"Forward, as occasion
offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it."
—Marcus Aurelius (Roman, 121-180)
Word
for the day
Confusticate (v)
To confuse or perplex; bewilder.
Malice
towards none
At the end of the day, both
Kumble and Kohli seem to have moved to a little lower pedestal.
First random
thought this morning
A few months back, BJP MP from
Mumbai had criticized the cryptocurrency Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme.
Notwithstanding, the
ill-informed but aggressively judgmental views of some of its own MPs, the government
reportedly has decided to regularize the trading in Bitcoin.
It is commendable. As per some estimates, the Indian Bitcoin
exchange market is responsible for processing around 11% of Bitcoin-to-USD
trades. It will be not long when Bitcoin will give serious competition to gold, at least in Indian urban markets.
Farm loan vs. farmers' debt
Farm loan waiver has been a contentious issues in India's
socio-economic milieu for past many decades. It would not be entirely wrong to
say that most governments and political parties have used this as a tool to
exploit voters' sentiments rather than solving the problem of farmers' stress
or structural inadequacies in the Indian agriculture sector. Consequently,
every episode of loan waiver has yielded almost nothing more than a temporary
relief for the farmers.
My colleagues visited Madhya
Pradesh and Maharashtra to assess the ground level situation in the wake of
recent violence involving farmers'.
In our assessment, the recent
episode of loan waiver, which started with the newly elected BJP government in
the state of Uttar Pradesh waiving farm loans to fulfill its election promise,
seems materially different from the earlier episodes. This episode manifests
some seriously disturbing trends emerging in Indian socio-economic sphere.
First of all, we found that the
farmers are demanding loan waiver as matter of "Right" and not as a
matter of "Relief", as used to be the case in earlier episodes of
loan waivers. This change in attitude can potentially alter the dynamics of
state-farmer relationship in future.
Secondly, for the first time we
realized the change in the ethos of the farming community. Traditionally,
Indian farmers considered defaulting on loans and other financial and social
obligations an unpardonable sin. The popular belief was that if you fail to
discharge your debt in this life, you will have to take another birth to
discharge such obligations. This seems the case no longer. A significant number
of young farmers are more than willing to default on their loans. With morality
out of financial dealings, this can potentially change the whole paradigm of
non-corporate lending in the country.
Third, in past many episodes of
farm loan waiver were preceded by protests, blockades and some spontaneous
violence. But this time the violence appeared more organized. There is nothing
to suggest that this will end with one time waiver of loans. This appears to be
a natural corollary of the first point. Not waiving loan would be considered
violation of a legitimate "Right" and hence violent protests would be
considered "in order".
Forth, the construct of "farm
loans" is diverging wide from "farmers' debt".
The rise in aspirational
consumption; distortion of social customs (especially marriage, death, birth)
for the sake of vanity, ignorance, and misguidance; rise in crime and
litigation expenses; rise in cases of chronic diseases and hence prohibitive
healthcare expenses form an overwhelming part of "farmers' debt".
This debt usually has nothing to do with farming activity.
Moreover, "farm loans"
are also becoming riskier as the cost of input (seeds, agro chemical, equipment
rental, wages etc.) is rising along with the output prices. However, in case of
crop failure the quantum of loss is much higher as compared to, let's say,
10years ago.
In my view, farm loan waiver is
just like first aid. It cures no problem.
...to continue tomorrow
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