<p>It is the 17th year of the 21st century, and we might feel that a technologically advanced world as ours does not need to be concerned about its depleting soil quality. But there are a few things which are not retrievable. Soil, for instance. Massive use of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals on our soil has led to its depletion beyond measure. Of late, the way we have been practicing agriculture can rightly be called &#39;soil mining&#39;.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>With the advent of Green Revolution that began in India in the 1960s, through the introduction of the high-yield variety of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and application of modern agricultural techniques, there was definitely an insurmountable increase in food production in India. The production of wheat gave us the best results in fueling self-sufficiency of India. But what it also brought along with it was the following:</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>1. A disparity in the consumption of fertilisers where the district-wise fertiliser consumption in the country varies from 50 to 200 kg/ha.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>2. An excessive use of chemical fertiliser (150-200 kg/ha) as reported from some states like Punjab and Haryana has caused the destruction of useful microorganisms, insects and worms in the soil.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>3. Imbalance in nutrient status has caused a significant deficiency of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as well as zinc, sulphur, molybdenum and boron. It has also disturbed soil texture and its physio-chemical properties.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>4. Environmental degradation like depletion of stratospheric ozone and nitrate toxication have caused health hazards, such as cancer, methemoglobinemia respiratory illness, hypertension etc.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>5. Pollution with heavy metals and pesticides have caused serious damages to food quality. Evidently, food is no longer safe to consume.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Somewhere in between using these chemicalised farming methods and being able to increase our yield, we forgot that there have been alternate ways to grow more food and provide higher incomes to farmers without destroying the environment, the soil and killing our peasants. For instance, traditional systems of rain-fed farming methods like Baranaja has allowed 3.5 million farmers of Tehri Garhwal region to grow sufficient harvest for themselves and carry forward the amazing seeds in the next season.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Baranaja is a mixed crop farming method and is based on a long-established wisdom. The word literally means twelve grains. It involves growing of 12 different seeds, which includes that of grains, dhal, fibre, millet, oil, amaranth, buck wheat and a traditional variety of soya called bhaat. Such wide bio-diversity also means, only one or two will effectively fall to pests or diseases. In case of flood or drought, the resistant ones among these varieties survive and so people won&rsquo;t go without a harvest. These twelve grains when grown in a synergistic combination with each other ensure soil fertility.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>In Baranaja, the seeds of 12 crops are mixed together and spread at random in the field that has been treated with manure. Baranaja allows experimentation when it comes to growing the seeds. Most of the times the harvest is fruitful and there is always a scope to learn from the kind of crops that are grown with such inter-mixing.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Oftentimes, the demand of the market limits this exploration and learning but the ways in which our eco-system benefits from such a practice is insurmountable. As Indian environmentalist and activist Vandana Shiva points out, &quot;In Baranaja system, crops are chosen after many years of sowing and seeing: What are the symbiotic relationship between plants and between plants and the chosen soil? In this system plants are thinned and replanted to preserve a working diversity so that the harvest is beneficial both to the sower and the soil. The knowledge gained from observation can lead to greater yields and an understanding of seed and soil that is the basis of what we have labeled &#39;sustainability&#39;.&quot; The practice of Baranaja not only preserves biodiversity but also what Shiva refers to as food democracy.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Over the years, as we have practiced agriculture, there has been a focus on yield rather than on soil. There is a focus on only commerce and not the environment. There is a focus on business and not sustainability. This one-sided approach to our agricultural policies has led to a chaos in our agricultural practices. Over the years, as our yield has increased and has managed to feed our population, we have stopped realising that the top soil in most continents has been depleting at a rapid rate. The day our top soil dies, we will not be able to produce any more food. In a way, we have become consumers without a thought.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Aparna Rajagopal who is a lawyer turned farmer and has largely been inspired by Barnaja farming techniques says, &quot;People ask me whether organic farming is the answer and can it feed the world? I think it is possible that organic farming can feed everyone. Two reasons: 80 percent of land holdings in India are small holdings. If every farmer is encouraged by the government to adopt certain practices which are traditional, grow clean food, crops that are suited to their region. Punjab is a case in point. Punjab is a region where they used to grow a lot of millet and legumes. Today, after the Green Revolution, they only grow cash crops such as rice, wheat, mustard and sugarcane. In order to grow rice, the government let the farmers dig tube wells like there is no tomorrow and used so much of chemicals and fertilisers that all of it seeped into the groundwater of Punjab and it is contaminated. There is a train that comes from Bhatinda to Bikaner called &quot;Cancer express&#39;&#39;, virtually every family has cancer. It is the destruction of an entire region geographically and sociologically.&quot;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>As organic food becomes popular across the world, it is important that India makes an effort to conserve its farming legacy. The government has a huge role to play in driving our agrarian economy. It has to give subsidies for sustainable agricultural practices in order to encourage the same. Unless we pay attention, we will continue to consume poisonous food and continue mining our soil. It takes three years to convert farm land to organic practices. Which means farmers must be adequately compensated for full and half-crop losses in the first and second year, respectively.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Given how rampantly we have used chemicals and fertilisers on our soil in the past it is going to be unfair to expect similar yields as with chemical farming in the first two years of conversion from chemical to organic. It becomes important, therefore, that the government looks into how the farmers are going to cope up with the kind of losses that are directly incurred with the conversion from chemical to organic instead of simply announcing to turn all of specified region into an organic production region, such as in the North East India. With the changing climate it has become even more difficult to understand which crop befits which companion crop in order to get maximum yield without being dependant on chemical fertilisers.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>While farming and agriculture in India have primarily become an occupation our youth simply wants to evade from, one must realise that it requires a scientific bent of mind to be able to produce a crop efficiently and sustainably. Lack of scientific knowledge about any crop would definitely hinder us from combating the drastic effects of climate change on our crops. Our farmers need to have the right training and the knowledge to be able to reap the benefits of traditional practices in the current times.</p>


Baranaja system of farming can be the answer to India's growing problems with soil erosion, ground water depletion and climate change

It is the 17th year of the 21st century, and we might feel that a technologically advanced world as ours does not need to be concerned about its depleting soil quality. But there are a few things which are not retrievable. Soil, for instance. Massive use of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals on our soil has led to its depletion beyond measure. Of late, the way we have been practicing agriculture can rightly be called 'soil mining'. With the advent of Green Revolution that began in India in the 1960s, through the introduction of the high-yield variety of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and application of modern agricultural techniques, there was definitely an insurmountable increase in food production in India. The production of wheat gave us the best results in fueling self-sufficiency of India. But what it also brought along with it was the following: 1. A disparity in the consumption of fertilisers where the district-wise fertiliser consumption in the country varies from 50 to 200 kg/ha. 2. An excessive use of chemical fertiliser (150-200 kg/ha) as reported from some states like Punjab and Haryana has caused the destruction of useful microorganisms, insects and worms in the soil. 3. Imbalance in nutrient status has caused a significant deficiency of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as well as zinc, sulphur, molybdenum and boron. It has also disturbed soil texture and its physio-chemical properties. 4. Environmental degradation like depletion of stratospheric ozone and nitrate toxication have caused health hazards, such as cancer, methemoglobinemia respiratory illness, hypertension etc. 5. Pollution with heavy metals and pesticides have caused serious damages to food quality. Evidently, food is no longer safe to consume. Somewhere in between using these chemicalised farming methods and being able to increase our yield, we forgot that there have been alternate ways to grow more food and provide higher incomes to farmers without destroying the environment, the soil and killing our peasants. For instance, traditional systems of rain-fed farming methods like Baranaja has allowed 3.5 million farmers of Tehri Garhwal region to grow sufficient harvest for themselves and carry forward the amazing seeds in the next season. Baranaja is a mixed crop farming method and is based on a long-established wisdom. The word literally means twelve grains. It involves growing of 12 different seeds, which includes that of grains, dhal, fibre, millet, oil, amaranth, buck wheat and a traditional variety of soya called bhaat. Such wide bio-diversity also means, only one or two will effectively fall to pests or diseases. In case of flood or drought, the resistant ones among these varieties survive and so people won’t go without a harvest. These twelve grains when grown in a synergistic combination with each other ensure soil fertility. In Baranaja, the seeds of 12 crops are mixed together and spread at random in the field that has been treated with manure. Baranaja allows experimentation when it comes to growing the seeds. Most of the times the harvest is fruitful and there is always a scope to learn from the kind of crops that are grown with such inter-mixing. Oftentimes, the demand of the market limits this exploration and learning but the ways in which our eco-system benefits from such a practice is insurmountable. As Indian environmentalist and activist Vandana Shiva points out, "In Baranaja system, crops are chosen after many years of sowing and seeing: What are the symbiotic relationship between plants and between plants and the chosen soil? In this system plants are thinned and replanted to preserve a working diversity so that the harvest is beneficial both to the sower and the soil. The knowledge gained from observation can lead to greater yields and an understanding of seed and soil that is the basis of what we have labeled 'sustainability'." The practice of Baranaja not only preserves biodiversity but also what Shiva refers to as food democracy. Over the years, as we have practiced agriculture, there has been a focus on yield rather than on soil. There is a focus on only commerce and not the environment. There is a focus on business and not sustainability. This one-sided approach to our agricultural policies has led to a chaos in our agricultural practices. Over the years, as our yield has increased and has managed to feed our population, we have stopped realising that the top soil in most continents has been depleting at a rapid rate. The day our top soil dies, we will not be able to produce any more food. In a way, we have become consumers without a thought. Aparna Rajagopal who is a lawyer turned farmer and has largely been inspired by Barnaja farming techniques says, "People ask me whether organic farming is the answer and can it feed the world? I think it is possible that organic farming can feed everyone. Two reasons: 80 percent of land holdings in India are small holdings. If every farmer is encouraged by the government to adopt certain practices which are traditional, grow clean food, crops that are suited to their region. Punjab is a case in point. Punjab is a region where they used to grow a lot of millet and legumes. Today, after the Green Revolution, they only grow cash crops such as rice, wheat, mustard and sugarcane. In order to grow rice, the government let the farmers dig tube wells like there is no tomorrow and used so much of chemicals and fertilisers that all of it seeped into the groundwater of Punjab and it is contaminated. There is a train that comes from Bhatinda to Bikaner called "Cancer express'', virtually every family has cancer. It is the destruction of an entire region geographically and sociologically." As organic food becomes popular across the world, it is important that India makes an effort to conserve its farming legacy. The government has a huge role to play in driving our agrarian economy. It has to give subsidies for sustainable agricultural practices in order to encourage the same. Unless we pay attention, we will continue to consume poisonous food and continue mining our soil. It takes three years to convert farm land to organic practices. Which means farmers must be adequately compensated for full and half-crop losses in the first and second year, respectively. Given how rampantly we have used chemicals and fertilisers on our soil in the past it is going to be unfair to expect similar yields as with chemical farming in the first two years of conversion from chemical to organic. It becomes important, therefore, that the government looks into how the farmers are going to cope up with the kind of losses that are directly incurred with the conversion from chemical to organic instead of simply announcing to turn all of specified region into an organic production region, such as in the North East India. With the changing climate it has become even more difficult to understand which crop befits which companion crop in order to get maximum yield without being dependant on chemical fertilisers. While farming and agriculture in India have primarily become an occupation our youth simply wants to evade from, one must realise that it requires a scientific bent of mind to be able to produce a crop efficiently and sustainably. Lack of scientific knowledge about any crop would definitely hinder us from combating the drastic effects of climate change on our crops. Our farmers need to have the right training and the knowledge to be able to reap the benefits of traditional practices in the current times.

Can we truly reap the benefits of traditional farming practices?

<p>As the promise of development reverberates all over the world, it&rsquo;s march continues to stand challenged by the ubiquitous presence of poor people. Poverty is a complicated social phenomena, which has often been reduced to numerical terms whereby anyone earning less than $2 per day has been designated as &lsquo;poor&rsquo;. But the United Nations has refused to understand poverty simply as material deprivation that stems from income inequality. Instead, it proposes a definition that includes a lace of interrelated factors, such as limited access to health facilities, education, and denial or abuse of fundamental human rights. Thus, in its call for the eradication of poverty which went out for the first time on October 17, 1987 and has been renewed every year since then, the UN pledges to &lsquo;<a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/poverty/">end poverty in all its forms everywhere</a>&rsquo;. &nbsp;</p>

<p><b>From &lsquo;victims&rsquo; to agents of change</b></p>

<p>As experts struggled with delineating the root causes of poverty, the developmental economists at the end of the Second World War attempted theorising poverty and economic growth along a new path, which emphasised the use of modern scientific knowledge, technological inputs and norms of free-market economy. A triangulation of these factors, they argued, would not only help to eradicate poverty but meet the &lsquo;rising expectations&rsquo; of millions. Poverty, along with hunger, in the new economic discourse, came to be seen as fueling communist incursions in parts of the Third World, particularly India. So, the argument ran that the newly decolonised countries of Asia and Africa, which were placed at the bottom of the newly construed developmental scale, need to emulate the developmental path of the capitalist West to come out of the &lsquo;waiting room&rsquo; of development.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

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<h5>Poverty, along with hunger, in the new economic discourse, came to be seen as fueling communist incursions in parts of the Third World, particularly India.</h5>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>In the tensed atmosphere of &nbsp;the Cold War, eradication of poverty and the quest for development, therefore, took up a strong ideological connotation. The economic argument around poverty galvanised into a more acrimonious political tussle between the communist and capitalist blocs. &nbsp;Along with military aid, and perhaps more effectively, both power blocs used food and technological aid as well as rural development assistance to entice Asian and African countries into their respective camps. The aid-giving nations reiterated the importance of eradicating poverty to ensure political stability. For a newly independent country, such as India that had been suffering from the after effects of partition, the traumas of the famine of 1943, and repeated crop failures, such exhortations were appealing. More importantly, it was crucial for the survival of the new nation-state.</p>

<p>The spectre of &lsquo;social unrest&rsquo; has continued to haunt development experts. The UN secretary-general in his message this year on 17 October, for example, established a causal connection between poverty and social unrest. While poverty causes humiliation and exclusion, these are, according to <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/povertyday/messages.shtml">Ban Ki-moon</a>, &lsquo;powerful drivers of social unrest and, in extreme cases, the violent extremism that is troubling so many parts of our world.&rsquo;</p>

<p>While it is problematic to seek a simple causal relationship between violence and poverty, the UN has at least been showing willingness to break away from its past tradition of relying overwhelmingly on bureaucrats and policymakers to develop an effective campaign against poverty by engaging with the very people who suffer from systemic socio-economic inequalities.</p>

<p>This willingness to engage with the poor, even when a plan on how it should be done is still lacking, indicates a tectonic mental shift. The UN resolution on poverty shows that it is moving away from a token recognition to those who have fallen &lsquo;victims&rsquo; to extreme poverty, violence and hunger to making them equal &lsquo;participants&rsquo; in eradication programmes.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

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<h5>The UN resolution on poverty shows that it is moving away from a token recognition to those who have fallen &lsquo;victims&rsquo; to extreme poverty, violence and hunger to making them equal &lsquo;participants&rsquo; in eradication programmes.</h5>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Over the years, the UN has come to recognise poverty as more of an act of disempowerment and exclusion rather than playing the old script of victimhood. Suffering from lack of &lsquo;<a href="http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/welcome.html">inequalities in income, wealth and opportunity</a>&rsquo;, poor are, definitely, a victim. But while poverty is a debilitating phenomena, the deprived people of the world are increasingly turning their economic challenges to question political power and address structural inequalities. The Dalit community in India have in recent times vociferously protested the poverty and exploitation facing their communities.</p>

<p>The UN&rsquo;s assertion on giving the common people an agency - a voice in programme formulation - &nbsp;defies &nbsp;a simple narrative of victimhood. It is an acknowledgement that those who are struggling against poverty, their experience should count as expertise. Rather than projecting them as mere beneficiaries of development, the experience of the poor has at last gained a centrality in strategies to build a sustainable future for all. This recognition that people whose lives are impacted by decisions should be made a party to that decision is a far cry from relying on assumed objectivity of handful of experts who have had dominated policy-making scenario so far.</p>

<p><b>Poverty and Women</b></p>

<p>Economic development and eradication of poverty constituted the central plank of Indian nationalists movement in the first half of the twentieth century. The mainstream nationalists belonging to the Indian National Congress party did not based its critique of foreign rule on racial differences, but on what they understood as the British government&rsquo;s lack of initiative in bringing economic growth and purposeful drain of the country&rsquo;s wealth. It is understandable, therefore, when the Congress Party came to power in 1947, it set about to translate its economic goals into developmental practices. Though the poverty alleviation programme in India aimed to overcome both rural and urban destitution, its central focus was the Indian villages. This is understandable considering the preponderance of poor people in the Indian countryside.&nbsp;</p>

<p><a href="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/Poverty_Eradication.pdf">National data </a>on poverty from the mid-2000s shows that in &nbsp;absolute terms of the 30 crore persons below poverty line (BPL) in the country, about 22 crore, i.e. 73 per cent live in rural areas. This is in spite of the fact that the percentage of population below the official poverty line in India has declined from around 55 per cent in the mid-1970s to 27.5 per cent in the mid-2000s.&nbsp;</p>

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<h5>the percentage of population below the official poverty line in India has declined from around 55 per cent in the mid-1970s to 27.5 per cent in the mid-2000s.&nbsp;</h5>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>India&rsquo;s tryst with village development took many forms, ranging from land reforms, village cooperative movements, panchayati raj, to a motley mix of &nbsp;technological innovations that were designed to raise production, address structural inequities and bring about rural prosperity. The most dramatic of these measures came in the late 1960s when the Indian government in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and US agricultural universities launched the green revolution campaign. This was followed in 1971 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi&rsquo;s populist call to end poverty (<i>garibi hatao</i>) which initiated a series of poverty alleviation programme, but little was achieved as very little of the fund actually reached the poorest of the poor.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The most ambitious programme to boost up rural income, however, took place in 2005 when the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was passed guaranteeing 100 days of paid casual employment to people on public works in the rural areas. The Act, unlike any other in the past, promises statutory minimum wage and has been considered to be a &lsquo;huge step as a social security measurement&rsquo; of the rural poor. Scholars have noted that the most spectacular feature of the Act has been in empowering rural women in India.&nbsp;</p>

<p>In a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25663707">survey</a> undertaken in 2008 covering six north Indian states of &nbsp;Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, researchers concluded &nbsp;that NREGA has provided income-earning opportunities to women in areas where hardly any existed before. Half of the women in the sample said, had they not worked on the NREGA worksites, they would have worked at home or would have remained unemployed. This could be either because women do not have many other employment opportunities (locally and even otherwise in some cases) or women workers are, &lsquo;as a rule&rsquo;, paid less than their male counterparts in rural and urban casual wage work.</p>

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<h5>Looking at the response from widows separately, 82 per cent in the sample considered NREGA &lsquo;very important&rsquo;. More than two-thirds of the sample workers stated the NREGA had helped them avoid hunger.</h5>
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<p>Many female respondents said the work provided under the NREGA has opened up new opportunities. &nbsp;Looking at the response from widows separately, 82 per cent in the sample considered NREGA &lsquo;very important&rsquo;. More than two-thirds of the sample workers stated the NREGA had helped them avoid hunger, while 57 per cent stated the NREGA had helped them avoid migration and equal proportion of workers also said they had used NREGA wages to buy medicines in the last 12 months. Women reported easier access to credit from local moneylenders to meet food expenditures; there were some indications from the interviews of a diversification of diets, even if only very marginally, from a cereal-dominated diet.</p>

<p><b>The Missing Links&nbsp;</b></p>

<p>Studies have shown that poverty eradication, like the menace itself, is a complicated process. Simple economic measures fail to address the problem as its roots are deeply located in social structures and the functioning of developmental regimes. With all its promises, NREGA has failed to provide 100 days of work to most job card holders; because of long-held taboos of women working outside home, women persistently face problem in acquiring job opportunities. Even when joint income puts a family in better financial position, the men resist women earning as much as they do.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Beyond these structural and social constraints to poverty eradication, Indian environmentalist <a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/btc/shiva112305.php">Vandana Shiva </a>insists that anyone serious about ending global poverty needs to understand the &lsquo;true&rsquo; causes responsible for its perpetuation.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Shiva, therefore, dwells with conflicting perceptions of poverty and draws a bipolar distinction between how the West defines poverty vis-a-vis the rest of the world. She argues that, economies that are based on sustenance, and not on economic growth, can ensure a high quality of life; however, instead of GDP, the quality of life, in this case, has to be measured in in terms of access to good food and water, opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, robust social and cultural identity, and a sense of meaning in people&#39;s lives.</p>

<p>Thus, Shiva does not see economic development as &lsquo;cure&rsquo; for world poverty; instead, she considers it to be a trigger of economic inequality as it denies more and more people access to the wealth of the commons. So, the people who earns less than one-dollar-a-day does not die from poverty if their lands remain unappropriated, and industrial agriculture does not destroy the water resources and biodiversity of the area. For Shiva, the true poverty is when the people have to purchase their basic needs at high prices no matter how much income they make.&nbsp;</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

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<h5>For Shiva, the true poverty is when the people have to purchase their basic needs at high prices no matter how much income they make.&nbsp;</h5>
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<p>With some gains, and still many unresolved issues, eradication of poverty is one of the stiffest challenges that the world is facing is today. Nations bent on waging wars and keen to spend money on militarisation will do good to remember this.&nbsp;</p>

<p><em>The author writes here in a personal capacity.</em></p>


UN resolution on poverty shows, it wants to accord greater agency to the poor in policy-making, rather than portray them as passive victims

As the promise of development reverberates all over the world, it’s march continues to stand challenged by the ubiquitous presence of poor people. Poverty is a complicated social phenomena, which has often been reduced to numerical terms whereby anyone earning less than $2 per day has been designated as ‘poor’. But the United Nations has refused to understand poverty simply as material deprivation that stems from income inequality. Instead, it proposes a definition that includes a lace of interrelated factors, such as limited access to health facilities, education, and denial or abuse of fundamental human rights. Thus, in its call for the eradication of poverty which went out for the first time on October 17, 1987 and has been renewed every year since then, the UN pledges to ‘end poverty in all its forms everywhere’. From ‘victims’ to agents of change As experts struggled with delineating the root causes of poverty, the developmental economists at the end of the Second World War attempted theorising poverty and economic growth along a new path, which emphasised the use of modern scientific knowledge, technological inputs and norms of free-market economy. A triangulation of these factors, they argued, would not only help to eradicate poverty but meet the ‘rising expectations’ of millions. Poverty, along with hunger, in the new economic discourse, came to be seen as fueling communist incursions in parts of the Third World, particularly India. So, the argument ran that the newly decolonised countries of Asia and Africa, which were placed at the bottom of the newly construed developmental scale, need to emulate the developmental path of the capitalist West to come out of the ‘waiting room’ of development. Poverty, along with hunger, in the new economic discourse, came to be seen as fueling communist incursions in parts of the Third World, particularly India. × In the tensed atmosphere of the Cold War, eradication of poverty and the quest for development, therefore, took up a strong ideological connotation. The economic argument around poverty galvanised into a more acrimonious political tussle between the communist and capitalist blocs. Along with military aid, and perhaps more effectively, both power blocs used food and technological aid as well as rural development assistance to entice Asian and African countries into their respective camps. The aid-giving nations reiterated the importance of eradicating poverty to ensure political stability. For a newly independent country, such as India that had been suffering from the after effects of partition, the traumas of the famine of 1943, and repeated crop failures, such exhortations were appealing. More importantly, it was crucial for the survival of the new nation-state. The spectre of ‘social unrest’ has continued to haunt development experts. The UN secretary-general in his message this year on 17 October, for example, established a causal connection between poverty and social unrest. While poverty causes humiliation and exclusion, these are, according to Ban Ki-moon, ‘powerful drivers of social unrest and, in extreme cases, the violent extremism that is troubling so many parts of our world.’ While it is problematic to seek a simple causal relationship between violence and poverty, the UN has at least been showing willingness to break away from its past tradition of relying overwhelmingly on bureaucrats and policymakers to develop an effective campaign against poverty by engaging with the very people who suffer from systemic socio-economic inequalities. This willingness to engage with the poor, even when a plan on how it should be done is still lacking, indicates a tectonic mental shift. The UN resolution on poverty shows that it is moving away from a token recognition to those who have fallen ‘victims’ to extreme poverty, violence and hunger to making them equal ‘participants’ in eradication programmes. The UN resolution on poverty shows that it is moving away from a token recognition to those who have fallen ‘victims’ to extreme poverty, violence and hunger to making them equal ‘participants’ in eradication programmes. × Over the years, the UN has come to recognise poverty as more of an act of disempowerment and exclusion rather than playing the old script of victimhood. Suffering from lack of ‘inequalities in income, wealth and opportunity’, poor are, definitely, a victim. But while poverty is a debilitating phenomena, the deprived people of the world are increasingly turning their economic challenges to question political power and address structural inequalities. The Dalit community in India have in recent times vociferously protested the poverty and exploitation facing their communities. The UN’s assertion on giving the common people an agency - a voice in programme formulation - defies a simple narrative of victimhood. It is an acknowledgement that those who are struggling against poverty, their experience should count as expertise. Rather than projecting them as mere beneficiaries of development, the experience of the poor has at last gained a centrality in strategies to build a sustainable future for all. This recognition that people whose lives are impacted by decisions should be made a party to that decision is a far cry from relying on assumed objectivity of handful of experts who have had dominated policy-making scenario so far. Poverty and Women Economic development and eradication of poverty constituted the central plank of Indian nationalists movement in the first half of the twentieth century. The mainstream nationalists belonging to the Indian National Congress party did not based its critique of foreign rule on racial differences, but on what they understood as the British government’s lack of initiative in bringing economic growth and purposeful drain of the country’s wealth. It is understandable, therefore, when the Congress Party came to power in 1947, it set about to translate its economic goals into developmental practices. Though the poverty alleviation programme in India aimed to overcome both rural and urban destitution, its central focus was the Indian villages. This is understandable considering the preponderance of poor people in the Indian countryside. National data on poverty from the mid-2000s shows that in absolute terms of the 30 crore persons below poverty line (BPL) in the country, about 22 crore, i.e. 73 per cent live in rural areas. This is in spite of the fact that the percentage of population below the official poverty line in India has declined from around 55 per cent in the mid-1970s to 27.5 per cent in the mid-2000s. the percentage of population below the official poverty line in India has declined from around 55 per cent in the mid-1970s to 27.5 per cent in the mid-2000s. × India’s tryst with village development took many forms, ranging from land reforms, village cooperative movements, panchayati raj, to a motley mix of technological innovations that were designed to raise production, address structural inequities and bring about rural prosperity. The most dramatic of these measures came in the late 1960s when the Indian government in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and US agricultural universities launched the green revolution campaign. This was followed in 1971 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s populist call to end poverty (garibi hatao) which initiated a series of poverty alleviation programme, but little was achieved as very little of the fund actually reached the poorest of the poor. The most ambitious programme to boost up rural income, however, took place in 2005 when the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was passed guaranteeing 100 days of paid casual employment to people on public works in the rural areas. The Act, unlike any other in the past, promises statutory minimum wage and has been considered to be a ‘huge step as a social security measurement’ of the rural poor. Scholars have noted that the most spectacular feature of the Act has been in empowering rural women in India. In a survey undertaken in 2008 covering six north Indian states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, researchers concluded that NREGA has provided income-earning opportunities to women in areas where hardly any existed before. Half of the women in the sample said, had they not worked on the NREGA worksites, they would have worked at home or would have remained unemployed. This could be either because women do not have many other employment opportunities (locally and even otherwise in some cases) or women workers are, ‘as a rule’, paid less than their male counterparts in rural and urban casual wage work. Looking at the response from widows separately, 82 per cent in the sample considered NREGA ‘very important’. More than two-thirds of the sample workers stated the NREGA had helped them avoid hunger. × Many female respondents said the work provided under the NREGA has opened up new opportunities. Looking at the response from widows separately, 82 per cent in the sample considered NREGA ‘very important’. More than two-thirds of the sample workers stated the NREGA had helped them avoid hunger, while 57 per cent stated the NREGA had helped them avoid migration and equal proportion of workers also said they had used NREGA wages to buy medicines in the last 12 months. Women reported easier access to credit from local moneylenders to meet food expenditures; there were some indications from the interviews of a diversification of diets, even if only very marginally, from a cereal-dominated diet. The Missing Links Studies have shown that poverty eradication, like the menace itself, is a complicated process. Simple economic measures fail to address the problem as its roots are deeply located in social structures and the functioning of developmental regimes. With all its promises, NREGA has failed to provide 100 days of work to most job card holders; because of long-held taboos of women working outside home, women persistently face problem in acquiring job opportunities. Even when joint income puts a family in better financial position, the men resist women earning as much as they do. Beyond these structural and social constraints to poverty eradication, Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva insists that anyone serious about ending global poverty needs to understand the ‘true’ causes responsible for its perpetuation. Shiva, therefore, dwells with conflicting perceptions of poverty and draws a bipolar distinction between how the West defines poverty vis-a-vis the rest of the world. She argues that, economies that are based on sustenance, and not on economic growth, can ensure a high quality of life; however, instead of GDP, the quality of life, in this case, has to be measured in in terms of access to good food and water, opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, robust social and cultural identity, and a sense of meaning in people's lives. Thus, Shiva does not see economic development as ‘cure’ for world poverty; instead, she considers it to be a trigger of economic inequality as it denies more and more people access to the wealth of the commons. So, the people who earns less than one-dollar-a-day does not die from poverty if their lands remain unappropriated, and industrial agriculture does not destroy the water resources and biodiversity of the area. For Shiva, the true poverty is when the people have to purchase their basic needs at high prices no matter how much income they make. For Shiva, the true poverty is when the people have to purchase their basic needs at high prices no matter how much income they make. × With some gains, and still many unresolved issues, eradication of poverty is one of the stiffest challenges that the world is facing is today. Nations bent on waging wars and keen to spend money on militarisation will do good to remember this. The author writes here in a personal capacity.

Eradication of poverty: Some gains and other nagging doubts

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Can we truly reap the benefits of traditional farming practices?

Eradication of poverty: Some gains and other nagging doubts