By Avner Pariat
There have been many bio-security lapses and complacency has set in hard in the past month within our society. Now the Covid 19 virus has managed to breach our defenses. Like a great besieger of castles it has been persistent. Like a river eating away at the walls of a ravine it has been unrelenting. There are many lessons to be learnt from this humble ‘speck’. In our fear of it, I don’t know if we are thinking straight about the long-lasting values of this virulence. I will try to elaborate what I mean.
Firstly, Agricultural (and related) produce grown and sourced locally has been seeing a rise in domestic consumption within the state itself. This has been primarily because of the Lockdowns. Now just because we human beings have declared closures and prohibited various activities from taking place, it doesn’t mean that Nature needs to listen to such diktats. Plants still need to sprout, animals still need to grow. During the Lockdowns, we saw a great disruption to old trade relations and agreements. These were not always good things and they did leave negative impacts recently on the lives of those made dependent on them. However a crucial thing happened during the Lockdowns: farmers were forced to start thinking and dealing at a local level. This was a good experiment which we must learn from. For instance, losing trade from Andhra Pradesh meant that local aqua-farmers could move out from under that vast shadow and we saw their products in the bright light of a fair day. We found that yes, their fish were smaller in size but they were fresher, tastier (in my opinion) and crucially, organic. As a result of these innate strengths, the domestic consumption of locally reared fish grew more than it had in previous years. This is not my own assertion but comes from the Fisheries Department itself.
Now that might sound rosy and optimistic but there is also a catch to the story. Greater sales do not necessarily mean greater returns for the farmers themselves. Currently, owing to the Covid 19 disruption to the Market, many middle-men are forcing the farmers to sell their products at throw-away rates. For instance, cabbage from the Smit area was going for the wonderful sum of Re 2 per kilo! That must be immediately stopped. Such traders are nothing more than robbers and must be dealt with accordingly. However, in general, we should learn from all these lessons and move forward. Rearing and then sheltering local initiatives (especially in Agriculture) from the tremendous onslaught of outside competition can ensure high quality, if not high quantity, products and produce. If given a fair chance and allowed to strengthen, there is no reason to believe that these initiatives wouldn’t be able to survive on their own later on.
Another welcome occurrence arising out of this Pandemic has been the emergence of cooperatives in different parts of the state. I had already spoken about the rampant exploitation that our farmers are currently facing. This lack of power on their part has necessitated the creation of fledgling cooperatives. This was quite unheard of prior to the Pandemic. Pre-Covid times were not good times by any stretch of the imagination but these Lockdowns have made things very dire. And out of that hardship, people have had to evolve newer tools. The concerned government departments must really pay close attention to this emerging contingency and fill in the gaps with encouragement, capacity, resources and financial aid. We cannot compete with the scale of mainstream industries and services and even if we were to concentrate on high-grade quality there would always be a deficiency in output. However we can cut down the gap by joining up together along the lines of collective marketing.
One farmer or service provider on his own can do very little – especially because our land holdings are so small – but a cooperative model would be the way to go if we are to meet targets set before us by clients. It would also reaffirm and rebuild the resilience of our old ways of economic organisation and enhance democratic participation. This, in a nutshell would harken back to the days of true “Tribal Socialism”. The political ramifications for any government that could bring this about would be tremendous.
There is also the issue regarding market places which I have talked about before on different forums. This Pandemic has forced us to adhere to social distancing and thus our old ideas of the marketplace of Iewduh or Iawmusiang has had to change. Once again, Covid 19 has made the impossible possible! Yes, we may shed tears of nostalgia about the old system but we must also rejoice that we have been given this chance to start anew. The old iew for all its merits was also overcrowded, dirty, an eyesore and a hazard in more ways than one. For those of us who would have to board an early morning shared taxi to Jowai or Mawsynram it could be a horrible assault on the senses. The overflowing septic-tanks, decaying meat, giant cancer-ridden rats and regular pools of alcoholic puke are not things I remember with fondness. No, sir. The iews hide within their labyrinth many dubious traders and if we have the chance to de-congest and disentangle our farmers from their horrid mesh of exploitation, we must do it swiftly. Iewduh and other marketplaces are not politically neutral spaces. And I am not saying that simply moving away to new locations will change things immediately for the exploited. But if we are able to effect these re-locations to places like Laitkor, Hynniew-Mer and Mawiong we would be taking a step in the right direction. These re-locations must, of course, be followed by rigourous adherence to a fairer farmer-centric system which would itself wield control over these spaces and not have middle-men dictate terms to them as is the case presently.
Lastly, we must talk about another effect that has come out of this Pandemic. And that is the sudden appearance of vast quantities of money which the Modi government has been forced to inject into the flailing economy. In total, Modi has declared a special economic package (Aatman Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan) amounting to about 280 billion dollars. My only question is: where did all this money come from and where was it before? Why was it never deployed when the poor and ailing were crying for assistance? Why was it never infused into our various welfare programmes and services? Now because of this illness, and the uncertainty that has followed it – uncertainty which might blow up ferociously – our leaders in Delhi, on both sides of the aisle, have suddenly become open-hearted and generous. This has shown us that when any government claims that “there is no money” they are telling a blatant lie. There is always money. And we must use this opportunity now to inform and direct Public Spending into crucial areas like Health and bio-security, Agriculture and Rural Development, MSMEs etc.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected] for suggestions, comments, discussions readers might have)