Mohammed Irshad, a researcher at the Department of Economics, University of Kerala thinks that farmer policies in India will lead to more Nandigrams.

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The national dailies of India reported the cross section of country’s real beneficiaries of ‘development’.  The story of Nandigram in West Bengal and the report of 1.5 lakh (150000) farmer’s suicide between 1997 to 2005. In principle these social calamities resembles how the state responds to dark side of our system and how the popular rhetoric of economic growth hide the social issues.  This negative news is unfit to the corporate state structure and infact un-acceptable to the popular governance. There is absolutely no difference between Nandigram and Farmer’s suicide and infact farmer’s suicide was the symptom, which leads Nandigram.

Farmer’s suicide has more than one decade of experience in India and infact one of the crucial social issues un-represented by public action. The land issues and land relation of India is the main cause. The primary concern is whether India is an agrarian society or not. How can we consider a country where nearly 70 percent of the population depended on agriculture? And more than 80 percent of who are belong to the depressed caste (Dalit) section, which account for more than 14 percent of the population. Of course in terms of percentage it is quite easy to argue that the impact is minuscule. Yet the real issues not address. The 80 percent of the Dalit had determined the profitability of Indian agrarian system. The wage was not included in the agrarian economy hence the surplus was equal to profit. The Dalit labours wage was being met through bare minimum pulses and cereals infact the feudal land relations always wanted to maintain only the bare minimum life support to Dalit in India.  The demand for land reforms was the first blow upon the feudal land relation in our system. This is infact the beginning of declining feudal interest on cultivation and the beginning of transformation of agrarian land to other purposes.

In India the marginal and subsistence farmers are the major players in our food economy. The low land holding and high marginal cost of production left them no option except to go for informal credit sources. The formal agricultural credit has started declining in India owing to the declining agricultural credit requirements of big farming community. The government sources have yet to let slip these dark sides of our primary sector credit system.  Instead of address the weakness of the credit system the government is worry over the rising subsidies including the primary sector. This is what the hidden content of prime minister’s statement. Infact the credit requirement of marginal and subsistence farmers are on rise than ever before. However, the organized sectors has completely unfit to address the rising credit demand of nearly 70 percent of our farmers i.e. marginal and subsistence farmers. This is the reason why the finance minister has stated in the parliament that the government has no programme to offer interest free credit to even the farmers who are at the receiving end of vulnerability. The vulnerable position which the farmers are reeling under is being reflected only when they commit suicide. 

This is a social tragedy. Societies perceive such social crime only through the death of the victims and remain with no pain and anxiety.  Yet the victims can’t remain idle their resistance will not have any formal perimeter and model. This is what reflected in the Nandigram issue. The Nandigram struggle has multi dimension such as a) the economic preference of   land, b) importance of FDI and c) vanishing importance of working class in parliamentary democracy.

The vulnerability of Indian land relation is being reflected in the land struggle. These struggles are for retain the agrarian right on Land i.e. the struggle to continue the cultivation as livelihood. For them this is the only way to establish the right to live because these are the people whom excluded from the mainstream developmentalism.  Thus whatever may be the mode of operation the land struggle is truly significant in the contemporary social order. Comparing Special Economic Zones (SEZ) the value of the land posses by the marginal and subsistence farmers are less productive and loss making. But the contested question is how these SEZs accommodate the displaced people?  And who will take care of their livelihood? This is the exact issue behind the Nandigram.  State has no option to reinstate the loosing livelihood of the toiling mass. The shift in preference in favour of multinational and transnational corporations is becomes the developmental policy of state. Thus fixing higher value of resource (Land) becomes a state policy. Unlike developed regions the flow of FDI to India is highly low. The inflow of such capital can ensure only through government safe guards like Tax holyday, Relaxation of labour laws and capital abandonment right. The SEZ in India is enjoying all these facilities. Unlike before Indian companies are also prefer SEZ, the labour saving measures of these companies will have negative social and economic impact. The low employment potential in private sector and displacement of farmers will determine the representation of working class (caste) in parliamentary democracy. The parliamentary political parties no matter whether left or right have no political compulsion to heed the concerns of the depressed class section. The fragmentation of vote bank and communal tensions are in a way highly compatible to the political parties in India, which often hide the dark side of development preferences.