Abstract
This study is an epistemological enquiry into the definition of ‘development’. The introduction of new technologies by the state perpetuates the dominant discourse of the times. Green Revolution is one such technology that changed the paradigm of farming in the state of Punjab, India. The developmental ideology of those times paved the way for technological interventions and made the Punjab farmers the stipendiaries of the new system. But this newly- acquired technology has had many negative effects on agriculture as a whole and the Punjab farmer is negotiating these changes as was found through this study conducted in Punjab. This study seeks to critically analyse the definitions of development and the ‘tokenism’ of social responsibility as projected through such development by the state. The field work helps to engage with three kinds of stakeholders - viz. Farmers, Civil Society Organisations and Policy Officials, through In-depth Interviews. The analysis and theory is based on Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, specifically the notion of the ‘subject’ and the ‘panopticon’.
Introduction
According to (Jodhka, 2007) Green Revolution was introduced in Punjab in order to bring (i) self- sufficiency to the country (ii) create a food basket for the country (Jodhka, 2007) (iii) a modern and scientific method of farming in order to guard against famines. The idea of Green Revolution was presented to India by the World Bank (Shiva, 1987) and was executed by MS Swaminathan, who is also known as the father of Green Revolution in India. This form of agriculture was invented by American agronomist Norman Borlaugh. Green Revolution was handed over in a packaged form to the farmers in Punjab in the year 1968.
The Dominant Discourse of Green Revolution
Jodhka (2007) mentions that, Punjab farmers benefitted from Green Revolution due to High Yieding Varieties of seeds that brought about an increase in production per hectare. Punjab produces 22 percent of the country’s wheat, 9 percent of rice and 24 percent of cotton (Jodhka, 2007).The farmers in Punjab are affluent which is reflected in the land holding patterns (Shergill, 1986; Jodhka, 2007).
While Green Revolution was successful in some parts of India as well, it was Punjab that it primarily came to be identified with. The statistics available on different indicators of agricultural growth in Punjab are evidence that amongst all the states of India, the growth rate of Punjab was the highest during 1960s and 1980s, in the sphere of agriculture. “The annual rate of increase in production of food grains during 1961–62 to 1985–86 for the state was more than double than that for the country as a whole” (Jodhka, 2007). The percentage of High Yielding Varieties of seeds in the total area under food grain cultivation in Punjab was almost 73 % in 1974–75, whereas the all- India production was only 31 %. It rose to 95 % in 1983–85, as against the country’s average of just54 %. According to one estimate, of all the tractors owned in India, one-third was owned by Punjab farmers (Jodhka, 2007).
And since the notion of a Green Revolution was popularized by the World Bank, by making it financially viable (Shiva, 1988), it praises the achievements of the state in one of its reports, published in 2004.
Punjab is India’s most prosperous and developed state with the lowest poverty rate. At the end of the 1990s, more than 94 per cent of Punjab’s citizens were above the poverty line, 70 per cent were literate, 94 per cent of the six year olds were enrolled in primary schools, 72 per cent of children under twelve months were immunized, 99 per cent of households had access to safe drinking water, and the average life expectancy of its citizen was 68 years (Jodhka, 2007).
World Bank also presented that according to India’s National Human Development Report, published in 2001, Punjab was ranked at the second position in terms of overall level of human development (Jodhka, 2007). The World Bank report tried to bring out the disparity in the conditions of living in Punjab as compared to other states by stating that the citizens of Punjab had achieved a certain socio-economic level that Indians in other state would not be able to achieve in their life-time (Jodhka, 2007).
Research Methodology
The research methodology of this study is informed by tenets of critical theory. According to critical theory, all “thought is mediated by power relations that are socially and historically constituted, and mark ideological inscriptions on knowledge generation” (Kincheloe and McLaren, 2004).
In-depth Interviews
The field work comprised of data-collection in the form of in-depth interviews. According to Patton (1987) in-depth interviewing, is a form of data collection technique that researchers can use to elicit information from respondents. This technique of interviewing facilitates a well-rounded understanding of the respondents’ point of view (Patton, 1987). In-depth interviews involve asking respondents open-ended questions, and indulging in the probing- technique wherever deemed useful by the researcher (Patton, 1987).
Since this study aims at exploring the discourses of stakeholders which were found missing in the existing scholarship on Green Revolution, (as reflected by the review of literature available). A review of the literature available on Green Revolution reveals that there is a lack of scholarship that takes into account the voices of people that affected the adoption of Green Revolution as technology by the state. This hence, essentially becomes an inquiry on choice of policy by the state. The voices that have been taken into account for this purpose are those of policy makers (executives), activists and off course the farmers.
The Stakeholders Interviewed
- (i) Farmers - A bricolage of narratives was collected from farmers interviewed and engaged in the cultivation of water-intensive paddy but are troubled by receding water aquifers. These include twenty four interviews of both landlords, who were not involved in day to day farming as well as farm labourers.
- (ii) Activists- Workers of NGOs and civil society organisations were interviewed in an attempt to locate the resisting discourses. They can be clubbed under the title of activists.
- (iii) Policy Officials- One of the important stakeholders to this exploration is the policy makers and people who execute these policies. For the purpose of this study, I conducted in-depth interviews officials representing policy makers. Most of who came from the functionalist paradigm as policy makers or executives and engineers. Six government officials were interviewed to substantiate the dominant discourse.
Findings and Analysis
The findings are being presented as the discourses of privilege and resistance of all the stake holders, which are as follows:
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The discourse of the farmers : Farmers may have been the stipendiaries of the Green Revolution technology , but a discourse analysis of their narratives presents discourse of resistance. The farmers are negotiating with: (i) the sale of farming land by landed zamindars (ii) Speculative land sales (iii) land sale since the next generation does not want to engage with farming (iv) corporatization of agriculture (v) Hoarding of food grains to negotiate higher prices.
Skepticism towards farming as a mainstay
The new generation, points out that it is extremely difficult to get an electricity connection. Seeing the plight of his father he is skeptical to get into farming himself, since he is facing so many problems with electricity and water supply. He adds that Foreign Direct Investments are allowed to come to Punjab, and then he can have an assured income on a month to month basis by giving it on contracts. The younger generation is more inclined towards the corporatization of farms.
Unemployment amongst Punjabi Youth
Due to a socio- economic and cultural connotation of being ‘Zamindars’ or land-holding communities the youth of Punjab do not engage in farm jobs as contract labour. There is a preference for non-farm related vocations, even though there are many opportunities in agri-business. Many farmers who has sold – off most of his agricultural land, aspires for his son to choose a career more adept to an urban set-up. The son of a farmer had completed his Engineering studies and was unemployed but still unwilling to work as a farmer. There is social stigma attached to working on farms. This was clear in an interview with him, where he points out that he will be considered ‘backward’ if he engages in farming. This is the reason that lakhs of migrant laborers find work opportunities in Punjab’s agricultural sector while some of Punjab’s own workforce remains unemployed. This was also observed in another village of Punjab where the landlord, did not work on his land but had employed other farm workers to tend to the crops.
With the improvement in levels of education people are not keen for manual jobs in Punjab. Agriculture is considered low-paying yet high- risk involving business, as compared to the nature of jobs that are available in urban centers, as was reflected in the interviews. The next generation of farmers in Punjab looks forward to well-paying jobs or corporatized agri-business. This is a discourse of resistance.
Loss of Land, Loss of Agency
Land lords and other farm workers narrate that most of the farmers who have sold off their land have bought land elsewhere. There is a mixed sense of pride as well as loss. Most of such land which has been bought is further away from their earlier farmlands. Such landlords are no longer directly involved in day to day farming. They have given land for contract farming to farm workers and contractors. Hence, there is a change in lifestyle of farmers in villages of Punjab as they are no longer working on their lands, instead have been reduced to or in some other way empowered to become land lords. In a conversation one farmer reveals that farm land is only seen as a symbol of status that will fetch dowry when he gets married or it may be used as mortgage in case he chooses to migrate to a foreign country and take up a loan for the same purpose. The problem of farmers arises from the state’s control over land and irrigation facilities.
The farmers interviewed refer to land mafia which is a term used for real estate agents who may also operate as ‘land developers’. Land development is a normalizing term which is easily used as a substitute for real estate transactions. In other words, the people in villages of Punjab understand the sale of farming land for construction of buildings as ‘development’ of the area.
The role played by the policy officials- Tokenism
The discourse of the policy officials is the dominant discourse of ‘development’. Their narratives reflect the following findings: (i) maintaining the dominant discourse of Green Revolution as an idea of development (ii) the methodical approach of the Punjab Agricultural University (iii) construction of dams for development and irrigation (iv)lack of a new way of defining dark zones (v) poor supply of electricity for irrigation
The discourse of Civil Society Organisations
The only stakeholders who were aware of and understood the concept of Green Revolution were the activists, who question the homogenizing discourses. While most of them were skeptical of the actual utility of the concept in a country such as India, most of their concerns stemmed from socio-technological development that is not sustainable and is ruining the environment and indigenous farm skills. Dr. Anil Gupta informed that many rice varieties had been lost due to the introduction of HYVs, which he understands is a result of ‘western’ agricultural practices imposed on the third world. Dr.Vandana Shiva alludes to the violent imposition of Green Revolution as a reason for terrorism in the state of Punjab. She also points out that Indian farms are experiment fields for western knowledge that are backed by supranational organizations such as the World Bank.
Green Revolution is just another moniker that is laden with hegemonic interests. Indian policies continue to be influenced by such concepts. By adopting the ‘modern’ western technologies of farming and the increasing pressure on farmers to produce more per acre, India has become a subject of scrutiny in the international trade discourse of food negotiation for land sales with corporate on behalf of farmers. Hence the policy officials have an ideational power over the creation of the discourse of Green Revolution.
Conclusion
The discourse of farmers is not just misplaced but there is little evidence in the data collected to prove that there is a farmers’ discourse at all. The conventions and round tables that discuss agricultural issues such as food grain production and the Green Revolution consumption are not a part of the imagination of a Punjab farmer. While they were aware of the concept of Green Revolution, the farmers did not have any knowledge about where their produce was being sold or if it was being exported or not. Hence this is a subalternisation (Spivak, 1988) of the Punjab farmer. The assumption of naturalized power roles by scientists and policymakers create a marginalizing discourse. The panoptic gaze (Foucault, 1978) created to control farmers as subjects marginalizes the farmers and they are systematically alienated from the discourse on Green Revolution. In the case of Punjabi farmers this symbolic event was the Green Revolution and the existential crisis that they face on a daily basis and that shapes the nature of their livelihood and earnings in the problem of water scarcity. Green Revolution changed the life of farmers and farming as a practice forever in Punjab. It is evident in the farming technology and the capitalist mode of food production. The narratives of farmers that have been gathered through field work showcase the effect that Green Revolution continues to have, even after forty five years of its first introduction. Green Revolution is one such event that has changed Punjab forever.
The narratives of various stakeholders help in identifying the roles that these stakeholders play in the legitimization of discourses on Green Revolution. These discourses have been identified as discourses of privilege and resistance. Hence this study seeks to juxtapose the narratives the stakeholders and analyze them by deconstructing the narratives of the stakeholders.
The farmers who are privileged, use the Green Revolution as a site to couch their discourse which is discursively contested by activists and NGO workers, to prove that the farming practices are extremely exploitative. The policy officials and executives run a system of - “constant, coded, systematic observation, run by a differentiated hierarchies” (Foucault, 1972), present a picture of maintaining the dominant discourse of development while being oblivious of international politics of supranational agencies. This was evident from the lack of knowledge of Green Revolution and the subsequent consequences that it can have on the future of agriculture or trade in India (specifically Punjab). The hydrocracy around agriculture creates a situation that supports exploitative farming practices due to bore-well irrigation, use of modern farming techniques – such as paddy cultivation, creation of monocultures, use of fertilizers and other forms of capitalistic inputs along with the other risk that is the constant shrinking due to sale of agricultural lands.
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