Opposition to reforms like FDI in retail & aviation reflect the hypocrisy of political parties.

There is a story about an opposition leader who gets shipwrecked and marooned on an uninhabited island. After many years of living all alone, one day, he sees a boat approaching the shore. As the captain gets off and wades to the beach, the opposition leader screams in delight, "Are you the government? Are you the government? If you are, then I'm the opposition!" That sums up the nature of all opposition parties in India.

The hysterical opposition to FDI in retail and aviation and diesel price hike has no method in its madness. If you are in the opposition, you oppose: even if you have to cut your nose to spite your face. But the latest announcement by the BJP that it will repeal the FDI policy if elected to power seems a desperate attempt at brinkmanship.

Threatening to renege on the policies of a duly elected predecessor government is sacrilege and will destroy the foundations of democratically-elected governments.

I was a farmer for 15 years after I left the Army. I lived in a tent and ploughed and toiled. And I was perennially in debt. Either my seed was bad, or there was excessive rain, or a drought, or there was pestilence, or when everything was in harmony and I had a bumper crop, the prices had crashed as all others also had a bounteous harvest.

I saw heart-rending scenes of fellow farmers burning their sugarcane as the harvesting costs were more than the price they would realise in the market.

In despair, farmers in Hassan, Karnataka once unloaded their green chillies on the main road when the price hit bottom. The black top turned green and the fumes from chillies drove people out of the neighbourhood. At other times, the road had turned to tomato purA©e.

A few months ago when I had gone to my village, I came across some farmers. I asked them how they were faring. They said they reaped an excellent crop of onions. And three of them joined together and hired a lorry and reached Hassan with their produce at 4:00 am. By about 5:00 am, they had an eerie feeling seeing no buying frenzy.

When they walked about the vast agricultural mandi and saw hundreds of lorries with mountains of onions and sensed from the buzz in the air among other farmers that the price had hit rock bottom, they did a quick math. They realised, with shock and dismay, that what they would get from the sale of onions wouldn't even pay for the lorry hire.

They quietly abandoned their produce on the lorry, escaped at night and came back home empty-handed.

This is the horrifying reality of rural farming in India. Farmers are in a debt trap and are borrowing money from money lenders at 5% interest per month. It is a whopping 60% interest per annum that can destroy families and drive them to suicide. They need better prices. And governments cannot offer a better price through subsidy and support price legislation.

It is neither prudent nor sustainable. Governments are already reeling under fiscal deficit and many, like West Bengal, are bankrupt. Farmers can get a better price only if there are big investments in front end retail in cities and towns supported by a seamless supply chain from farm to shop. We need to dismantle the medieval check posts that collect entry tax and octroi and introduce GST.

It is well known that these check posts are cesspools of corruption and extortion and thousands of lorry and driver hours are lost along with perishables. Investment from FDI in 'contract farming collaboration' with farmers close to production centres and competition among retail companies will benefit farmers and consumers and create millions of jobs in cities and villages

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com