A man-made famine - India and the world in the Great Hunger of 2008
1. India’s Emerging Food Security Crisis: The Consequences of the Neoliberal Assault on the Public Distribution System - Analytical Monthly Review
2. A man-made famine - Raj Patel, The Guardian
3. The World Food Crisis: Sources and Solutions - Fred Magdoff, Monthly Review
4. Manufacturing a Food Crisis - Walden Bellow, The Nation
5. Global food crisis: ‘The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model’ - Ian Angus, Socialist Voice
6. Soaring prices are causing hunger around the world - Washington Post Editorial
7. The World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis - Time magazine
Let them eat biscuits! - Or how the market seeks new vistas
By Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera. An editorial in The Hindustan Times
Anyone who has illusions about the influence of corporate interests on public policy in India, or about the priorities of elected representatives, would do well to read the recent correspondence among the Biscuit Manufacturers Association (BMA), Members of Parliament and various ministries. The main issue in this correspondence is a proposal to replace cooked mid-day meals in primary schools with biscuits.
Does Land Still Matter?
By D. Bandyopadhyay
The national economy is growing at double digit rates but neither industry nor non-agricultural activities in rural India provide livelihood for millions of rural workers. The annual growth of agricultural output decelerated from 3.08 per cent pa during 1980-81 to 1991-92 to 2.38 per cent pa during 1992-93 to 2003-04. It is this failure that underlies the spurt in rural violence that has highlighted once again the issue of the poors’ access to land, water, and forests. It is gradually being recognised that further deterioration of economic, social, and political conditions of the rural poor can neither be arrested nor reversed without a significant policy shift towards a comprehensive land reform program.
Predatory Growth
By Amit Bhaduri
Over the last two decades or so, the two most populous, large countries in the world, China and India, have been growing at rates considerably higher than the world average. In recent years the growth rate of national product of China has been about three times, and that of India approximately two times that of the world average. This has led to a clever defence of globalisation by a former chief economist of IMF (Fisher, 2003). Although China and India feature as only two among some 150 countries for which data are available, he reminded us that together they account for the majority of the poor in the world. This means that, even if the rich and the poor countries of the world are not converging in terms of per capita income, the well above the average world rate of growth rate of these two large countries implies that the current phase of globalisation is reducing global inequality and poverty at a rate as never before.
Tall Claims: Employment generated by Haldia Petrochemicals
By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri and Purnendu Chakraborty
These articles calculate the actual employment figure in downstream units of HPL for 2005 to be less than 19,301. We are being asked to believe that, in 2 years, the figure has increased from less than 19,301 to 50,000+89,900, an increase of more than 7-fold. The figure of 89,900 is also suspiciously close to 89,895, which is the employment figure for ALL new projects implemented in the state between 1991-2002 (Source: Frontline). It seems that either 89,000 is a favourite number, or that all employment in the state has come from HPL.
Reforms and the Kerala Model
By M A Oommen. A EPW article, January 12 2008.
A model, which is not sustainable, is a tragedy. In the context of neoliberal reforms, this article raises certain emerging issues relating to equity and sustainability of the “Kerala model” of development.
This article seeks to raise certain issues relating to equity and sustainability concerning Kerala’s development experience, widely referred to as a development “model”. The issues are raised in the context of the neoliberal reforms underway in India since 1991. It is particularly important because there is a strong view that “Kerala’s social democratic gains have been preserved and the social costs of its transition to a more open and competitive economy have been effectively managed” [Sandbrook et al 2007:68].
Work for Everyone and Amartya Sen
By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri. Translated by Kuver Sinha, Sanhati
On the whole, Amartya Sen has distanced his support from the West Bengal government’s disregard for peoples’ suffering and the protest that has emerged in its wake, its shameless espousal of SEZs and its brokering of land for big business. At a time when people of the state are registering their dissatisfaction and protest in the face of daily harrassment from the biggest party of the government, even such indirect criticism from Sen is helpful. But the fact remains that Amartya Sen is a supporter of the West Bengal government’s basic industrial policy. If we strip away all the embellishment, the logic is “to remove poverty, we must increase income”. This “income”, however, is the neo-liberal economist’s “income” – comprising, in the example of the Singur factory, the Tatas’ profits, bank interest, government revenue, and, only as a fourth component, the wages of the employees. In an unequal society like India, an increase in this “income” may leave poverty unaffected or even in an enhanced state…
Amit Bhaduri - Notes from a lecture on Development and Rights, and an interview
Kapil Bhattacharya Memorial Lecture by Professor Amit Bhaduri at Bharat Sabha Hall, Kolkata, 9 December, 2007
Topic : Unnoyon o Odhikar / Development and Rights - organised by APDR
Notes by Soumya Guhathakurta, Sanhati
The lecture was divided into two parts : 1. Development and Human Rights and 2. Alternative Routes to Development
MKP Booklet on SEZ - A critical look at the SEZ Act
This booklet from Mazdoor Kranti Parishad covers the following :
(1) How the SEZ Act was created - the international and national backdrop
(2) SEZ Act 2005 - the most important of its 58 sections and SEZ Rule 2006 - the most important of its 77 rules
(3) Critically examining the sections and rules - (i) Section 5 ( examining generation of additional economic activity, promotion of exports of goods and services, promotion of investment from domestic and foreign sources, creation of employment opportunities, development of infrastructure), (ii) Sections 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 23, 46, 51, 53 - the powers of the Development Comissioner in an SEZ, and colonial parallels (iii) Sections 26, 27, 32, 50 - exemptions, drawbacks, and concessions to developers and entrepreneurs, and what it means for social and rural programs (iv) Rule 11(10) - allotment of SEZ land for non-business purposes - real estate profits and promoters (v) Rule 44 - Contract farming for agricultural SEZs - what it means for the farmer and the seed company
(4) SEZ, and the stance of the BJP, Congress, and CPI(M).
(5) West Bengal SEZ Bill 2003
(6) Alternatives
Click here to read MKP’s booklet on SEZ [PDF, Bengali, 290KB] »
NREGA implementation in West Bengal - some statistics
By Debabrata Bandopadhyay. Translated by Soumya Guhathakurta, Sanhati
In 2006-07 only 14 work days were created per enlisted household in West Bengal whereas as per NREGA, 2005, the stipulated limit is 100 work days. The top state with respect to NREGA implementation in 2005 is Rajasthan and the percent of rural poverty in this state is 10 points lower than West Bengal. To top it, the highest percentage of households suffering mal/under nourishment, is in the state of West Bengal.
Peasant Resistance in Bengal a Decade before Singur and Nandigram
By Abhijit Guha
This EPW paper studies the case of Tata Metaliks, covering land taken, amount of compensation and non-existence of rehabilitation policies. It follows up with the disastrous land acquisition by Century Textiles and Industrial Limited (a subsidiary of the BK Birla Group), which took possession of 358.25 acres of land in Kharagpur I block in 1997, never payed a cent of the promised compensation, and never set up their factory. The huge chunk of agricultural land remains unutilized to this day, robbing 3000 people of their means of subsistence. 73% of the people from the gram panchayats where land was acquired for Tata Metaliks and CTIL were living below he poverty line in 1997.
Click here to read this paper [PDF, 327 KB] »
Development - a note for discussion written for the Kashipur Solidarity Group
By Nagraj Adve
This extensive note discusses the measures carried out in the wake of liberalization, such as reduction in certain kinds of public expenditure, the attack on agriculture, refoms in trade, financial sector reforms, labor targetting, reforms in urban areas, disinvestment, foreign investment, and state repression, police terror, and arrests. The note ends with a detailed summary of the issues confronting us, and possible alternatives.
Poverty reduction and the magic of numbers
Many mainstream economists in India have been claiming that poverty in India has gone down over the last decade and a half. The trick is to use an unimaginably low poverty line (Rs 12 a day). Therefore, while large numbers may have technically ceased to be included in the official poor, they remain vulnerable - a fact corroborated by the findings of the Arjun Sengupta panel on unorganised sector.
A letter to Prof. Amartya Sen, in response to his Telegraph interview
By Subroto Roy, Contributing Editor, The Statesman
The comparisons and mentions of history you have made seem to me surprising. Bengal’s economy now or in the past has little or nothing similar to the economy of Northern England or the whole of England or Britain itself, and certainly Indian agriculture has little to do with agriculture in the new lands of Australia or North America. British economic history was marked by rapid technological innovations in manufacturing and rapid development of social and political institutions in context of being a major naval, maritime and mercantile power for centuries. Britain’s geography and history hardly ever permitted it to be an agricultural country of any importance whereas Bengal, to the contrary, has been among the most agriculturally fertile and hence densely populated regions of the world for millennia.
Stakeholder analysis wrt land as a resource in the SEZ strategy in Bengal - a paper
By Dheeraj Singh, IIM Kolkata
The State government recently acquired 997.11 acres of land, spread across the five mouzas within the Panchayat Samity of Singur, for the TATA’s small car factory project. This paper performs a stakeholder assessment and looks into the finer details of the entire deal. The idea is to find out the land distribution among the different stakeholders such as middle peasants, small farmers, and marginal farmers, and the distribution of the compensation amount as declared and promised by the state government of West Bengal, given the price of the per acre of land assessed and fixed again by the state agency. The actual distribution provides us the real, fact-based information which can then be used as a basis to make broad assessment and prescribe some policy level initiatives or alternatives.
Click to read paper [PDF, 15 pages] »
Alternatives in Industrialisation
By Amit Bhaduri, Economic and Political Weekly, May 05, 2007
A programme of decentralised, employment-intensive, rural industrialisation through participatory democracy at the local level is the only process of industrialisation that this vast and meandering democracy of enormous poverty can sustain. To pretend that this can be achieved through corporate-led growth, no matter how high, is to live in a make-believe world.
Click here to read article [PDF, 5 pages] »
In the Name of Growth - The Politics and Economics of India’s Special Economic Zones
By Shankar Gopalakrishnan, a study prepared for The Council of Social Development
Click here to read article [PDF, 113 pages] »
If one were to sum up the current Indian SEZ policy in one sentence, it could perhaps be this: the policy fails on every count. It fails the test of logical consistency, with its actual provisions violating its stated goals. It fails the test of economic rationality, granting incentives that exacerbate existing distortions and encourage speculative activity at the expense of production and development. It fails the test of historical reference, taking an already questionable model and exaggerating its most negative aspects. And, most of all, it fails the test of social and political justice, by promoting a conceptual, institutional and political model that is deeply undemocratic.
Click below to read the conclusions:
INDUSTRIALISATION: Which way now? - Medha Patkar and Amit Bhaduri
From : Ekak Matra, May issue (vol 7 no 6), Krishi Bonam Shilpo?
An economic alternative creating another kind of development is feasible, and elements of it exist even in the present political-economic system. Very briefly, it has to be based on three basic premises. First, we must learn to rely far more on the internal rather than the external market. The biggest driving force of the internal market is the purchasing power of the ordinary people derived from employment growth. India’s record on this score has been dismal in recent years. An eight per cent growth in output has been accompanied by hardly 1 per cent growth in regular employment, and increase in irregular or ancillary employment is marked by flexible contracts loaded against the worker with insecurity and over-crowding of infrastructure. It is foolish to expect that corporate-led growth can do better on the employment front, because corporations are in the game of making profit by cutting costs, including labour costs. And the more we accept globalisation unconditionally, the stronger would be the relative importance of the external over the internal market. This means cutting labour cost to increase export will become even more pressing. Primacy to export also means priorities in production going against the needs of the population here. Growth of the internal market through rapid employment growth, therefore, requires a far more selective approach to globalization.
U-Turn of Industrial Policy Erodes the Very Base of Agriculture
By Abhijit Guha, translated by Debarshi Das (Sanhati)
“Destination West Bengal”: this is the rather pompous sounding slogan which the Left Front government of West Bengal has used since it made a U-turn in the 1990s, and started on a reverse course from its earlier incomplete task of land reform. To investigate the possibilities of industrialisation the state government all of a sudden appointed McKinsey, a multinational consultancy group. The booklet titled “Destination West Bengal” is in fact based on McKinsey report. Curiously, this is the Left Front government, taking out processions, organising meetings protesting entry of multinational corporations all the time – which called in McKinsey. Could not the faculty members of Indian Statistical Institute or Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, who are renowned internationally, perform the same job that was handed over to McKinsey?
Click here for Bengali version
Political Economy of Land Grab
By Pranab Kanti Basu
A new phase of capitalist expansion led by “global capital” is driving governments, including those of the left, to dispossess and displace peasants from agricultural land, even using force to break up peasant resistance. This article offers an understanding of this new phase, with a focus on the role and compulsions of governments. The analysis is in the tradition of radical political economy, and is based on a revaluation and expansion of Marx’s conceptualisation of rent and the primitive accumulation of capital.
Click to read article [PDF, 7 pgs.] »
Development and Displacement in West Bengal: An Excerpt from a Forthcoming Paper
By Abhijit Guha, Reader, Dept. of Anthropology, V.U.
The first striking thing one observes in this field is the virtual absence of any empirical and theoretical work on development induced displacement in West Bengal. This of course does not mean that displacement and rehabilitation are non-existent in West Bengal, which in the pre-Independence period, was the leading state in terms of industrialisation, and where, after Independence, large industries and thermal power plants have been built up displacing many families (including tribals) from their agricultural land and homes. West Bengal has also experienced large-scale mining on the western part of the state bordering Jharkhand.
Assessment of Rehabilitation of People Displaced due to Indira Sagar Pariyojana (ISP)
By Kaivalya Desai, Vineet Jain, Rahul Pandey, P. Srikant, and Upmanyu Trivedi
This paper is based on a field survey of a sample of 429 rural families displaced from Indira Sagar Pariyojana (ISP), covering 5 government and 6 private sites, all resettled 2-4 years ago. Majority of ISP oustees preferred to resettle privately because the state failed to provide adequate number and quality of resettlement sites. We observed significant deterioration in living standard of people in both government and private sites. Incomes of most families have fallen by more than half as compared to pre-displacement years. Farmers lost significant land but could not purchase even a small fraction; small farmers have to now do more of labour work for sustenance; landless labourers have been further marginalized as both farm labour demand and wage rates have fallen.
SOS from Nandigram - Beyond the immediate tragedy - EPW editorials
The killing of protesting villagers in Nandigram by a trigger-happy police on March 14 sounds an alarm bell that sends a warning not only to the Left Front regime of West Bengal where the tragedy occurred, but to all those at the helm of affairs in both the center and other states, who irrespective of their party affiliation, are fond of riding roughshod over public opposition, for the sake of “economic growth” - the catchword in today’s official discourse of liberalisation.
Click to continue “SOS from Nandigram” [PDF, 2 pgs] »
There is a need to go beyond the immediate tragedy of Nandigram and examine the underlying process that gives rise to sucepisodes. In the neoliberal times that we are living through, governments, whether at the central or a state level, are essentially for the markets, by the markets, and of the markets. Indeed, the parliamentary political process is increasingly governed by the logic of the market.
Click to continue “Beyond the Immediate tragedy” [PDF, 1 pg] »
Headline Singur - Food self-sufficiency, barren land, fighting unemployment, and other misrepresentations.
Why Singur? Is West Bengal self-sufficient in food production? Has West Bengal reached ultimate level of agricultural productivity? Trade (or State?) secret – a white lie? Is this policy fighting unemployment?
Strategy for economic reform in West Bengal
Source : Maitreesh Ghatak , London School of Economics
This paper reviews the performance of different sectors [industry, higher education, state of public finance, etc.]in West Bengal and makes a number of suggestions for policy reforms. This paper also stresses the importance of small-scale industries to help overcome some specific market imperfections [access to credit, technology and distribution channels etc] which the West Bengal government is not prepared to do.
Click here to read article [PDF] »
Special Exploitation Zone
Source : P N Venugopal
At Cochin’s Special Economic Zone, independence is a forgotten ideal. Here, as in other SEZs, the government has long treated native soil as territorial possessions of foreign nations, exempt from taxes, rules and safeguards that apply elsewhere. The only losers are the workers. P N Venugopal reports that now this charade is being expanded.
Development Or Developmental Terrorism?
Source : An article by Prof. Amit Bhaduri. January 7, 2007
It has become a cliché, even a politically correct cliché these days, to say that there are two Indias: the India that shines with its fancy apartments and houses in rich neighbourhoods, corporate houses of breath taking size, glittering shopping malls, and high-tech flyovers over which flows a procession of new model cars. These are the images from a globalized India on the verge of entering the first world. And then there is the other India. India of helpless peasants committing suicides, dalits lynched regularly in not- so- distant villages, tribals dispossessed of their forest land and livelihood, and children too small to walk properly, yet begging on the streets of shining cities.
The Economics of Nuclear Power
Source : Steve Thomas
This article by Steve Thomas analyses the economic issues and politics of nuclear power plants. It also analyses key determinants of nuclear economics, its costs, and the need for public subsidies.
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Microcredit, NGOs and Poverty Alleviation
Source : An article by Mrityunjay Mohanty, IIM Kolkata
The Microcredit movement, of which Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank have been leading pioneers, makes two important contributions to development practice: first to demonstrate that creditworthiness and collateral do not go hand in hand and therefore it is possible to delink the two; and secondly, it is possible to use a collectivist ethos and group solidarity (and implicit joint liability) to minimise the risk of loans being made to persons with high-risk propositions (adverse selection) or of their being utilised for purposes other than that for which they are contracted (moral hazard), and to use peer pressure to ensure that repayment schedules are met.
Land Acquisition and Peasant Resistance at Singur
Source : An EPW article by Parthasarathi Banerjee
This is a brief account of the peasant resistance to land acquisition for the Tata Motors project at Singur in Hooghly district of West Bengal.
Click here to read article [PDF] »
Special Economic Zones: Revisiting the Policy Debate
Source : An EPW article by Aradhna Aggarwal
This is a discussion of the pros and cons of the controversial SEZ policy.
Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are an international phenomenon influencing increasing share of trade flows and employing a growing number of workers. In 1986, there were 176 zones across 47 countries; by 2003, the number had increased to over 3000 across 116 countries.
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Subversive enclaves
Source : A Frontline article by V. Sridhar.
Everything about the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) sprouting across the country is special. Entities in these enclaves will pay little by way of taxes, enjoy access to state subsidies of various sorts, and be immune from the rules that normally govern the running of businesses. Indeed, the particularly special aspect of the SEZs in the pipeline - about 300 at the last count - is that they are “phoren” enclaves in what for everybody else is India.
The “approvals”, given on a first-come-first-served basis, have only fuelled the frenzy of SEZ developers. The Board of Approvals (BoA) has already given approvals for nearly 200 SEZs. Another 100 are likely to be given permission soon. While cynics would regard the Congress’ recent attempts to retool the SEZ policy as an attempt at obfuscation, there are no indications that the government is making any attempt to correct the most controversial aspects of the policy.
In the Name of Development
Source : An article by Somnath Mukherji
The debate over Singur has never centred around the paradigm of development, of which the present situation is an inevitable outcome. The moot question is not whether a plot yields a single crop or multi-crop but whether state power and vital public interest are being mortgaged to the interest of global capital. Rather than providing counterfactuals about the altered behaviour of a different political front in power, one should discern the structural transformation of the state machinery ~ a transformation designed to serve the whims of global corporate interests. The question is not what is right or wrong but rather who gets to decide what is right or wrong. What are the mechanisms in our society that take into account people’s participation in developmental decision-making and how effective are they?
Peasant Hares and Capitalist Hounds of Singur
Source : Sumanta Banerjee, Economic and Political Weekly, December 30, 2006
Singur is a test of sorts : For the Left Front government that is very ardently pursuing industrialisation as the only pathway to progress and also for its opponents, who are speaking up for the unregistered sharecroppers and landless labourers, who stand to gain little from the project. The wide nature of opposition also offers an opportunity to diverse groups to explore an alternative path to development.
Singur and the Displacement Scenario
Source : An EPW article by Walter Fernandes
The controversy over the acquisition of land in Singur in West Bengal for an automobile project raises larger issues. The plight of the displaced and project-affected persons across the country shows that it is the development pattern, nature of rehabilitation packages, and the “public purpose” declared by the State while acquiring land that need to be debated and redefined.
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Land acquisition in a West Bengal district
Source: An EPW commentary by Abhijit Guha. October 2004
The process of land acquisition for industrial development initiated since the mid-1990s in West Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur district threatens to undermine the pro-peasant policy of the Left Front government. Moreover, the government continues to rely on the Land Acquisition Act enacted by an earlier colonial regime for such purposes. While agricultural land following acquisition now lies waste, there has been an increase in the number of the landless and small and marginal farmers.
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Neoliberalism And Primitive Accumulation In India
Source : Pratyush Chandra & Dipankar Basu , Feb 9 , 2007
Recent events in Singur - a town which is less than 40 kms away from Kolkata (Calcutta), where the West Bengal government is struggling to acquire and sell 1000 acres of agricultural land to Tata Motors - indicate the extent to which capitalist-parliamentarianism can regiment a counter-hegemonic force once it agrees to play by the rules. At the least, it clearly shows that the Communist government, which boasts of being the longest-running democratically elected Marxist government in the world, is hopelessly caught in the neoliberal project.