Fertiliser Subsidy Analysis

Anarcho-environmentalism allegorised

The name Anaarkali in the present context has many meanings - Anaar symbolises the anarchism of the Bhils and kali which means flower bud in Hindi stands for their traditional environmentalism. Anaar in Hindi can also mean the fruit pomegranate which is said to be a panacea for many ills as in the Hindi idiom - "Ek anar sou bimar - One pomegranate for a hundred ill people"! - which describes a situation in which there is only one remedy available for giving to a hundred ill people and so the problem is who to give it to. Thus this name indicates that anarcho-environmentalism is the only cure for the many diseases of modern development! Similarly kali can also imply a budding anarcho-environmentalist movement. Finally according to a legend that is considered to be apocryphal by historians Anarkali was the lover of Prince Salim who was later to become the Mughal emperor Jehangir. Emperor Akbar did not approve of this romance of his son and ordered Anarkali to be bricked in alive into a wall in Lahore in Pakistan but she escaped. Allegorically this means that anarcho-environmentalists can succeed in bringing about the escape of humankind from the self-destructive love of modern development that it is enamoured of at the moment and they will do this by simultaneously supporting women's struggles for their rights.

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Fertiliser Subsidy Analysis

Clifton D' Rozario has published in a post an analysis of the budget for 2024-25 done by the CPIML (Liberation). I have prepared a graphic based on the data from that post on the trend in fertiliser subsidies being provided by the Union Government. It clearly shows that there is a 28% decline in the Urea subsidy from actual expenditure in 2022-23 to the proposed expenditure this year and the decline in Non-urea subsidy is even higher at a whopping 48%.

Cumulatively this decline of Rs 62,445 crores in fertiliser subsidy is more than the support of Rs 60000 crores budgeted for the Kisan Samman Nidhi. Thus, despite all the rhetoric, effectively the Government is short changing the farmers big time.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Rigours of Patriarchy

Pens as Arrows

A new paradigm of education, involving the learning of the complicated aspects of the modern world and being able to synthesize these with their own rich culture by the Bhil indigenous people has been the driving force behind the evolution of anarcho-environmentalism in Central India as picturised here by Gosa an adivasi activist in the replacement of arrows with pens. However, the Bhil women activists have criticised this picture for its gender bias towards males as the harbingers of change.

Chronicles of Savoured Time

I have written about the wonderful time I have savoured while living among the Bhils and fighting alongside them against multiple oppressions and these chronicles can be read here - An Anarcho-Environmentalist Manifesto. Many readers after reading the above chronicles by downloading them have commented that while the stories are very entertaining the analytical bits are very heavy reading. So now a shorter version containing only the stories and a very limited analysis has been prepared and published on amazon.com at the following link - Recovering the Lost Tongue . The Indian print edition of the book can be ordered by emailing me - rahul.indauri@gmail.com

Plugging holes in society, economy and the environment

The Buddha was one of the early conscious naturalists - those who do not believe that there is any grand design or purpose to nature. He was the first human being to state confidently that he believed in nothing. He was also the quintessential anarchist and democrat believing in maintaining total democracy in his missionary order, the Sangha. Unfortunately his followers unable to bear the scary thought of this nothingness and absolute equality converted him into a God, Buddhism into a religion and the Sangha into a hierarchy. But the Buddha, with all respect to him, does not score very well when it comes to taking feminist tests. After all ditching one's wife and child and taking off to the woods is not the done thing, however much this action might have benefitted mankind later through his enlightenment. Be that as it may, his message of liberation was powerful enough to inspire two and half millennia later, Babasaheb Ambedkar, the modern messiah of the liberation of the untouchable Hindu outcastes from upper caste oppression in India. As opposed to the mystic atheism of the Buddha, the term "dukha" or sorrow was redefined by Ambedkar as the oppression by upper castes and the term "nirvana" or liberation as the establishment of an oppression free social order. Years of living among and fighting along with the Bhils has made me a humble respecter of anarchism and environmentalism in addition to my respect for the naturalism of Buddha and Ambedkar and the feminism of many women. Thus the anarcho-environmentalism posited here is a modern mixture of naturalism, feminism, anarchism and environmentalism that is being used to plug the many holes in society, economy and the environment wrought by modern development in Central India. It is similar to the traditional Bhil practice of plugging the hilly gullies to grow wholesome food.

Anaarkali - The Saga of Bhil Adivasi Indigenous People

Pages

Anarcho-environmentalism allegorised

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Fertiliser Subsidy Analysis

No comments: