The state of the economy does not dominate the campaign scene in Maharashtra and Haryana, two industrialised States of India. Both the States have strong agriculture sectors too. Rhetoric on Pakistan and the abrogation of the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir meanwhile top the campaign agenda that the BJP sets . The Opposition has not been able to change this agenda .
The farm sector is in distress and here is what was offered as relief: “The water which belongs to India was allowed to flow to Pakistan for 70 years...this will not happen now. We will divert the water which belongs to India, it will be given to the farmers of Haryana, water should be given to the farmers of Rajasthan,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a rally in Haryana this week . “Modi will fight your battle,” he said.
Now, that could be an unconventional state intervention to provide relief for farmers. The cleverness of the above formulation is that farm crisis is linked to Pakistan, India’s eternal enemy, and 70 years of appeasement of it by erstwhile governments. Terrorism is not the only thing Pakistan and appeasement politics can be blamed for.
Leaders of the ruling party keep reiterating the point that inflation has been kept under check. Farmers, who have little power to set the terms of transaction, are victims of a low inflation economy . The government would be wary of any measures in support of farmers that might have an inflationary effect, because that would upset the urban consumers.
If incomes are rising and opportunities are expanding, the urban people can absorb some inflation. But that is not the case. Already facing job losses, and pressure on earnings, the urban people do not have the capacity to deal with inflation. In other words, the absence of any expansion of industrial economy and fresh opportunities make them extremely sensitive to inflation. An angry urban crowd is the last thing that the BJP can afford now.
Since there can be no jobs for the urban people, there can be no support for the farmers. The more the failure to kickstart the industrial sector, the more the stress on the farm sector will be. The more the stress on the agriculture sector, the more the shrinkage of rural demand will be for industrial products. That is a vicious cycle . Tales about the dangers of Pakistan is in abundance, meanwhile.
