- Political parties are promising massive financial support for farmers ahead of elections
- Congress president Rahul Gandhi has raised the stake by offering farm loan waiver across India
- The economic distress in rural India has become a political issue
India is headed for an election in the upcoming summer and political parties are placing their bids to bag the biggest and the most distressed section of the country's polity-- the farmers.
Both the ruling government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its biggest national rival, the Indian National Congress (INC), are raising the stakes at every turn to woo the country's rural votes.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi pre-empted a move by the Narendra Modi government by promising a minimum income guarantee for the country's farmers, but without any details, just days before the annual budget. So, when the ruling government took the stage on February 1, to announce the budget, it offered a minimum income of ₹6,000 a year to the country's small and marginal farmers.
Within a couple of days, Gandhi raised the bar one more time and offered a pan-India loan waiver for farmers. "I have said that if the Congress party forms a government in Delhi, we will do what we did in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in the entire country," Gandhi said at a political rally on February 4. "You didn’t do anything in the four-and-a-half years, you didn’t waive the loans of farmers," he said accusing the government.
Farmers matter
India's rural distress has been worsening over the last few years. The farm sector supports about half of the country's population and makes less than a fifth of the gross domestic product (GDP).
Despite good monsoons and good crop output, the farmers have been struggling to make ends meet. The prime minister promised in 2017 that the government would ensure the farmers' income doubles in the following five years, but the crisis has only worsened since then.
A report of the Committee on Strategy for Doubling Farmers' Income by 2022 stated that “The WPI (wholesale price index) of food articles was lower than that of agricultural inputs for most years, indicating that farmers received lower market prices for agricultural commodities than the prices paid for the purchase of inputs.”
Meanwhile, rural wage growth has slowed down significantly while the debt has been piling up.