When it rains neglect, it pours

You can't blame the weatherman for bad weather. But in the past decade, scientists have got used to lazily rushing into a 'normal monsoon' forecast. This year we are paying the price for that.

File photo of Indian monsoon | Wikimedia Commons

You can say three things with confidence about our governments. First, they believe a crisis is best handled by pretending it doesn’t exist. Two, they have perfected suspension of disbelief into a science. And, third, they must believe that God and the exchequer would ultimately bail them out of any crisis anyway.

For a hundred days, while our armies battled to drive the Pakistanis off the peaks in Kargil, our government was still debating the apt description for what was going on: war, near-war, war-like situation, limited war. No surprises now when exactly eight weeks into an extremely sparse monsoon, they are still not sure whether it is a drought, a near drought, a weak monsoon or merely a patchy one.

As I write this in New Delhi I am sobered (happily) by a reasonable buildup of the cumulus nimbus outside my window and, who knows, the weatherman will finally prove ‘‘accurate’’ with his 10th forecast of ‘‘rain in the next 48 hours’’ over the past fortnight. One in ten is not such a bad strike rate, a bit like a Harbhajan Singh slog — if he swings the bat ten times he is likely to connect at least once, and boy, aren’t we thrilled when it goes for a four? But monsoon prospecting is a more serious business than a tailender’s batting and, irrespective of what recovery happens in weeks to come, our scientific incompetence, compounded by our political complacence has already done us withering damage.

You cannot hold the weatherman responsible for bad weather. But over the past decade, our scientists have got used to lazily rushing into a ‘‘normal monsoon’’ forecast. This year we are paying the price for that. Worse, every day as the monsoon eluded us the government seems to have been caught up in the same suspension of disbelief: the hope that something will change, it is not a drought yet and who knows when rains would revive.

It is criminal of this government and the scientific establishment to wait this long to raise the alarm. Even if the rains revive now, enormous and avoidable damage has been done. Already, nearly 40 per cent of the soyabean crop is damaged

The first real words of concern came only this week from Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh, who should more aptly be described as the Cabinet Minister for Baghpat. A drought, he said, looks a real possibility, but he would rather wait till July 31.

It helped meanwhile that his friendly Uttar Pradesh government declared at least his pocket borough of Baghpat, just across the river from Delhi, a drought-hit region, so at least his voters won’t have to pay their revenue. They usually don’t pay for water and power anyway.

It is criminal of him, this government, and the scientific establishment to wait this long to raise the alarm, and that too reluctantly. Even if the rains revive now, enormous and largely avoidable damage has been done. If only Ajit Singh were to look at the minutes of his own ministry’s Crop Weather Watch Group meeting on July 15, he would realise what his complacence has cost the country.

Already, nearly 40 per cent of the soyabean crop is damaged and the farmers have lost whatever reserves they had. This could have been avoided if they were warned early enough. Similarly, in Punjab and Haryana, farmers could have been advised in time to switch from paddy to something needing less water.

The same story repeats elsewhere, particularly in the case of oilseeds and pulses where sowing is lagging behind by nearly 30-40 per cent. Ajit Singh can claim that some of the blame must go to the state governments as well, particularly those of the Congress in Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, but that is not the point.

The fact is, 15 years after what was described as the worst drought of the century, we should have learnt sufficiently and done enough to handle another such calamity.

IN 1987, we were technologically handicapped in predicting the monsoon. We blamed this on the Americans denying us the Cray XMP-1 Supercomputer. The Cray came shortly afterwards and today a high-end laptop packs more power than that anyway.

But the smartest of silicon chips are no cure for a government’s apathy and incompetence. It is also possible that 15 years of reasonable rains after 1987 made us lazy. But there is no excuse for us to be still so vulnerable to a bad monsoon year. We should have done much better with our groundwater resources management by now. We should have done a lot more with irrigation (between 1987 and now our irrigated area has merely risen to 43 per cent from 33) and with moving more of our working population from farming to industry and services by now.

The big river water projects, Narmada and Tehri, for example, should have been completed. Besides, we should have been able to make a better prediction and shifted much faster into the crisis mode.

Use this crisis then to liberalise farm trade, build a system of grain futures rather than buffer stocks and break the vicious cycle of paddy and wheat underpinned on government procurement, an absurdity that kills all enterprise

But is that likely when agriculture is so low in our priorities? No politician wants that ministry and one who gets it only uses it to win cheap and quick fame by grabbing new freebies and subsidies, while blocking the withdrawal of old ones.

The government’s overall priorities have got so muddled it wasn’t until last week that the cabinet began to even discuss the crisis that would not only hurt farm production but also cause rural unrest to compound the growing urban unemployment of the past two years.

The bigger danger now is that having messed up so royally, the government may respond to the crisis by getting into the ‘relief’ mode, doling out freebies, writing off debt, suspending revenue collection and reversing the process of rationalisation, if not withdrawal of subsidies. If the gods fail you, turn to the exchequer, buy your way out of trouble.

Every crisis also brings along opportunities. To begin with, this one should bring focus back on farming. It’s been so ‘‘unsexy’’ in the past decade that the job of the union agriculture minister has become some kind of a punishment posting. It is also an opportunity to lick what was, until the other day, a problem of plenty — bulging foodgrain stocks with no storage.

They should now be utilised and reduced to rational levels. Use this crisis then to liberalise farm trade, build a system of grain futures rather than buffer stocks and, finally, use it to break the vicious

cycle of paddy and wheat, underpinned on government procurement at minimum support prices, an absurdity that kills all enterprise and competition in, ironically, the only part of our economy that is entirely in the private sector.

But do you really expect even this much focus, even this much imagination, from a government whose topmost concern — for a whole month while our armies are lined up on the borders and the rains have been failing —seems to be where to locate the eastern railway headquarters?