State control: Bark worse than bite

D. Sampathkumar

THAT the state writ no longer runs in large tracts of Jammu and Kashmir and Naxal-infested pockets of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh is, by now, well known.

The challenge to state authority that the movements in these States represent is principally of a violent nature. But a more insidious, though no less dramatic, challenge has been mounted by some sections of the farming community in the country against the authority of the state, and successfully too. Two recent events underscore the emergence of this phenomenon.

Cotton-growers in Gujarat have shown they do not particularly care for such niceties as Governmental permission when it comes to the choice of seeds they use in cultivation. The Government has claimed that the use of genetically modified cotton seeds has not been approved by it. As such, its use in the fields was illegal. But that has not prevented farmers in vast tracts of the cotton belt in Gujarat to use a seed variety that, by all accounts, is genetically modified.

Whether the seed in question is a hybrid variety that, by a strange coincidence, acquired the capacity to destroy the bollworm pest, or if it is merely a pirated version of the Monsanto-patented seed type is an interesting sidelight to the controversy. There is a good chance that the debate would eventually be reduced to the 'product' versus 'process' patent protection regime that the pharmaceutical industry is so familiar with. Nevertheless, the outcome has been a perfect example of the theatre of the absurd, something Indian politics throws up from time to time.

Initially, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee _ an inter-ministerial bureaucratic watchdog at the Centre _ said that the crop grown with genetically modified seeds had to be destroyed. But when the State government clearly baulked at any measure that threatened to pit it against the farming community, the Committee modified its ruling to say that the crop would be purchased by the State government at market prices and quarantined thereafter. Even this was found to be infeasible.

A Rs 100-crore outlay on an expenditure of such a contingent nature is clearly beyond the scope of a state that barely manages to keep both ends meet, if at all, that is. But even this would have been a compromise solution as a part of the crop had already hit the market and will probably find its way to the wardrobes of Indian customers by Deepavali.

For now, the issue has been put on the backburner. But going by the past, the GEAC may be unable to conclude whether the genetically modified seeds are fit for cultivation even by the time the next crop hits the market, a year from now. It is safe to say the comic opera of illegal seeds would be played out yet another time.

Elsewhere in Karnataka, coconut farmers locked horns with the State government over the right to tap toddy from coconut trees, which the government initially refused but finally allowed under mounting public pressure. It was clearly a high-stakes game in which it was the government that blinked first. The government knew that allowing farmers to tap toddy is the thin end of the wedge in the government's near-total control over the liquor industry.

There is really very little difference between 'neera', the sweet unfermented toddy, and the fermented brew it turns into within a few hours of its extraction. So, allowing unrestricted tapping effectively means that fermented toddy poses a threat to the State-regulated sale of arrack and to an extent even that of distilled branded spirits. If the State loses market share in excise-generating liquor, the financial consequences can be disastrous.

Not surprisingly, the Government and its ministers kept insisting that under no circumstances would the government give in to the farmers' demands. But as the agitation threatened to snowball into a full blown political mass movement, with the former Prime Minister Mr. Deve Gowda throwing his weight behind it, the government was forced to give in to the demand.

What are the lessons from these two episodes? For one, farmers with even a narrow crop interest constitute, together with their component of landless agricultural labourers, a large, homogeneous group of stakeholders in the economy. Hence, from the perspective of electoral politics it would appeal to any leader to champion their cause.

In contrast, industrial workers present a relative more heterogeneous community, with each sub-group not large enough for any single party or politician to take up their cause. Again, the farming community, by and large, lead a subsistence existence and, hence, policy choices affect their lives almost immediately which makes the tasks of mobilisation that much easier. In contrast, the beneficial aspects of a certain policy choice tend to be diffused or percolate after a time-lag, making the job of setting up a countervailing force among the consuming class that much more difficult.

The policy-makers would do well to keep in mind the objectives, even when they formulate the most well meaning of policies and especially when the policy calls for some adjustment on the part of the farming community. The challenge is all the greater if the policies are seen as irrational, or if their implementation demonstrates a certain callous disregard of farmers' interests.

In the Bt cotton seed controversy, the Government had only itself to blame for the predicament it found itself in as, for nearly four years, it could not decide whether to allow such seeds to be used or not. It is difficult for farmers to deny themselves the fruits of new technology against as yet unformulated ecological fears. As regards the rationality of the liquor policy in most States, the less said the better. In the event, a flouting of state authority is something that was simply waiting to happen.