tax returns.

When I was a student of MA in English, we classmates would discuss T. S. Eliot, who dwells upon the cruelty of April. Since the month used to be a month of tough examinations, we students, not knowing the depth of the matter in the poem, would shower all praise upon the poet. We thought how logically he had told of its cruelty! But for the farmers the same month is of the fruitful harvesting. For them it is more of ample gains than of the outdated pains.

April has unique similarities with other months too. Both April and July begin on the same day of the week, whatever may be the year. But during every leap year, both January and April share this similarity of beginning on the same day of the week. October of the previous year shares the same relationship with the April of the current year. July of the previous year ends on the same day as April of the current year. April starts on the same day of the week as do September and December of the following years.

Though there prevails the idea that the Romans gave this month the Latin name "Aprilis". But it is not something certain, as views differ from castes and cultures. Traditional etymology has it that the name of April was derived from the verb "aperire". This seems logical as it means "to open". April is the month with which the new financial year opens. Yes, even flowers and trees open up to mark the spring.

Another legend has it that since most of the Roman months are named after their gods and goddesses, the name of April is also derived from the name of the sacred goddess Venus. But it has also been pointed out by Jacob Grimm that the name of April comes from the hypothetical god Aper or Aprus.

Poets too open up their petals as they start composing poems in April. Thomas Tusser writes "Sweet April showers/ Do spring May flowers." This seems to be scientifically logical. The etymology of "aperire" appears to be confirming to its logic.

OPED — SECURITY

Should we review India’s Nuclear Doctrine?
For India it is wiser to retain nuclear weapons for “deterrence only” because of the manifold and futile increase in risks involved in adopting any more aggressive option for their use
Sheel Kant Sharma

In September 2013, India conducted a second test flight of its indigenously developed nuclear-capable Agni-V long-range ballistic missile, which has a strike range of 5,000 km, from the Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast. The three-stage, solid propellant missile was test-fired from a mobile launcher from the complex 4 of the Integrated Test Range. PTI

A file photo of the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in The Hague on March 25, 2014, in which India participated. AFP

The purpose behind India’s nuclear tests in 1998 was to demonstrate weapons capability and to remove any doubts about its determination to be a state armed with nuclear weapons. Attempts persisted even after 1998 to compel or persuade the government in New Delhi to roll back and to accept several restraints as a non-nuclear weapon state. The document brought out in August 1999, therefore, was yet another definitive step to assert India’s status without ambiguity. This was in the form of the Draft Report of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) on “Indian Nuclear Doctrine”. It articulated, in some detail, the considerations of the eminent strategic thinkers who formed the NSAB at that time. This was followed up, as is well known, by a brief Press Release in January 2003, entitled, “The Cabinet Committee on Security Reviews Operationalization of India’s Nuclear Doctrine,” which contained an official and concise statement of the Doctrine. This put an official imprimatur on the NSAB document.

Present context

Since it was the BJP-led NDA government that took the actions described in previous paragraph it is important to recall this background in the present context. The BJP in its manifesto promises to

“Study in detail India's nuclear doctrine, and revise and update it, to make it relevant to challenges of current times.”

One must see this promise in the manifesto in terms of the language used in the two existing documents. The word “review” in the title of 2003 Press Release can be traced to a process described in the 1999 document in the following terms:

“This document outlines the broad principles for the development, deployment and employment of India's nuclear forces. Details of policy and strategy concerning force structures, deployment and employment of nuclear forces will flow from this framework and will be laid down separately and kept under constant review.”( para. 1.6).

The promise in the BJP manifesto would seem thus to follow up on the previous work when the party was in power. That the successor UPA government maintained the position is a mark of the objective factors underlying continuity. This is discernible in the statements of PM, the NSA and the present Chairman of the NSAB in recent years which conform to the crux of the Doctrine developed by the previous government, namely, no-first-use. Therefore, clear statements made by the BJP President and Mr Narendra Modi disavowing any intention to depart from the posture of no-first-use (NFU) should ideally let matters rest. However, since the manifesto has sparked commentaries it may be useful to recap the basic features of the Doctrine.

Minimum deterrence

The pursuit of a doctrine of credible minimum deterrence (para. 2.3 of the 1999 document) has a defensive orientation in its policy of “retaliation only”. The 2003 Press Release, reinforces the deterrent by qualifying retaliation as “massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage” ( para. 2(iii)). The flexibility implied in these terms can be seen when read in conjunction with para. 3.1 of the 1999 document which spells out the requirements from India’s nuclear forces as “..effective, enduring, diverse, flexible, and responsive to the requirements in accordance with the concept of credible minimum deterrence.”

These precise words should suffice to dispel doubts voiced in some commentaries about the nature of massive retaliation, particularly in a scenario of tactical weapons’ use by Pakistan. Nor should the maintenance of a triad of airborne, land and sea base deterrent, as envisaged in 1999 document, imply any departure from the defensive posture that the NFU entails. In fact, the Doctrine as developed during the first five years after the Shakti tests charts out a wise and careful path for safeguarding India’s security by addressing the characteristics of its particular security environment. The Doctrine was transparent enough in contrast with the opacity that characterised this security environment.

Credibility of deterrence comprises not only sufficiency, survivability and commensurate systems of command, control, communication and intelligence but also credibility of the country in today’s world. The world has moved far ahead from the early phase of nuclear age which was, to say the least, marked by lack of restraint on the utterances of the powers that had the weapon. These weapons over the past seven decades have assumed a different character and image. Since their use will endanger all life in the planet, nuclear weapons cannot be accepted as weapons of war. So long as they exist, their only role in security can be as a deterrent against use by an adversary.

The Doctrine as it stands today is in keeping with this contemporary perspective and is responsive to the realities of a globalised world. India is the only nuclear weapon state that has a doctrinal commitment to the abolition of these weapons as a security objective. The Doctrine comprises elements which are inherently time-dependent; particularly those in the key paragraph 2 of the 2003 Press Release which pertain to building and maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent, non use against non-nuclear weapon states, continuation of strict export controls and engagement with global efforts in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament in general. The NFU is a constant, whereas the other elements of the Doctrine may change over time. Therefore, to revisit the doctrine in tune with the current times makes ample sense.

Unwritten taboo

A reality check on the nuclear age today reveals two fundamental features: First, there is an unwritten taboo that has endured since 1945 and a plausible hope that use of the nuclear weapon may never be repeated, especially since that has not happened over the past seven decades. At the same time it is also recognised that global nuclear disarmament, while highly desirable, may not be practicable in the foreseeable future. However, US, UK and France, whose doctrine of flexible response differs from NFU, have been under considerable pressure to modify it to a posture of “deterrence only”; as witnessed, for example, in the debates about recent nuclear posture reviews in US and within NATO. One factor which has possibly inveighed against such a pressure is the requirement of extended deterrence for their allies like Japan and South Korea.

For deterrence only

For India it is wiser to retain nuclear weapons for “deterrence only” because of the manifold and futile increase in risks involved in adopting any more aggressive option for their use. India has no obligations to worry about extended deterrence. Alternative strategic postures involving a first use of nuclear weapons require, in order to be credible, a much more expensive and elaborate preparedness in terms of number, diversity, yield and deployment of arsenal. Even then the risk of retaliation is never ruled out. Each side during the cold war contemplated first use in terms of a disarming or decapitating first strike but failed to arrive at any guarantee against survival of adversary’s capacity and risks of retaliation. All the first-use posture implied was a runaway arms race and attendant peril of deterrence failure. These fears disappeared after the Soviet collapse.

Stupendous operational demands of a first-use posture make the deterrent neither “minimum” nor “credible”. NFU, in contrast, allows for credibility without requirements to build an all-consuming retaliatory capacity. Pakistan’s insistence on keeping a first-use posture as the equaliser against conventional asymmetry and related rush for tactical or battlefield nukes, is an expensive and perilous illusion, long discarded by even the cold warriors who realised the inevitability of escalation to a full nuclear exchange. Geographical contiguity and wide disparity in size should work to negate any gains, if at all imaginable, from a first strike and resulting nuclear exchange. India need not be drawn in to this trap since regardless of whether tactical or strategic the use of any nuclear weapon against India or its forces would trigger its massive and assured retaliation.

The technological possibilities about ballistic and cruise missile defence and attainment of survivable systems may be consistent with NFU as they should discourage, and increase the cost of, adversary’s first-use folly. The analysis here shows that the promised review or re-look may re-establish the validity of the main tenets of the Nuclear Doctrine in the context of changed perspective of the role and effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. However, the review of the doctrine in this perspective and dissemination of its outcome will serve the purpose of public outreach.

— The writer was a former Indian Ambassador to Austria & Permanent Representative to the UN office in Vienna & IAEA

Highlights of the 2003 doctrine

Building and maintaining a credible minimum deterrent

A posture of "No First Use" nuclear weapons will only be used in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian territory or on Indian forces anywhere.

Nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage.

Nuclear retaliatory attacks can only be authorised by the civilian political leadership through the Nuclear Command Authority

Non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states;

However, in the event of a major attack against India, or Indian forces anywhere, by biological or chemical weapons, India will retain the option of retaliating with nuclear weapons.

Continuance of strict controls on export of nuclear and missile related materials and technologies, participation in the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty negotiations, and continued observance of the moratorium on nuclear tests.

Continued commitment to the goal of a nuclear weapon free world, through global, verifiable and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament