We need to think of the comprehensive thought the word ‘agri-culture’ suggests -- in which farming is one component and socio-economic culture another. When we think of farm reforms, we are giving importance only to the half of the term. That is what we have done in the past seven decades. Unfortunately, that has not solved the problem even a bit. It has complicated things all the worse.

Anavekshnaat Krushi Nashtati - Kautilya

(Agriculture is destroyed if not looked after, cared for).

THE need to remind ourselves of this word of caution from Kautilya is immense when we discuss the collaborative term of agri-culture. It is common comprehension that at least in India, the concept of agriculture has been almost fully misunderstood in the past seven decades since Independence. Most unfortunately, in modern India, we have equated agriculture only with farming. This has made our understanding about agriculture a myopic one. And that is the reason why such a critical sector of national life is now tottering in every which the way.

Two-and-a-half thousand years ago, Kautilya cautioned us against a casual approach to Krushi -- agriculture. He warned, neglect it, and agriculture will wilt on its own. In other words, the great governance theorist argued that agriculture is one area that needs a constant care which also includes upgradation of collective as well as individual comprehension of its purpose. In still other words, he suggested that the people involved in agriculture as well as in governance need to be mature, refined and culturally and spiritually evolved.

In this small series of articles on agri-culture, an attempt has been made to draw our collective attention to the demand of the profession and vocation of agri-culture. Ancient Indian thinkers and social and political leaders attached a lot of importance to agri-culture as an effective answer to all economic ills. In their consideration, agri-culture meant a fine combination of farming and related support system of which rural industry and local talent were an integral parts. Ancient sages included in their treatises various discussions on different aspects of Krushi. That thought-process kept the villages thriving in the ancient times, even though there were massive cities as well in the system.

Cities did have their own culture, all right, enriched by better amenities of different kinds. But villages were no less in their levels of socio-cultural and economic prosperity. In the ancient system of thought, the villages were not marked by poverty of resources; they were marked by a different socio-economic eco-system. In those days, the villages never saw an exodus of masses to the cities only for livelihood. People did migrate to cities all right, but they did so for pursuing different careers that were not available in village life.

The picture today offers a terrible contrast. Our villages are all the time declining on socio-economic scales and masses are seen running away from those just for finding some likelihood. Eventually, the villages are getting more and more impoverished, and the cities are not able to afford the village folks any better living conditions.

It is against this background that we need to think of the comprehensive thought the word ‘agri-culture’ suggests -- in which farming is one component and socio-economic culture another. When we think of farm reforms, we are giving importance only to the half of the term -- the act of tending the fields or farms, of tilling, of harvesting etc. That is what we have done all along in the past seven decades. And unfortunately, that has not solved the problem even a bit. much to the contrary, it has complicated things all the worse. For, that approach has tended to ignore rural industry and allied businesses that take care of vaster range of socio-cultural and economic issues. In the past seven decades, we also tended to think that in ancient India, agriculture was a backward activity. In this series, an attempt has been made to bust that wrong idea.

In today’s context, we must start considering agri-culture as a comprehensive concept and not just a term for farming. Then alone will we be able to reverse rural poverty and bring the villages back to their glorious former selves.

That should be our aim.

How can we achieve that, then? The answer to this question is certainly not simple. Yet, if we start shedding our wrong notions and start thinking the village as a self-reliant unit of an inter-dependent system of rural society, then our approach will change naturally. And we will have a lot of models to pursue this idea in ancient literature like the Vedas and other texts in which sages and thinkers gave themselves to profound thinking on various issues of importance to the society. Those also turned out to be issues of lasting value to the human society. For, in the thinking of those sages, the human existence was not restricted only to the economic aspect; it encompassed different facets that the human community has always needed -- of culture, of religion, of spirituality, of appropriate scope of growth at all levels and in all dimensions.

Unfortunately, the current rural society in India lacks on many of these dimensions. That is when we come back to the word of caution by Kautilya --

Anavekshnaat Krushi Nashtati !

The care Kautilya has suggested is inclusive of all dimensions. he suggests that mere economic activity cannot take any society anywhere. And when a community is agriculture-based, then it requires a greater comprehensive care. In Independent India, that was one area that the planners ignored. That is also where things started going wrong right at the dawn of Independence -- whose ill-effects we are suffering from today.

The first step we must take to rectify this ill, thus, comes in change of our comprehension of agriculture as only farming. If this approach made more inclusive of all related activities of rural life, things will change dramatically -- or at least start showing a better outcome of efforts. This is certainly complex game, so to say: Simple, if attempted with open mind; and complex if attempted with a political plan in mind. Are we ready for a complete transformation in our thought-process? -- is, thus, the issue.