Challenges before Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Veteran social activist and Magsaysay award winner Anna Hazare has entered Delhi to protest against land ordinance. Anna feels the ordinance will go against the poor people. Soon the opposition leaders including Delhi CM Mr Kejriwal have joined the chorus. NDA certainly does not want to snub Anna and immediately arranged Anna’s meeting with Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Though the country needs land for development of defense base, road infrastructure, houses and railway lines etc, the discontentment is growing against the corporates and influential people who grab land at low cost for real estate development. Everything they do in the guise of philanthropist monks. There is need for a white paper on land grabbed so far by people with political links. The nation should know how many hectares of land have been grabbed by influential people in the last ten years in the plea of industry and infrastructure. Massive black money generated in the last ten years have been utilized to purchase hills, forest, beach side land and thousands of hectares of agriculture land across the country.

Hundreds of hills have been converted into plain land in Maharashtra, Uttarakhand in undivided Andhra Pradesh and in north east India. People have been forced or lured to sale their village land. They have been persuaded to leave villages to lead an urban life. The natural infrastructure in villages has been neglected to drive people away from villages. Rivers, hills and top soil have been destroyed in the last six decades to make villages unlivable.

The NDA government can convince people to give land for country’s defense, for needful infrastructures like roads, industries and railways which are required also. But before that there is a need to know how much land and money has been wasted in building needless infrastructures which generated massive NPAs for banks. Today banks are facing closure or merger due to bad loan in infrastructure.

It is agriculture land which can let Indians live with self-respect. Feeding 125 crore people with imported food will lead to perpetual hunger only. The biggest challenge before Modi government is to liberate the land which has been grabbed and misused in the name of industries and needless infrastructure. There is need for satellite study of each acre of land in India. India is a vast nation with multiple potential and has enough room for the development of industry, infrastructure, agriculture and service sector. But India being a spiritual nation cannot afford to satisfy the global greed by giving sufferings to its own people. Politicians have to reign in the corporate greed and ensure inclusive growth which is possible if they show their will to tick the entrepreneurship cycle.

Anna Hazare has ticked the entrepreneurship cycle in his village after life long struggle. He demolished 38 country liquor shops in and around his Ralegaon Sidhi village. He harvested water with people’s participation. His village watershed helps produce multiple crops. People are happy, healthy and wise in his village. Anna should be consulted for agriculture development in the country as his knowledge and skill will help the country in sustainable agriculture development. Thousands of people visit his village for inspiration.

When India’s 24 agro climatic zones produce the largest varieties of food grains, vegetables and fruits what is the need for GM crops in India. We are yet to document thousands of native varieties of fruits, vegetables and food grains. India can be the granary of the world if we could understand our own potential. There is need for revamping of agriculture sector with precious inputs from people like Anna Hazare and other experts across the country who are unnoticed but working hard to preserve the nation’s food. India is capable of supplying seeds and plants to other nations. There is nothing to boast about the green revolution. Britishers systematically destroyed our food back up and their policies created famine in India as per economic historians. When Indians were hungry, Norman Borlaug came running with hybrid seeds which had increased the food production in India. Along with food production it had damaged India’s biodiversity along with a large number of native seeds and plants. Green revolution was no permanent solution. It was a relief only. Indian agriculture can be survived if serious effort is made to understand our agriculture, our farmers and the farm yard. Prime Minister Narendra has got the popular mandate as a mass leader. People looked at him as a messiah during election campaign. Now he has to gather the inputs from the old and the wise before taking any decision.

By Sudhansu R Das