Industrialization at What Cost?

Protests against protests seem to have become almost the norm in India today. Nandigram and Singur captured national attention some time back. Posco is facing opposition in Orissa and in the latest such occurrence police have lathicharged protestors in Andhra Pradesh.

The West Bengal Chief Minister has publicly spoken about the need to industrialize the state and one of his own ministers has publicly contradicted him. The minister in question has said that agriculture is the way forward for Bengal. Leaving out the rhetoric, we should consider if there is indeed truth in this. Mahatma Gandhi talked about revitalizing Indian villages. I believe this exlcusive focus on villages at the cost of industry has been criticized by the likes of Gurcharan Das. In my opinion industrialization is inevitable. How long can we sustain only on agriculture? Even in agriculture once machinery and extensive farming set in (like in the western world) the employment potential can actually come down (there is a lot of hidden unemployment in Indian agriculture).

At the same time India has been facing a crisis of sorts in food. Food inflation has been above the 10% mark for quite some time now. Tweaking the monetary policy is only a short term solution. If there is indeed a shortage of food supply for how long can restricting money supply control inflation? The government has recognized this to an extent and hence there is some movement on this front. But agriculture is a long-term game and nothing much can be done in the short term in terms of productivity or area. So in such a situation is giving away fertile land for SEZs and industries a wise move? Can we actually blame the protestors for their actions? I am not trying to do an Arundhati Roy here, I am just raising a question.

My Sanskrit sir in school used to say that a certain part of Andhra Pradesh (I forget whether it was the Konaseema part or West Godavari district or some other) can feed the entire country. While this might be a practical impossibility it suggests the fertile nature of the area. At the same time, this was not always so. Sir Arthur Cotton is one of the few Englishmen revered in India. He was the one responsible for bringing irrigation to the Konaseema area and making it the fertile area it is today. Thus the earth can provide. It is upto us how to utilize what she provides.