LONDON: International consultant Mohinder Gulati has written a letter to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in which he expresses disappointment that she has used her “well-earned bully pulpit” to wade into political issues, such as the farmers’ protest in India.
Gulati, former COO of Sustainable Energy For All, which works with the UN to ensure a transition to clean energy by 2030, has written, “You are doing a great service to the cause of climate change. Walking into the thicket of local political issues, often mired in a battle with corrupt and vested political interests, would undermine your ability to keep the moral high ground.”
Gulati, who worked for the World Bank for 20 years, explains to the 18-year-old that burning crop residue in states like Punjab and Haryana creates a smog across Delhi which not only damages people’s lungs but also the soil, leading to increased use of chemical fertilisers, and that millions of tons of food produced in India every year is wasted.
“India desperately needs to modernise its agriculture. This cannot, and should not, be done by the governments and should be left to a … well-regulated private sector. Do you support India to continue with the current archaic systems and waste food that could feed 100 million hungry every year?” he asks.
He explains how the current system forces farmers to sell their produce through government-established market yards where they pay a brokerage and market tax. “The revenue is often swindled by corrupt politicians controlling these market committees” who collect these taxes, he explains. The new laws “give a choice to the farmers to either continue to sell in the existing market yards or sell to anyone anywhere in the country and that too without paying any tax”, he says.
As for the MSP, which the government pays when it procures wheat and rice for the public distribution system, “about 52% of this procurement is made from only three states — Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh — the hub of agitating farmers. More than 90% of the farmers in rest of India do not benefit from this system,” he writes.
“Normally, the market price is lower than the MSP,” he says, explaining how the broker-mafia purchase wheat and rice from farmers in other states at a lower price, pay them in cash, bring it to government procurement stations in Punjab, Haryana and UP, sell it at a higher price and get paid by cheque, which is tax-exempt. “No wonder the farmer agitation is so well funded. New laws would bring in transparency.”