Sugar

If you drive through rural Maharashtra and look out your windows, you'll see pretty much one major crop on both sides- sugarcane- and lots of it. A large chunk of India's sugar comes from this sugar belt region. It's a huge cash crop, and farmers growing it have enjoyed the benefits of handsome government subsidies, cooperative factories, fixed prices for the commodity, and the fact that the crop is relatively easy to grow. The results of the sugar phenomenon have been pretty interesting, and I got a chance to see some of them firsthand when I visited Malinagar.
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Malinagar is a little village, in the Solapur district of Maharashtra, about 4 hours away from Pune. As you drive in, you see plots of sugarcane on every side, with the distant skyline dotted with the smokestacks of factories. Aroon, his friend Karthik, and I were visiting my aunt and uncle, who had a farmhouse in the area and were kind enough to offer to show us around the village for a few days, taking us to a couple different places critical to the development of the area.
As we jumped from government hospital to Gram Panchayat to the cooperative dairy, I saw firsthand the patronage politics system so rooted in rural India, which I had only really seen in Hindi films before then. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the sugar factory- the director of which was scripted perfectly- crisp white shirt and slacks, shades indoors, a disinterested tolerating expression, and a crew of cronies at his sides.
With his blessings (literally, we were made to touch his feet), we were able to see the sugar factory. This Sugar Daddy was a classic icon of the problems of the sugar system in Maharashtra.
Sugar was introduced in a big way in the post 1960's green revolution, and with it came the rise of the cooperative movement. Initially, it was supposed to be a good way for farmers to get fair prices and ownership in the sugar that came from the sugarcane they grew. But eventually, richer landowners wrested control of the sugarcane cooperatives, often taking advantage of the poorer, illiterate farmers. While they were reduced to laborers, dependent on whatever price the sugar factory decided, sugar factory owners made money off government subsidies for sugarcane cooperatives.
Meanwhile, from the other side, sugarcane farmers overplanted their fields, and the Green Revolution model of input intensive monoculture left productivity sagging. So the same sugarcane that used to be sold for about INR 1300 a ton fell to as low at 700..and with farmers investing most of their land into the crop, they starting getting into a cycle of debt. There was also a social element involved, sugarcane being a relatively labor non-intensive crop to grow, many of the farmers had more free time, turning to alcoholism and slowly shying away from rigorous agriculture.
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Sugar belt towns exploded because of the sugar industry, but many now suffer the malaise of falling prices. But Akluj showed no signs of illness. This is mainly because of one family- the Mohite-Patils. One of the Mohite Patils is the rural development minister for India..so lots of monye was obviously flowing into the area. Everything had the M-P stamp on it, from the local poultry, to the factories, to the hospitals and chaiwallahs. He was a god. We actually had the good grace of seeing one of the M-P brothers ride into town, with what seemed like a stampede of worshippers following him singing songs, chanting, and falling out of jeeps and 3 wheelers.
Clearly, it wasnt just sugar that was propelling this town.
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Sugarcane has many ends. Of course sugar is one of them. At the local distillery, we saw another- alcohols. A couple months ago, I had talked to Mr. Balu Sarma, head of R&D at Praj, a Pune-based chemicals company. He talked about how it was hard to break into the ethanol market in India, mostly due to the grip of the oil companies on the auto companies. So most of the ethanol that Praj manufactured was shipped abroad. It seemed a bit of a shame that Brazil could basically run its entire country on sugarcane derived ethanol, but in Maharashtra, ethanol was not much of an option.
Here in Akluj, the distillery was producing alcohols mostly for chemicals companies, but they did say that there were plans to expand into ethanol. I have no doubt that these plans are stymied by the same concerns facing Dr. Sarma out in Praj. There just isn't much of an incentive for factories to go into the highly expensive final step of making fuel grade ethanol.
And unlike the US , where rising gas prices have seemed to drive an alternative energy push, or at least an alternate energy debate, here in India the consumer is protectedwith government set oil prices (albeit more expensive than the US). So while innovation in terms of car size and car prices has occurred in the Indian auto industry (Tata Nano), innovation in fuel efficiency and alternative fuels has lagged behind.
*note: While alternative fuels lag behind, alternative energy is becoming more common, and sugarcane bagasse was being used in cogeneration schemes to power the sugarcane factories it came from- a step forward.
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Back at my aunt's farmhouse, we had yet another chai. EVerywhere we went, we were offered chai, and I happily took it. But in most places, it was literally sugar water...so I probably went through 10-15 spoons of sugar a day. Not much for a place literally swimming in it.
One morning we went out to the fields to check out how harvesting was done. There, laborers from inner maharashtra, often from the tribal belt area, had come to cut away the leaves, stack the canes and pile them into bullock carts. I watched in awe..but then someone told me there might be snakes underneath all the residues..so I quickly retreated. I realized that the sugarcane industry is still stuck in a slightly older era, and will need to innovate fast, even in a blessed area like Akluj/Malinagar. It still relies on high water usage, high inputs, and high govrnment subsidies. The cooperative system, is unfortunately, often quite corrupt. And you can't eat sugarcane (the organic farmers argument).
But you can make juice out of it, and we had a tall glass of it when we got back to the farmhouse.

-Nikhil

Gandhi and Development

I know this is a long time coming, but the pace of life here has really started to pick up! Really didn't think it would happen.
It's been a while since I've come back from Dehradun, but maybe its for the better that I didn't update right away, the last couple weeks have given me the chance to internalize the things that I learnt up there. But instead of once again rehashing everything about the trip, I just want to talk about Gandhi and development, in a couple simple points.
1. Small is beautiful. When I first heard the phrase, coupled with other phrases such as 'appropriate technology', I immediately associated it with a reactionary fear- against mechanization, against industralization, against anything big. It took me a while to realize what the concept really meant. The way I understand it now, its a practical strategy to make sure humans dont overstep our bounds. It's a lot easier to interact favorably with the environment, do a public good, and distribute the benefits equitably (in short, function sustainably) when you are working on a small scale...but once you start trying to scale up, then inevitably certain elements of sustainability start to break down. And you start having to make compromises. In that end, it makes sense to adhere to small is beautiful. Although big can promise more efficiency or better economics, there are usually costs overlooked.
2. Swaraj. I think this is a beautiful concept. I took it, as most of us took it, at first to mean independent rule- obviously linked to the indian struggle for independence. But understood more clearly, it translates better as self-governance. Basically, how you conduct yourself. I think in development it is so easy to get carried away and lost in trying to improve the lives of others around you, that you tend to forget that you can't set the world straight without putting your own house in order. And from that blooms the other concept, that once you govern yourself the way you'd like to see the world govern itself (be the change you wish to see...), then that in itself is the most powerful weapon towards engendering change in others. Action by example.
3. Decentralization. This ties in to the concept of 'small is beautiful', but I think it is a more real-world concept. Even in our world today, we see different systems of governance in different parts of the world, each with their own levels of success. Often, when an area is underdeveloped, we put the responsbility on the central government, and try to remedy the problem by heaping even more power into the center.
Although I am a firm believer in the idea that a strong central government is critical for the development of any country, I also am starting to understand that this power must be limited to certain spheres, and to be honest, much of it has to be simply psychological. The idea of a strong, coherent, inspirational central government is critical for a united nation, but much of the actual development in a country must be handled in a more decentralized fashion. "The localization of production must depend on the frequency of its need" Thus the food we eat, the water we drink, and the clothes we wear must be produced locally, otherwise we are susceptible to the ebb and flow of supply that is much too far away to be reliable. For example, if instead of creating large scale energy projects, the government allowed for independent, off-grid local projects, (regulated both locally and centrally), provision of electricity would probably be more consistent. This is particularly important in a country as diverse and heavily populated as India- it is impossible for a heavily centralized development strategy to be effective. Of course there is the argument that more decentralization means more bureaucracy, more chances for corruption, and there is validity to this. But these problems can and must be combatted through better regulation at all levels.
The effect that this has on development is that the responsibility of development falls into the hands of the communities in question, and it becomes more participatory rather than directed externally (by entities who naturally come with their own agendas).
All the ideas are swirling in my head again. It's time to take a break. Hope I provided some good food for thought.
-Nikhil