The third wave of autocratisation and why it was waiting to happen

 Last month, V-Dem Project (Varieties of Democracy), a Sweden-based independent research institute, released its annual democracy report making a key observation that India, the world’s largest democracy, has turned into an ‘electoral autocracy’. As per the report, 87 countries are now electoral autocracies and home to 68 per cent of the global population.

Apart from this, the report also pointed to an accelerated autocratisation in several countries including G-20 nation-states United States, Brazil and Turkey that has hastened the decline of democracy globally. Liberal democracies, the report says, have diminished and now constitute only 14 per cent of people.

The report says that with the backsliding of democracy in Asia-Pacific region, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, the level of democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2020 is down to levels last found around 1990.

This decline in democracy, the report says, is part of the “third wave of autocratisation” – 25 countries, home to 34% of the world’s population (2.6 billion people), are in democratic decline by 2020. At the same time, the number of democratising countries have dropped by almost half down to 16 that are home to a mere 4 per cent of the global population.

What are the waves of democratisation?

The concept ‘Democracy Wave’ was first introduced by the American political scientist Samuel P Huntington in his book ‘The Third Wave’ in 1991. In the book, he writes that since the early nineteenth century, there have been three major surges of democracy as a political system and two brief periods of decline. He calls these surges as ‘waves of democracy’ and the ebbs as the ‘reverse waves.’

As per Huntington, the first ‘long’ wave of democratisation began in the 1820s, with the widening of the suffrage to a large proportion of the male population in the United States, and continued for almost a century until 1926, bringing into being some 29 democracies including France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy and Argentina.

He argues that this ‘long and slow wave’ was followed by a ‘reverse wave’ leading to the weakening of the democratisation process. Between Mussolini’s rise to power in 1922 and 1942, the number of democratic states in the world was brought down to a mere 12.

The triumph of the Allied Forces in World War II initiated a second wave of democratisation taking the number of democratic countries to 36 by 1962. This, says Huntington in the book, was followed by a second reverse wave (1960-1975) that brought the number of democracies back down to 30.

The third wave of democratisation, Huntington proposes, began with the Carnation revolution in Portugal in 1974 and continued with a number of democratic transitions in Latin America in the 1980s, Asia Pacific countries and, saliently, in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He points out that this democratic wave was so strong in Latin America that out of 20 countries in the continent, only two countries (Cuba and Haiti) remained authoritarian by 1995.

In 1991, when he published the book, he observed that signs of the commencement of a third reverse wave were already there, with nascent democracies like Haiti, Sudan returning to authoritarianism.

What are waves of Autocratisation?

Following Huntington’s lead, a number of political scientists have used these concepts to explain the ebbs and flows in the march of democracy.

For example, in March 2019, Anna Lührmann and Staffan I. Lindberg published a research article, ‘A third wave of autocratisation is here: what is new about it?’ in which they mapped the strengthening and weakening of democracies across the globe in over a century and ‘identified’ a distinct third wave of autocratisation that commenced in 1994.

They used V-Dem’s data on 182 countries from 1900 to the end of 2017 (or 18,031 country-years ) to demonstrate a third wave of autocratisation. They did this by identifying a total of 217 ‘autocritisation episodes’ in 109 countries from 1900 to 2017.

 The three waves of autocratisation as mapped by Anna Lührmann and Staffan I. Lindberg. (Source: research paper by Anna Lührmann and Staffan I. Lindberg)

The dates for the first two reverse waves presented by them are very similar to Huntington’s despite the conceptual and measurement differences. As per them, during the first reverse wave 1922–1942 a total of 32 autocratisation episodes took place; they identified 62 episodes in the second reverse wave between 1960–1975; during the ongoing ‘third wave’ of autocratisation they located 75 episodes starting from 1942 (until 2019).

“By 2017, the third wave of autocratisation dominated with the reversals outnumbering the countries making progress. This had not occurred since 1940,” they say in the paper.

“In sum, an important characteristic of the third wave of autocratisation is unprecedented: It mainly affects democracies – and not electoral autocracies as the earlier period – and this occurs while the global level of democracy is close to an all-time high. Hence, for now at least, the trend is manifest, but less dramatic than some claim,” they say.

Auotocratisation has become less dramatic

Political scientists like Micheal Coppedge note that a key contemporary pattern of autocratisation is the gradual concentration of power in the executive, apart from the more “classical” path of intensified repression.

Larry Diamond, another American political scientist sees the decade 2006 to 2016 as that of an incipient decline in democracy bringing in instability and stagnation among democracies. As per him, the decade brought an incremental decline of ‘grey-zone democracy’ (which defy easy classification as to whether or not they are democracies), deepened authoritarianism in the non-democracies, and caused decline in functioning and self-confidence of the established, rich democracies.

Although various observers including V-Dem, Freedom House, point to substantial autocratisation over the last decade in countries as diverse as the United States, India, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, the democratic breakdowns have become less conspicuous. This, political scientists say, is because the contemporary autocrats have “mastered the art of subverting electoral standards without breaking their democratic façade completely.”

“Democratic breakdowns used to be rather sudden events – for instance, military coups – and relatively easy to identify empirically. Now, multi-party regimes slowly become less meaningful in practice making it increasingly difficult to pinpoint the end of democracy,” pinpoint Luhrmann and Lindberg in the article mentioned earlier.

“A gradual transition into electoral authoritarianism is more difficult to pinpoint than a clear violation of democratic standards, and provides fewer opportunities for domestic and international opposition. Electoral autocrats secure their competitive advantage through subtler tactics such as censoring and harassing the media, restricting civil society and political parties and undermining the autonomy of election management bodies. Aspiring autocrats learn from each other and are seemingly borrowing tactics perceived to be less risky than abolishing multi-party elections altogether,” they argue.

As per Luhrmann and Lindberg, the ‘erosion model’ has emerged as the prominent tactic in the third wave of autocratisation. The first and second waves, on the other hand, were dominated by blatant methods such as military coups, foreign invasions or abolishment of the key democratic institutions by a legally elected officer.

“Democratic erosion became the modal tactic during the third wave of autocratisation. Here, incumbents legally access power and then gradually, but substantially, undermine democratic norms without abolishing key democratic institutions. Such processes account for 70 per cent in the third reversal wave with prominent cases of such gradual deterioration in Hungary and Poland. Aspiring autocrats have clearly found a new set of tools to stay in power, and that news has spread,” write Luhrmann and Lindberg.

The ‘Third Wave’ accelerates

As per the latest V-DEM report, in 2020, the third wave of autocratisation has accelerated considerably. “…It now engulfs 25 countries and 34 per cent of the world population (2.6 billion). Over the last ten years the number of democratizing countries dropped by almost half to 16, hosting a mere 4 per cent of the global population,” says the report.

The Third Wave by Samuel P Huntington

A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it? by Anna Lührmann & Staffan I. Lindberg

Eroding Regimes: What, Where, and When? by Micheal Coppedge

Facing up to the democratic recession by Larry Diamond

Written by Atikh Rashid 

Source: Indian Express, 20/04/21

Quote of the Day April 20, 2021

 

“When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it.”
Charles de Lint

“जब सब कहा और किया जा चुका हो, तो सभी रास्ते एक ही मंजिल पर समाप्त होते हैं। अतः आप कौनसी राह लेते हैं इससे ज्यादा महत्त्वपूर्ण है कि आप कैसे उस पर सफर करते हैं।”
चार्ल्स डि लिन्ट

Study: Only 3% of land areas unspoiled by humans

 The researchers from Key Biodiversity Areas Secretariat at Cambridge have figured out the amount of “Intact Habitat” on the earth. An Intact habitat is an unbroken natural landscape with no signs of human activity. However, the study has included an additional factor to define “Intact Habitat”, which is, in these regions the plant and animal life has been intact as they were five hundred years ago.

Key Findings

• It is widely accepted that the intact habitats are being lost. However, the study has found that the species in intact habitats are being lost due to invasive species or diseases. That is, the intact habitats are facing threats even without human activities.
• The functionally intact regions were the northern Canada, east Siberia for boreal, Congo basin Amazon, Sahara Desert and the Tundra Biomes.
• Earlier it was claimed that 40% of the earth remained free from human development. However, the study says that only less than 3% of land remained in the same condition with the same animal species.
• According to the study, “Targeted reintroductions” of species is the only possible solution to increase the area with ecological intactness. By this 20% of ecological intactness shall be achieved.

Habitat Intactness

It is the region that has no sign of human disturbances.

Faunal Intactness

It is the region that retains all the original animal species that are known to reside for a particular period.

Functional Intactness

It is achieved when animal numbers in the region are high enough to support a healthy functioning ecosystem.

Way Forward

The world is now developing post 2020 Global Diversity Framework after Convention on Biological Diversity. Intact Habitat has been recognised as the most important target of the framework.

Current Affairs: April 20, 2021

 

India

• All above age of 18 years to get COVID-19 vaccine from May 1
• States allowed to use 50% of the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) in 2021-22 to curb pandemic surge
• INAS 323 commissioned at Goa as first unit of indigenously built ALH MK III enters Naval Service
• Indian Navy’s INS Suvarna seizes over 300 kgs of narcotic substances in the Arabian Sea
• National Film Award-winning Marathi Director Sumitra Bhave passes away at 78
• J&K: Red flags on Indian Army vehicles replaced with white-and-blue ones
• Indian Army’s mobile training team (IA-MTT) trains Nigerian Army in guerrilla warfare in Nigeria
• Railways to map festivals along the tracks to prevent fatalities
• Nagaland govt. sets up panel on the issue of preparing RIIN (Register of Indigenous Inhabitants of Nagaland)

SpO2

• DRDD’s DEBEL (Defence Bio-Engineering and Electro Medical Laboratory), Bengaluru develops SpO2 (Blood Oxygen Saturation) Supplemental Oxygen Delivery System
• SpO2 is an automatic system that delivers supplemental oxygen based on the SpO2 levels and prevents the patient from sinking into a state of Hypoxia, which is fatal in most cases, if sets in

SISFS

• Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal launches Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS)
• SISFS aims to provide financial assistance to startups for proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialization
• Seed funding will be provided to eligible startups (incubatees) through eligible incubators across India

Economy & corporate

• US retains India in currency manipulator watch list due to huge dollar purchases by RBI
• Sivasubramanian Ramann takes charge as CMD of SIDBI (Small Industries Development Bank of India)
• Advertising professional and former FCB Ulka Chairman Anil ‘Billy’ Kapoor dies at 74

World

• NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter makes history with successful flight on planet Mars
• Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul awarded Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe)
• World Heritage Day (International Day for Monuments and Sites) celebrated on April 18, theme: “Complex Pasts: Diverse Futures”
• World liver day observed on April 19, theme: ‘Keep your liver healthy and disease-free.’

Sports

• Indian men at Asian Wrestling Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan: Gold won by Ravi Kumar Dahiya (57kg), silvers won by Deepak Punia (86kg) & Bajrang Punia (65kg), bronze medals won by Karan Mor (70kg), Narsingh Yadav (79kg) and Satyawart Kadian (97kg)
• India’s women’s tennis team lose 1-3 to Latvia in the Billie Jean King Cup World Group playoff
• IAS officer Siddharth Singh Longjam appointed new Director-General of National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA)
• Football Olympian Ahmed Hussain Lala dies in Bengaluru at 89, played in 1956 Melbourne Olympics
• Hockey player-turned-umpire Anupama Puchimanda dies in Bengaluru at 40
• Barcelona win Copa del Rey football tournament at Seville in Spain
• Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge wins Enschede marathon in Netherlands
• Stefanos Tsitsipas wins men’s singles title at Monte Carlo Masters tennis in Monaco
• Red Bull’s Max Verstappen wins Formula One Emilia Romagna

Create a learning community

 

Existing social media platforms can be leveraged to benefit the ed-tech industry and accelerate the learning process

Like most young Indians, I got into an engineering college but was not really interested in it. The syllabus was outdated, and I felt my professors lacked enough real-world professional experience in their respective fields. This dissatisfaction led to the discovery of the valuable world of online learning communities, through social media groups. While social media is a way to connect with people, it also has many focus-based communities.

Learning is also a social experience. Focus-based online communities on social media platforms such as Facebook, Discord, and Reddit simulate this up to a point. Not only do these groups give one a real-world taste of how the system works, but also give an opportunity to interact with active industry professionals that one wouldn’t have access to otherwise. This helps pick up the ‘language’ of the industry and also some initial leads.

Take the example of Harvard’s CS50x, an online course available for free, on an ed-tech platform. To ease community engagement between online course-takers, CS50x uses a Facebook group in which students can ask questions, clear doubts, celebrate their small wins when they complete assignments, and also participate in group events. Students sometimes organise themselves into small study-groups as well, to do collective course-work.

Another aspect of social media acting as a catalyst to learning can be attributed to educational content creators (individuals with a level of mastery in their field). Choosing to follow the right creators and consuming their content daily can enrich your thinking and put your learning in the right direction, as you are taking the information from someone who has already done what you are about to do. On the flip-side, this choice of whose content you can consume can also put you at risk of falling into echo-chambers leading to the formation of a confirmation bias

The community aspect of social media has been in use for learning purposes for the past decade. The ed-tech sector in India is currently tapping into this space, trying to leverage all of its possibilities, and ultimately moving the entire learning experience to the digital space.

Abhinav Arora

Source: The Hindu, 11/04/21

Celebrating the ‘essence of Hinduism’: How 19th century Brahmo Samaj altered Bengali society

 Amit Das recollects a little anecdote from his grandmother’s life. “If she ever saw any of us praying to an idol before going to school, she would immediately rebuke us,” he says. “Her point was that if one had studied properly then they would do well regardless of whether they pray to God or not.” The 57-year-old is a fourth generation member of the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reformist movement that began in the early 19th century.

His great grandfather, Sundari Mohan Das, a freedom fighter, doctor and social worker of the late 19th century, was the first in his family to have joined the Samaj. “Like many young Bengali men of the time, he too was a follower of Keshub Chandra Sen, who influenced them to dream of a world devoid of superstition; where widows could remarry and women’s education was deemed essential,” says Das.

One of the most influential religious movements of the 19th century that took birth in Bengal and spread far and wide from here, Brahmoism is today reduced to a few thousand members. The community, for the past few years, has been demanding minority status from the government of India. Das, an active member of the religious organisation, is a firm believer in the principles laid down by the Brahmo Samaj: denunciation of idol worship and polytheism, rejection of the caste system, emancipaBack in the 19th century, Brahmoism was established as an effort to reform Hinduism from within, in response to the criticisms being levelled against Hindu society by the West. “It was a movement that struck a fine balance between reform and rejection. These were people willing to change contemporary Hindu society without uprooting themselves from tradition- obviously, this was guided by the emergence of a sense of cultural pride and patriotism to which, paradoxically, modern Western education had greatly contributed,” says historian Amiya Sen over the phone. In other words, the Brahmo Samaj was both an effort to alter Hinduism through western ideologies, and at the same time stay true to its traditional principles.

Although the movement lost momentum by the end of the 19th century, the Brahmo Samaj did have an impact on the psyche of the Bengali middle class. At a time when the political landscape of Bengal is witnessing the possibility of inroads being made by the Bharatiya Janata Party, adherents of Brahmoism say the party will be unable to understand the liberal nature of religion practised by them.

The Brahmo Samaj and its impact on Bengali society

Historian David Kopf, who authored the book ‘The Brahmo Samaj and the shaping of modern India’, explains that the establishment of the Brahmo Sabha by the social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, needs to be understood in context of the Unitarian movement that was raging in large parts of the Western world since the 16th century. Unitarianism was a radical approach to religion, society and ethics which looked to substitute popular religious traditions with a rational faith.

“By 1822 he (Roy) had helped form the Calcutta Unitarian Committee and by 1825-26, his scattered writings in their cumulative effect already contained a kind of syllabus for activists dedicated to Hindu reform,” writes Kopf. Roy formed the committee in collaboration with a missionary, Rev. W. Adam. Apart from conducting Unitarian services, the committee also established the Vedanta College meant for churning out Hindu Unitarians. But Roy and Adam fell off soon after and the mission was abandoned.

Consequently, in 1828 Roy along with a group of wealthy upper caste men started a more Indian variant of the Unitarian movement. This was named the ‘Brahmo Sabha’ and its first meeting was held on August 20, 1828 at a house in Chitpore road in Calcutta. Among the most notable supporters of Roy in the Sabha was Dwarkanath Tagore, grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore. Activities carried out by the group included chanting of verses from the Upanishads, and then translating them in Bengali and singing of theistic hymns composed by Roy. “There was no organisation, no membership, no creed. It was a weekly meeting open to any who cared to attend. Ram Mohan believed he was restoring Hindu worship to its pristine purity,” writes John Nicol Farquhar, a Scottish education missionary in Calcutta who authored the book, ‘Modern religious movements in India’.tion of women, respect for all religions, and others.

Throughout this period, the Brahma Sabha played a key role in modernising Indian society. Roy successfully campaigned against Sati or the immolation of Hindu widows, he established a number of educational institutions including the Vedanta College, the English School and the City College of Calcutta popularising English education and promoted a rational and non-authoritarian form of Hinduism. He also played a pioneering role in opening the Hindu School in 1817, which is now the Presidency University.

With Roy’s death in 1833, the still infant Brahmo Sabha lost its wind a bit. It was in 1842 that the Sabha was given a fresh lease of life under the leadership of Debendranath Tagore, son of Dwarkanath Tagore. “Debendra followed Ram Mohan in his belief that original Hinduism was a pure spiritual theism, and in his enthusiasm for the Upanishads, but did not share his deep reverence for Christ,” writes Farquhar. He was also the one to give an organised structure to the Sabha. In 1843, he drew up a Brahmo convent or a list of solemn vows to be taken by every member. Some of these included abstaining from idolatry and to worship God by doing good deeds.

In 1857, Keshub Chandra Sen joined the Sabha, and he would soon turn out to be its third leader. Under his influence, Debendranath decided on giving up the tradition of Durga Puja in the Tagore family, which was a grand annual affair. The Sabha also discussed caste, with its members giving it up altogether. Debendranath too got rid of his sacred thread.

Sen was heavily influenced by Christianity. At his suggestion, the Sabha began to follow the example of Christian philanthropy, gathering money and food for the needy.

In 1860, members of the Sabha realised the need to spread out from Bengal. In 1861, the preacher Pundit Navin Chandra Roy went to Punjab to spread the new faith. He established the Brahmo Samaj in Lahore. Another preacher, Atmuri Lakshminarasimham went to the Madras Presidency to spread the Brahmo teachings in the Telugu speaking areas.

“Brahmo Samaj was not just restricted to Bengal. It was the first pan Indian movement of Hindu reform,” says Sen. “But Bengal was the first province to come under western influence through British colonialism. In cultural terms, Bengal was indeed the province of paradoxes. It was to produce the first crop of western educated intelligentsia, many of whom were anglophiles. On the other hand, this early and excessive enthusiasm for Western ideas or ways of life eventually also produced a wave of anglophobia which took the shape of a reactionary, anti–reformist position,” he adds.

“But the Brahmo Samaj was a very small community and that too an urban and elite community,” explains researcher Snigdhendu Bhattacharya who authored the book, ‘Mission Bengal: the Saffron experiment’. “Although it was a miniscule community, it remained one of the most influential ones since it included some of the finest social reformers and personalities of Bengal. Two of the most influential Bengali families, the Tagores and the Rays, were both Brahmos,” he says.

Speaking about the kind of influence that Brahmo families had on middle class Bengali society, Bhattacharya says, “every child in any urban area grows up reading Sukumar Ray. When they read the Ramayana, it is Upendrakishore Roychowdhury’s interpretation in most cases. Then of course there is Satyajit Ray whose films have influenced every child and adult in all of Bengal.” The influence of the Tagore family not just in Bengal, but all over India, remains unmatched. “The essence of all their work remained humanism and rationalism which emerged from the fountainhead of Brahmo philosophy,” says Bhattacharya.

From the 1860s, a number of schisms and splinter groups emerged within the Samaj. In 1866, the first formal division between liberal younger Brahmos and conservative older Brahmos led to the establishment of the Brahmo Samaj of India under Sen. In 1878, the marriage of Sen’s daughter to the maharaja of Cooch Behar in violation of the Brahmo Marriage Act of 1872 caused yet another major schism in Brahmo history, resulting in the formation of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. “These splits resulted in the dwindling popularity of the Samaj,” says Bhattacharya.

“I would say that the Brahmo movement began to decline from the 1880s. Firstly, there was a distinct Hindu counter discourse, or Hindu revival. Also by this time, the political overtook the social,” says Sen. By 1885 the Indian National Congress was formed. “The Hindus realised that the best way to fight against colonialism is to politically unite, rather than focusing on social reform,” Sen says.

Despite their decline though, the Brahmo Samaj made an enormous impact ideologically and culturally to Bengal and created an enduring value system in the region. “They were the people behind promoting women’s education, introducing widow remarriages, inter caste marriages, questioning the very hierarchy of caste, and democratising education. Unlike traditional Hindus, Brahmos gave as much importance to moral uprightness as to a spiritual life. In traditional Hinduism, moral purity was considered subservient to the spiritual call. Not so for the Brahmos.” says Sen.

The Brahmo Samaj in Bengal today

Given the dwindling popularity of the Samaj since the late 19th century, a majority of Brahmo members today are those by birth. Nonetheless, there are instances of those who have taken formal initiation in the community in the recent past. Ketuki Bagchi (67) took up formal membership of the Samaj in 2004. She says her parents were staunch followers of Roy and thereby she had been associated with the Brahmo ideology since her childhood even though not a member. “The influence of the Samaj was such that there were many Bengali families who believed and practised the principles of Brahmoism, despite the fact that they were not formal members,” she says. She explains that her parents perhaps never formally joined the Samaj because the organisation never went about promoting its beliefs or engaged in proselytising activities.

Prasun Ganguly, 74, a fourth generation Brahmo says the first thing that any new member of the Samaj has to do is give up idol worship and follow the basic principles of egalitarianism and rationalism promulgated by Roy. That apart, the social ceremonies of its members like marriage and funerals are in stark contrast to those in Hindu society. “For instance at a Brahmo wedding, the bride and the groom assemble in front of people and declare their vows to each other. Similarly, at a funeral first the preacher presiding over the ceremony says a few words about the departed soul and then the others join in to sing a few Brahmo sangeet (spiritual songs written by Roy and other influential members of the Samaj),” says Ganguly.

Speaking about what the current political situation in Bengal means to the Brahmo community, Ganguly says, “In most Bengali families even today, there is a reverence for Brahmoism because of the kind of social reforms brought by them. It believes in a kind of religion devoid of the ill practices and superstitions of Hinduism. In that sense, Brahmoism is the essence of Hinduism.”

“Any political party in power must not try to impose its own understanding of Hinduism on anyone.”

Further reading:

The Brahmo Samaj and the shaping of modern India’ by David Kopf

Modern religious movements in India by John Nicol Farquhar

Hindu revivalism in Bengal, 1972-1905 by Amiya Sen

Written by Adrija Roychowdhury

Source: Indian Express, 17/04/21

Agriculture policy should target India’s actual farming population

 How many farmers does India really have? The Agriculture Ministry’s last Input Survey for 2016-17 pegged the total operational holdings at 146.19 million. The NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey of the same year estimated the country’s “agricultural households” at 100.7 million. The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) has around 111.5 million enrolled beneficiaries, with an average of 102 million-plus getting payments during 2020-21.

India’s official farmer population, in other words, is anywhere between 100 million and 150 million. But how much of this comprises actual farmers? Agricultural households, as per NABARD’s definition, cover any household whose value of produce from farming activities is more than Rs 5,000 during a year. That obviously is too little to qualify as living income.

A “real” farmer is someone who would derive a significant part of his/her income from agriculture. This, one can reasonably assume, requires growing at least two crops in a year. The 2016-17 Input Survey report shows that out of the total 157.21 million hectares (mh) of farmland with 146.19 million holdings, only 140 mh was cultivated. And even out of this net sown area, a mere 50.48 mh was cropped two times or more, which includes 40.76 mh of irrigated and 9.72 mh of un-irrigated land. Taking the average holding size of 1.08 hectares for 2016-17, the number of “serious full-time farmers” cultivating a minimum of two crops a year — typically one in the post-monsoon kharif and the other in the winter-spring rabi seasons — would be hardly 47 million. Or, say, 50 million.

The above figure — less than half or even a third of what is usually quoted — is also consistent with other data from the Input Survey. These pertain to the number of cultivators planting certified/high yielding seeds (59.01 million), using own or hired tractors (72.29 million) and electric/diesel engine pumpsets (45.96 million), and availing institutional credit (57.08 million). Whichever metric one considers, the farmer population significantly engaged and dependent on agriculture as a primary source of income is well within 50-75 million.

The current agriculture crisis is largely about these 50-75 million farm households. At the heart of this is the absence of price parity. In 1970-71, when the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat was Rs 76 per quintal, 10 grams of 24-carat gold cost about Rs 185 and the monthly starting pay for a government schoolteacher was roughly Rs 150. Today, the wheat MSP is at Rs 1,975/quintal, gold prices are Rs 45,000/10g and the minimum salary of government schoolteachers is Rs 40,000/month. Thus, if 2-2.5 quintals of wheat could purchase 10g gold and pay a government primary schoolteacher’s salary in 1970-71, the farmer has to now sell 20-23 quintals for the same. Fifty years ago, one kg of wheat could buy one litre of diesel at MSP. Today, that ratio is upwards of 4:1.

The absence of farm price parity didn’t hurt much initially when crop productivity was rising. Pre-Green Revolution, wheat and paddy yields in Punjab averaged 1.2 and 1.5 tonnes per hectare, while trebling to over 3.7 and 4.8 tonnes, respectively, by 1990-91. The output gains reaped by farmers from planting high-yielding varieties more than offset the lower price increases in their produce relative to that of other goods and services.

Since the 1990s, yields have further gone up to 5.1-5.2 tonnes/hectare in wheat and 6.4-6.5 tonnes for paddy. But so have production costs. In cotton, maize, vegetables, milk and poultry products, farmers experienced both yield gains (from Bt and hybrid seeds technology, drip/sprinkler irrigation, laser levelling, crossbreeding and improved agronomic and feeding practices) and favourable prices (on the back of growing domestic incomes and export demand) during the first 15 years or so of this century. The last five-six years, however, have seen prices of these crops come under relentless downward pressure. This, even as costs — whether of diesel, pesticides and, more recently, non-urea fertilisers — have escalated.

The demand for making MSP a legal right is basically a demand for price parity that gives agricultural commodities sufficient purchasing power with respect to things bought by farmers. It is coming mainly from the 50-75 million “serious full-time farmers” who have surplus to sell and with real stakes in agriculture. They are the ones whom “agriculture policy” should target. Most government welfare schemes are aimed at poverty alleviation and uplifting those at the bottom of the pyramid. But there’s no policy for those in the “middle” and in danger of slipping to the bottom.

An annual transfer of Rs 6,000 under PM-Kisan may not be small for the part-time farmer who earns more from non-agricultural activities. It is a pittance, though, for the full-time agriculturist who spends Rs 14,000-15,000 on cultivating just one acre of wheat and, likewise, Rs 24,000-25,000 on paddy, Rs 39,000-40,000 on onion and Rs 75,000-76,000 on sugarcane. When crop prices fail to keep pace with escalating costs — of not only inputs, but everything the farmer buys — the impact is on the 50-75 million surplus producers. They have seen better times, when yields were on the rise and the terms of trade weren’t as much against agriculture.

Any “agriculture policy” has to first and foremost address the problem of price parity. Should this be ensured through MSP-based procurement, paying the difference between MSP and the market price, or simply per-acre transfers? Would farmer interest be even better served by the government guaranteeing a minimum “income” rather than “price” support? These are details that can be worked out once there is clarity on the number of farmers for whom crop prices actually matter.

Subsistence or part-time agriculturalists, on the other hand, would benefit more from welfare schemes and other interventions to boost non-farm employment. Even within farming, the opportunities for them aren’t in regular crop agriculture. A one-acre farmer can rear five cows and sell 30 litres of milk daily from three at any given time. The same small holding can, alternatively, house a broiler farm with up to 10,000 birds and six batches being sold in a year.

Whether it is crop, livestock or poultry, agriculture policy has to focus on “serious full-time farmers”, most of them neither rich nor poor. This rural middle class that was once very confident of its future in agriculture today risks going out of business. That shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

Written by Harish Damodaran

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 19, 2021 under the title ‘Get farmer numbers right’. The writer, national rural affairs and agriculture editor for The Indian Express, is currently on sabbatical with the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi

Source: Indian Express, 19/04/21