Anil Ghanwat, one of the members of the Supreme-Court-appointed panel on farm laws, on Tuesday, wrote to Chief Justice of India Mr. Justice N.V. Ramana urging him to consider releasing the report on the three agri laws in the public domain at the earliest or authorise the committee to do so. ...

It is important to ensure that while the specific laws may no longer exist, the ‘reform impulse’ reflected in them is not diluted, Ghanwat said in a letter to the Chief Justice on November 23, 2021.

THE critical phrase in Mr. Anil Ghanwat’s letter is ‘reform impulse’ reflected in the three farm laws that the Government has decided to repeal. In a brief expression, it actually explains what the Government has had in mind when it introduced the three farm laws. But the Supreme-Court-appointed committee appears to have stressed the importance of agricultural reforms. And by any standard, this issue needs a deeper consideration.

In the last week’s edition of ‘Issues And Non-Issues’, an attempt was made to split ‘agriculture’ into agri and culture as two coexisting components of one of the most important aspects of national economy and sociology. The basic premise put forward was that the nation ignored the culture part of the rural life and kept harping only on agri part. But the experience over the past 100 years is that bereft of its cultural ecosystem, mere farming became an entity of decreasing importance since it only disturbed the rural life almost beyond redemption.

There is no doubt that Indian scientific community conducted massive research on farming part of agriculture and came up with various improved varieties of crops with fantastic yields. Though that research by itself was an appropriate national engagement with a fond hope of enriching farming, somehow failed to offer proper emphasis on the rural culture without which mere farming lost its value.

Having been aware of this dangerous possibility, Mahatma Gandhi plus several other thinkers insisted upon paying good attention to the overall rural eco-system in which farming would flourish. Somehow, the rulers and planners of modern India missed the bus on that count, as a result of which the country is today faced with an untenable situation in the overall rural sector. It is because of this reason that a serious attempt needs to be done to address the aspects of rural economy and sociology so that farming becomes not just an economic endeavour but also a cultural activity so essential to rural prosperity.

Even at the cost of repetition, it must be said that rural life of the present day does not offer any substantial scope for the people for meaningful life. Youths waste time doing nothing, and the farms are incapable of gainful returns. Traditional rural industry -- usually woven around farming as the central activity -- also has become moribund, to say the least. This terrible factual situation is triggering a massive rural exodus to cities all over the country. And even though the villages are emptying out in favour of cities, the rural folks are hardly happy since even in cities they get dragged in an unwinnable struggle for basic survival.

As a natural consequence of this situation, a lot of politics entered the rural life in the past some decades. And in turn gave opportunity to many vested interests to make a sly entry onto the scene to play sly political games. The year-long protests by so-called farmers showed only that and nothing else.

It is this aspect that has now made it necessary for the country’s thinkers and planners to think in terms of agri plus culture as two components of rural life needing appropriate attention and rectification. The assessment that the three (controversial) farm laws did demonstrate a ‘reform impulse’. The Government, therefore, must expand the idea still further and introduce a massive effort to correct the wronged rural process.

And if this is to achieved systematically, then the Government will have to start changing its definition of development. Its current stress on nationwide network of roads and other infrastructure projects such as airports and marketplaces is okay by itself,. But a parallel emphasis is needed to be given on the development of rural economy with traditional culture in mind so that a two-pronged strategy of agri-and-culture growth is implemented in fullness.

Though the political leadership and national planners may not like this reality to be stated, it is true that the current developmental stress is mostly urban-centric -- almost totally missing out on the rural component. Or, even if there is some work being done in the rural sector, its impact on the overall unhappy picture of the average Indian village has been only minimal. The national leadership and the planning community can hardly afford to lose sight of this unhappy reality.

Whenever there is a talk of rural and agricultural reforms, this aspect of national neglect of agriculture as a beautiful and comprehensive concept rarely comes into consideration. It is necessary to bring into thinking the vision of Mahatma Gandhi about rural life as framed by an interdependent system of autonomous villages. There is some political tall talk in this regard all right, but the emphasis falls too short of the necessary weight and pressure.

The Government -- and the larger Indian society -- can hardly afford to ignore this aspect. If farming is to be made meaningful and gainful, then it will have to be made an integral part of the bigger idea of rural culture in its traditional mould, of course aided and abetted by modernism. In the past five or so decades, India has developed a fairly good understanding of the traditional but fully realistic need of the villages. Unfortunately, some so-called developmentalists in corridors of power have some strange ideas about rural development. That lacuna needs an urgent rectification.