Hard at work along with his family on their 12 bighas (7.5 acres) of land in Jhalawar, the constituency of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Vardish Chand has a pressing query: "I have a farm loan of Rs 45,000. I read in newspapers in September that loans up to Rs 50,000 will be waived. When is that going to happen?"
There are no easy answers to this question in Rajasthan even as nearly 80 farmers are said to have committed suicide this year due to mounting loans and not receiving the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops. On September 14, Raje agreed to set up an 11-member committee of her top ministers to look into the demand for a loan waiver after a massive farmers' agitation in Sikar district in the northeastern part of the state. Raje gave the committee a month to submit its report.
But it has been over three months now but there is no word from the committee or the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled government. "Whether loans will be waived or not will be decided only after the committee's report," says Prabhu Lal Saini, a member of the panel. But Water Resources Minister Ram Pratap, who heads the committee, believes the experience of states like Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, which have waived agricultural loans, has to be assessed as well as whether after a waiver, farmers again fall into a debt trap. "This is a very big issue which has to be studied deeply. Hence, to put a time limit on the committee's work is not realistic. We have visited two states and sought reports from others that have done a loan waiver. We want a proper solution."
Vardish Chand, the farmer in Jhalawar, does not understand the intricacies of how governments work. "Besides my loan, my wheat crop last year fetched me just `1,500 a quintal (1 quintal equals 100 kg), which was below the MSP. I am hardly able to sustain even if I get the MSP. What happened to the promises of the Narendra Modi government to hike the MSP?" Chand asks, adding that he has always been a Congress voter. He wants Raje to come good on her promise and waive his loan. "Then I will think about voting for her in 2018." Rajasthan is among the key states going to the polls towards the end of next year.
Jhalawar and the neighbouring Baran are hotbeds of loan waiver demand and have seen a spate of farmer suicides this year. Compounding the political equation is the fact that while Raje is the MLA from Jhalawar, her son Dushyant Singh represents the Jhalawar-Baran constituency in Parliament.
Sachin Pilot, who heads the state unit of the Congress, in October, led a 100 km march with farmers from Baran to Jhalawar, demanding loan waiver and adherence to the MSP. "There have been 80 farmer suicides and the government is delaying a decision on the loan waiver to time it closer to the December 2018 state polls. This is just cruelty," says Pilot.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi held a rally in Banswara, another district reporting farmer suicides, earlier this year. Cheena Bodal, a 75-year-old farmer in Banswara, says he always votes for the BJP, but is disappointed this time. "My last soybean crop went for less than Rs 200 per quintal below the MSP. I am drowning in losses."
Behind Rajasthan's indecision on the loan waiver are both economics and politics. A waiver of up to Rs 50,000 per farmer would cost the government Rs 20,000 crore and a blanket loan waiver could run up a bill of Rs 49,500 crore. Given that Uttar Pradesh waived loans up to Rs 1 lakh per farmer, devoting a total state corpus of Rs 36,000 crore, and Maharashtra has decided to waive loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh, Rajasthan's proposal is already inviting questions, including whether farmers will be debt-laden even after the waiver. That in an election year could be a big perception problem for the BJP.
Immediately, though, Raje has more problems at hand as she is staring at another farmer agitation.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-controlled All India Kisan Mahasabha, which brought the Raje government to its knees in September with an agitation in Sikar, has announced it will launch a massive march to the state assembly in Jaipur in February 2018 and protest there till its demands are met.
"The chief minister met us in September and agreed in principle to our 11-point demand charter to give a farm loan waiver up to Rs 50,000 per farmer and ensure the MSP is followed.... Raje is dithering on her promise," says All India Kisan Mahasabha president Amra Ram. The clock is ticking for Raje.
