Marang Gomke - Supreme Leader

ICS, Indian Civil Service – But resigned from it

Captain of India’s first hockey team to win a gold medal in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands,

Principal incumbent of the Rajkumar College, Raipur

A Constituent Assembly member

Founder of the Adivasi Mahasabha in 1938

Four time Member of Parliament

Well, you wouldn’t have guessed who I am talking about, right.

Jaipal Singh Munda

Yes all of the above and more. An adivasi, born in a remote village, taken by the English principal of his school to England. One of India’s ablest and finest. Few know about him today. He was part of the Chhotanagpur Five who negotiated with Nehru, Sardar Patel, Sarojini Naidu, Abul Kalam Azad, Kaka Saheb Kalelkar  and others for a nation without a nation state for the adivasis and how development – as defined by India’s new post independence government would spell disaster for the adivasis.

Jaipal Singh Munda will be remembered for his character and flamboyance. He was also a brilliant orator. When Nehru moved a resolution in the Assembly proclaiming India a sovereign and democratic republic, Jaipal made a stirring speech interpreting the proclamation from his people’s point of view.

“As a jungli, as an adibasi,” said Jaipal, “I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the resolution. But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march in that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated, it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilisation, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers—most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned—it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness.... The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”

We have sixty three years of democracy, but democracy is a funny word. Yes we have had democracy, but it has been largely parliamentary democracy and not social democracy. Parliamentary Democracy can succeed only when we can achieve social democracy.

Jaipal’s hopes for his people, the adivasis, have been dashed, 63 years later, as you and I have prospered and marvel at our almost-double-digit GDP growth, ever growing Forex reserves; millions of adivasis have been dispossessed of their land and suffered and continue to suffer.

It would be a tragedy that with all this growth, we as a society aren’t able to address the inequities.

Quoting from Ramchandra Guha,

In that last speech to the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar asked, “What does social democracy mean?” He supplied this answer: “It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy.... Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things.”

With the Ministry of Environment accepting the fact that it was a mistake to accord clearance to Anil Aggrwal owned Vedanta’s project in Orissa. Vedanta wants to mine the sacred mountain of the Dongria, who have become known as the ‘Avatar tribe’ due to the close parallels with the plight of the Na’vi of James Cameron’s film Avatar.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Vedanta-infringed-clearance-guidelines-/articleshow/5677811.cms

The Forest Rights Act referred to in my earlier post

http://ourtimes-yoursandmine.blogspot.com/2009/12/36garh-or-chhattisgarh-part-4-tribals.html

clearly has the teeth and can be effective if used properly to protect the rights of the adivasis.

It is great that the Largest Indian business paper (the Economic Times) sides with the Dongria Kondh and not Vedanta.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Stop-the-Vedanta-Project-in-Orissa/articleshow/5692364.cms

Times are changing. We can and should do our bit.

Spare a few moments and join me today in remembering Jaipal Singh Munda, one of India’s greatest children on his 107th death anniversary.

Assam through my eyes

green – tea, paddy

sand, stone, river & boats

assam

Paddy is the lifeline here

Transplantation on for the summer rice

A Bodo lady in her village in Baska

(Bodoland Territorial Council)

The lady again with her daughter -

with clothes that she has woven herself

The Handloom - present in every house

 Sustainable Practises

Biswanath Ghat on The Brahamaputra

Looks majestic even when it is dry

Fisherfolk with their boats -

just back from their venture into the river in the early morning

An abandoned lighthouse from the times of the British

A sole boatsman on the river

Guess the tree and flower?

The flower of high value

The tulsi worshipped in front of a house

of people belonging to the tea tribes

Another lifeline of Assam - Tea

Sun playing hide and seek with the clouds on

the way back from Biswanath Chariali

Dhal, Dahl, Dal, or Daal - Nepali: दाल Daal, Hindi: दाल Dāl, Bengali: ডাল Dāl, Kannada: ಬೇಳೆ Bēḷe, Malayalam: Parippu, Marathi: डाळ Ḍāḷ, Tamil: பருப்பு Paruppu, Telugu: పప్పు Pappu, Dāl, Urdu: دال)

Continuing on my commodity track, it is now time for the humble dal.

Virtually all Indians, rich and poor as well as vegetarian and non-vegetarian, consume pulses and it is an important source of protein.

Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India.

     (Read Yield Figures from the left axis and the rest from the right axis)

This graph clearly shows that Productivity (yield per unit of land) has had 0.7% CAGR.

Irrigated area has doubled in 55 years.

Land under pulses has grown by less than 15% in 55 years

Total Production has had 2% CAGR.

One now has no doubts as to why the prices of the humble dal are on fire!

India and Pulses

India is the world's biggest producer, importer and consumer of pulses, clearly showing the growing demand in line with the population and poor growth in production, leading to imports.

What make pulses in India an interesting market is the price sensitivities and the options available. Customers show a great deal of substitutability between pulses. If pigeon peas are expensive, eat yellow peas. If chickpeas are cheap, eat more of them, till prices go up. This dynamic consumption pattern combined with the variable, domestic production makes the Indian pulse market demand difficult to predict.

Despite their importance, the per capita availability of pulses has reduced to almost half from about 60 gm/day in 1950-51 to 26 gm/day in 2000-01 as against the recommendation (43 gm/day) of the Indian Council of Medical Research – which is ½ of what the World Health Organisation recommends.

Why Pulses

Pulses complement cereals in production. In the production process, pulses improve soil fertility, require less water than cereals and their rotation with cereals controls diseases and pests.

Proteins are amino acids. Out of the 22 amino acids required in the human diet, the body supplies 14. The remaining eight have to come from food. If all the eight amino acids are present in a single food item, it is called a complete protein food.

Since all proteins from animal sources are complete proteins, it is easy to meet the dietary protein requirements of non-vegetarians. However, the main sources of protein for vegetarians are leguminous plants — to which pulses belong. In general, pulses have lower concentrations of protein than animal sources. Besides, none of the pulses — except soybeans — are complete proteins. Therefore, combinations of two or more pulses are needed in a vegetarian diet.

Green Revolution and PDS Bypass

I thought bypasses were built to avoid traffic jams within the city. But by focusing on increasing production of cereals and minimum support prices for them and assured supplies in PDS, the GOI created problems for pulses.

The green revolution saw the country taking great strides in increasing the yields of rice and wheat. Along with this, the government’s procurement policy and strategy helped in the promotion of these cereals. There have been no great technology breakthroughs with respect to pulses. Equally, no aggressive plan, commensurate with the crisis, is in place for pulses.

Wheat production showed an 843 percent increase between 1950 and 1992.
Since 1950 the increase in rice production has been more than 350 percent.

The PDS seeks to provide to the beneficiaries two cereals, rice and wheat and four essential commodities (sugar, vegetable oil, and kerosene oil for cooking and light). Pulses one of the main protein source are not part of PDS.

The solution – Set up a Mission – spend money and stay with the problem

Recognising the problem, the Government of India (GOI) as usual sets up a National Mission on Pulses and in the 2010 Budget allocates Rs 300 crore provided to organise 60,000 “pulses and oil seed villages” in rain-fed areas during 2010-11. Wow, 300 crores sounds great and assuming 1/2 of it is for pulses, but what does it mean – it means 25,000 rupees per village for a whole year. With that kind of money, one is expected to make a difference. 25,000 bucks is not even enough to recruit a full time agriculture extension, forget experiments, travel, etc. We have had a technology mission on pulses since 1990-91 and though we have had all parties govern India during this time, nothing seems to have made a difference.

Learn from Canada:

Saskatchewan is Canada’s leading province for agriculture. It is the country’s granary especially for pulses and dominates the global pulses market because of the natural comparative advantages based on climate, and an industry-driven research sector, according to Dr Bert Vandenberg, (Plant Breeder at the University of Saskatchewan). Hello ICAR – are you hearing!!!

Saskatchewan now produces close to nine lakh tonnes of lentils each year; and in the last 20 years, the annual output growth has roughly equalled annual growth of global consumption. “If global lentil consumption continues to grow even at six per cent a year, we will need to produce more than two lakh additional tonnes each year, Dr Vandenberg says, pointing to the huge potential for further growth.

Value for money!

Make the 300 crore subsidy a onetime subsidy – have public tenders and let private sector participate and allow them to demonstrate increased yields in different pockets of the country and give them the subsidy based on performance. Out with lousy bureaucrat manned government schemes. Come on Man (Mohan)!!! I am sure people like Dr. Vandenberg can be found among the billion + Indians.