From Plate to Plough: Promises to the farmers | The Indian Express

From Plate to Plough: Promises to the farmers | The Indian Express

Written by Ashok Gulati, Ritika Juneja |Published: April 15, 2019 12:18:10 am

The writer is chair professor for agriculture at ICRIER. Views are personal

Ritika Juneja is Research Assistant at ICRIER.

From Plate to Plough: Promises to the farmers

Whichever party comes to power at the Centre, India is making a policy shift to direct income support.

What was expected from the main political parties were bold promises to reform agri-markets.(Illustration: CR Sasikumar)

The festival of democracy started with the first phase of polling on April 11. Ideally, it should be celebrated like Holi, forgetting past enmity and embracing each other with love. But, unfortunately, it is being fought like the battle of Kurukshetra in the epic, Mahabharata. All the weapons of politics — saam, daam, dand, bhed — are being used. Saam reaches for accord with other parties, daam uses money power to buy votes, dand uses the CBI to raid the camps of opponents, and bhed divides voters on caste/religious lines.