In the early days of April 2005, the Maharashtra State Assembly passed a law whereby agrarian families with more that two children would have to pay 50% more for the price of water. The state Assemblies of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have also considered similar bills.

Many in the middle and upper classes consider this to be a reasonable legislation for a country with a population over one billion. In fact, where population is broadly considered to be the biggest hurdle in the development of India, legislation that rewards small families is broadly considered to be a step in the right direction. It is critical that the basis of this legislation be critically studied and its impact analyzed.

The first premise of such an analysis is that a large portion of our resources is being spent on our large population and reduction in population will result in increased development for all. The subliminal feeling is that ‘People Like Them’ who have large families, and live in rural India or in slums are the cause of the slow development of India.

The fact of the matter is that consumption is not related to population. Rural populations and people in slums – populations that are generally believed to have large families – in fact consume less then 10% of the resources that an average urban middle class family consumes. Golf playing upper class families consumer more water than a farmer with a small rice field. Kids in urban families owning PCs, cars going to sports clubs and guzzling Coke consume more water than kids in agrarian families. While we point our fingers to ‘People Like Them’, it is in fact ‘People Like Us’ that consume more – much more than they do even with their supposedly large families.

The legislation in Maharashtra is in fact the result of such a flawed premise. If the state assembly of Maharashtra is in fact interested in reduction in consumption of water through increased taxation in consumption, it is People Like Us who must be increasingly taxed.

The Indian agrarian community is already reeling from a series of policies implemented over the last decade, mostly as a result of alignment with WTO. Amartya Sen argues that the buying capability of the agrarian community is at an all time low. Today, this community is able to afford even less calories per person than during the times of the Bengal Famine under the British government in early 1900s. The direct result has been an increasing number of farmer suicides – a statistic that various state governments are wishing away or ignoring completely.

Under these conditions, the attempt to hike water prices is inhuman. A large section of Indian farmers own small pieces of land and do not have their own bore wells or irrigation systems. They are dependent on irrigation infrastructure provided by the state government or the local government or put up by large farmers in the area. Those among this community that have larger families will be directly affected.

In addition, a large section of the Indian agrarian community is made up of landless peasants who depend on large farmers for part of the year. As the larger farmers find the cost of irrigation increasing, this will affect the livelihood of the landless peasants as well. As livelihoods in the agrarian sector have become more difficult, and rural networks have become less able to support communities, migration to the cities has markedly increased. With over 70% of the Indian population being part of the agrarian communities, such policies will be disastrous and unsustainable from a environmental as well as a socio-political perspective.

In such a scenario, it becomes important to ask what the Maharashtra state government will achieve through such legislation.

A number of farmers groups and people associated with these groups believe that WTO and agro-corporations are driving anti-farmer legislations. Dr. Sunilam, member of the Madhya Pradesh State Assembly, believes that farmers are becoming progressively less significant in the decision making processes of Indian governments.

The only entities that gains from these policies that weaken livelihoods in agrarian India are agro-based corporations. They are able to take over and consolidate larger sections of the farmland and have greater control in the production and distribution processes. Knowing that Maharashtra has in the past allowed its energy policies to be defined by such a rogue as Enron, is it but speculative to suggest that these policies are not driven for the gain of agro-based MNCs?

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