Distressed CM, Distressed Babus, Distressed Farmers

With the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Bhau Vilasrao Deshmukh, taking immediate steps at damage control, and to plug the bureaucratic leaking hole, created by the state government's affidavit regarding the delayed release of Central funds for the distressed debt numbed, cotton farmers of Vidarbha, it is clear that the Vidarbha issue is beginning to cause some spin off distress, among the sections of Indian society which have an assured income every month.
As against the farmers, dependent on faulty weather, farm exit policies, political corruption, monopolistic private sector intervention in agriculture and countless other problems.
It started off with the Relief Commissioner,, Sudhir Kumar Goyal, IAS, donning the cap of a seasoned farm strategist and philosopher, and claiming that the Vidarbha farmers were victims of a lopsided system, where they were trying to generate profits from GM cotton farming in non irrigated areas, high cost inputs, low incomes. Shri Goyal initially was persuaded to conduct political damage limitation excercises.
Shri Goyal never felt the need to tell us who approved large scale GM cotton experimentations with Vidarbha farmers in the first place despite a sprawling agricultural science network existing in India. Even more GM specific laboratories and extension institutes are being rapidly planned as India exceeds China in GM crop coverage.
Now with Congress being rudely voted out of power in the state elections in Punjab and Uttaranchal, despite, the visits of Shrimati Sonia Gandhi, the central Congress think tanks, are beginning to get sleepless nights, and the tough talking, pesticides in mother's milk, Cricket Minister and the fair play Sensex Minister, whose photos with top industrialists were splashed all over the media, while Vidarbha farmers were denied even a ten minutes appointment, are being asked to have a relook at the rural agrarian situation in Vidarbha, much to their dismay.

Not surprising, that the bureaucrats lower down in the pecking order, are beginning to speak out their minds at political incompetence and callousness, that begins from policy levels in New Delhi itself.

Somebody at some level, low down in the IAS bureaucracy and babudom in Maharashtra, took the decision, to defend the state Congress government's handling of Vidarbha agrarian crisis, in a court affidavit, and blame the PMO, for delayed release of funds, promised by Shri Man Mohan Singh himself.
Shri Singh in his much publicized Vidarbha visit, had announced a whopping Vidarbha Relief Package, the internal details of which, however, were known only to Oxbridge economists and think tanks sitting in South Bloc, New Delhi.
Shri Singh followed this up with his passionate advocacy of unleashing a Second Green Revolution on Indian farms, private sector entry into food retail, and advocacy of the need for raising farmers out of debt with rising incomes, so that they can share in the fruits of the Shining India that is sweeping Indian cities and economy, as is their due.

But then, what was not clarified, that a large scale Farm Exit Policy, is already underway in India, with senior economists, think tanks and bureaucrats, unanimous, that farm income dependant Indian populations must somehow or the other be reduced in percentage, before the WTO Doha hand shake takes place with Pascal Lamy, US and Europe.

So call it a gaffe, call it a faux pas, call it bureaucratic distress, somewhere in the lower echelons of Indian bureaucracy, some people are feeling the pressure, and feeling the need to let off some steam in court affidavits and media manipulation, if in nothing else.

Maybe Bhau Deshmukh and Shri Pawar, will succeed in damage limitation by praising the excellent support from PMO in making the Vidarbha crisis intervention a major feather in his cap.
He has been quoted as saying "We sincerely appreciate your concern over the high incidence of farmers' suicides. The assistance from the PM's relief fund has been of immense help to needy families in Vidarbha."

But then, Indian democracy, may show a different door to these ministers, begging for 3-4 extra years under their political supervision, before the urban gains in Indian economy, are transfered to Indian rural areas.
Vidarbha is too important an electoral bell weather for Congress to disregard and take casually.