New Delhi: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s intervention on agriculture loan waiver has brought relief to many BJP chief ministers who have come under increased pressure to provide direct relief to farmers.
The spate of demands across the country on farm loan waiver was triggered by UP government’s decision earlier this year to provide relief to small and marginal farmers in the state. BJP had promised relief to farmers in the party manifesto in the run up to the state assembly polls.
The decision triggered a spate of demands of similar relief in other parts of the country, including Maharashtra and MP, which witnessed clashes between farmers and police earlier this month.
Bhagwat, on Monday, had said that loan waivers are not a long-term solution to farmers’ problems. “While it provides relief, there are other concrete measures that would be required to tackle the agrarian crisis,” he had said at an event in Mumbai, adding that measures to bring down the investment expenditure of farmers should be implemented.
The RSS thinking on loan waiver is derived from that of its affiliate working in the filled of agriculture. Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) has maintained all along that farmers should be discouraged from taking credit from banks for agricultural purposes.
“The fear of usurious moneylenders was unto itself a deterrent to farmers,” BKS general secretary Badrinarayan Choudhury.
BKS instead has been demanding government should ensure a reasonable profit to farmers that is over and above the costs incurred.
Even after the UP farm loan waiver, the Centre was of the firm opinion that state governments should find their resources if they were to follow suit. The burden on the state exchequer would breach fiscal prudence being maintained by states as part of Fiscal Management and Responsibility Act.
But many states, including Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka, have had to concede to farmers’ demands. Many other states facing agrarian distress since have been under pressure to announce similar relief.
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